UPDATED LESSON ON HOW TO POST TO THE ST. CLOUD TIMES - 12-2-06
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The St. Cloud Times has set up a new format for posting to the Story Chat comment areas of their website as of December 1st or so, 2006. In an effort to help people understand this new format, which is much easier to use than the old format was, I've created this new help page. I hope that it is of some use. ~ Joan
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First .... There is no longer a need to use HTML at all when posting. This was the biggest improvement that was made to the new posting format. It now works much more like a standard text editor program such as Word.
Now when you click on the comment button, you will get the same login window as before if it's your first time posting for the day, but the next window is the start of the new format. It will look like this:
There are now buttons on this window that
make it so that you can do Bold, Italics, or
Underline. The ABC button is for doing
strikethrough text.
The new window also allows you to determine
the text justification of your post; whether you
want it to align to the left, center, right or evenly
across the page.
You can now also do bullet points or numbered
points within your posts as well just by clicking
on those buttons in the form. Those all work
in the same way as most word processing
programs work. It's much easier than trying to
do it the old HTML way.
If you want to start a new paragraph, you do that
the same way as in any text program. Just hit
"enter" on your keyboard.
It's also now easier to do links within your posts
as well. Forget about how you used to have
to do links. Now, you simply highlight your text
and then click on the "link" button (shown below).
Clicking on the link button will bring up the pop up window for doing links.
(shown at right)
In this window you will simply paste or type the URL of the site you want
to link to. For example, if you wanted to link to my site, you would simply
type in http://joanongovernment.com where it says "Link URL".
Where it says "Target", you can choose to open link in the same window
or to open link in new window. From what I can tell so far, there is no
need to write anything in the "Title" space of this pop up window.
So .... If I am trying to do a post to give the link to my own website to the
readers, I can simply type:
Please go to "Joan on Government"
.... and then I would highlight the words "Joan on Government" ... click on that link button, and then type in http://joanongovernment.com/ where it says "Link URL". Then click on the word "Insert" and it will automatically insert the link into your post. That's all there is to adding a link.
If you decide you don't want to do the link once you have already done it, then you will highlight your text again that you have made into a link, then click on the "UNLINK" button (shown below) to remove the link.
Now if you want to add a simple smiley to your post, the St. Cloud Times provides
us with a few to use. By Clicking on the smiley face button (shown below) in the
posting window, it will bring up another popup window (as shown at right).
Just click on one of those smilies to add it to your post.
If you want a few more choices that what they have available on the Times site,
you can still post them from my smilies pages or you can post any other photos or
graphics that you want to post as we could do before. But now, you will NOT need
to use HTML to do it.
In order to get just the link to other graphics you may want to post without linking to the whole page, you will need to do the following:
1. place your curser (arrow) directly over the desired image
(try it on the image to right)
2. use your right hand mouse button and click it over the image. This will bring up a menu. At the bottom of the
menu will be the word "PROPERTIES"
3. Click on the word Properties. This will bring up another box that will describe the graphic you are looking at. In
the middle of this new box will be a line that says:Address [URL]
This will give you the web address that you will need to post in order for viewers to see just the graphic you want
them to look at. It will look something like this:
http://joanongovernment.homestead.com/files/goofysmiley.gif
If you want to add a picture from some other website, you will simply click on the
insert/edit picture button in the posting window as shown at right.
This will bring up a pop up window where you will type in the
URL of where the picture is located (as shown at right).
Where it says "Image URL", you will type in the location of the
image you want to post.
For example, if you would like to post the image of the
"goofy smiley" from the above example,
you would type in the Image URL like this:
http://joanongovernment.homestead.com/files/goofysmiley.gif
There is no need to fill out anything else in that form because if it
doesn't show up in your post where you want it to, you can edit the
location within the main posting window instead of trying to figure
out this other stuff. It's easier that way.
When you are done writing your post, you will
still have the chance to review it before it gets
posted to the St. Cloud Times website.
If you click on the preview button, it will bring up
the review window over the top of the posting
window. It will look something like what is
shown at right. It is the gray shaded area that
comes up over the top of what you have written.
This window isn't very well defined like all of the
other pop up windows but it does work.
If you need to re-do what you have written,
then you will click on the words "Fix It".
This will take you back to the original comment
window.
If it looks Ok to you, then click on
"OK, Send Comment". This works much the
same as the old format did for reviewing your
comment before posting it.
If you have any questions about how to post with this new format, please address them to the St. Cloud Times.
At the bottom of the story chat pages you will find the following buttons. Simply click on the "questions" button
and that will bring up another pop up window where you can type in your questions or report a problem you are having with the site.
It will ask you what operating system you are using
such as Windows XP for example.
Then it asks you what Browser you are using such
as Internet Explorer and what version, or Firefox and
what version.
This information will help them to fix any bugs within
their new system to try to make it work as well as
possible for all users of the site.
I hope you find this lesson useful. If you have any
suggestions for how I can improve it, please feel
free to contact me with suggestions for this page.
Questions regarding how the St. Cloud Times
Story Chat is working for you should be addressed
to the St. Cloud Times.
Thanks! ~ Joan
**ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR POSTING **
We have found that if you want to post using some other font or post in another color of text, all you have to do is open up some kind of text editing program like Microsoft Word for example, type what you want in what ever kind of font, color or text size you want to use, and then copy it and then paste it into your posting window on the Times site.
This gives you a whole lot more choices for how your post can look than what choices are offered in the comment window.
This way you can make your post look any way you want it to look.
**ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR POSTING "YouTube" OR OTHER SITE LINKS**
The following was a lesson given on Story Chat on how to properly link to YouTube or other sites.
Dennis B Posted: 1/12/2008
Step 1
Go to Youtube (or other websites) and copy the whole link.
Step 2
Close Youtube (or other website) and open a posting window in the chat
Step 3
Type in a sentence then go back and highlight 1 word
Step 4
click the chain link and paste your Youtube (or other website) link in the top line -
then click insert
Step 5
Submit your post
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looking Posted:
Link #1
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGD94CchJU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfGD94CchJU
In the above 2 examples, I hyperlinked it just as it shows when
you look at it. The one that starts with www
references the chat page and wont work.
The one starting with http:// works fine.
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looking Posted:
Lets try 3 different ways of linking to the times and see what we get.
sctimes - www.sctimes.com
sctimes - http://www.sctimes.com
sctimes - http://sctimes.com
Ok, after trying all 3 of those links, number 2 and 3 work.
Number 1 does not. So, its the www you dont need.
You DO need the http://
Thanks Dennis & looking! ;-)
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FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE! I've added a few pages of "Smilies" and other graphics that you can make use of in your posts! I already have provided you with the image source code so that all you will need to do is copy the code next to the graphic and paste it into your post at the point you would like it to show up.
Joan (from Oak Park)
PLEASE check out the other pages of this site for links to good information on a variety of subjects ... from government ... to news ... to schools ... to issues .. and many many more! The page links are listed above on the left hand side of the page!
