The DU Journals: "How-To's," "Tips & Tricks," "Do's & Don'ts"

EarlG ADMIN

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Wed Mar-29-06 10:25 AM
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The DU Journals: "How-To's," "Tips & Tricks," "Do's & Don'ts"

Edited on Wed Mar-29-06 08:25 PM by EarlG

The DU Journals have been in operation for just over two weeks, and hundreds of DUers have already created their own Journals. I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread to discuss some "how-to's", "tips & tricks" and "do's & don'ts." We plan to create a Journals FAQ so hopefully this thread will give us a good idea of what sort of questions people have about the Journals, and what sort of tips people have for making them work successfully.

I've laid out a few ideas below to get the ball rolling, and I'll update this post with your suggestions.

The Journals are still in an early stage at the moment and we have plenty of upgrades and features to add, so please don't request new features in this thread. Just post tips or questions about the existing features.

HOW TO CREATE A JOURNAL

If you've got a message board account, it's easy. Just go to this page and click the Create link at the top.

For more information on how the Journals work, see this page.

MODULE TIPS

Blogrolls

Brainshrub has a great Blogroll tutorial on his Journal here.

To list your Journals and blogs in alphabetical order, set everything in the "Order" column to "0" (zero).

CUSTOM SKIN TIPS

Has anyone been playing around with the Custom Skin editor? Yes, it requires a decent knowledge of CSS and HTML, but I think we can create a library of easy-to-understand tricks that people can use to enhance their Journals. For an idea of what you can do with the Custom Skin editor, see the following Journals:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/top10/238
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/BlogBox
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/EarlG
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/AuntiePinko
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/liveoaktx

These were all created using the built-in Custom Skin editor.

Custom backgrounds

To add a background image, use the following code in the section where you want the background to display:

background-image: url(insert URL of image here);

When adding a background image, make sure that the text is legible against the background. - TahitiNut

DOs

Do add the Random Journal module! The Random Journal button will only take visitors to another Journal which contains the Random Journal module.

If you add images or make other custom changes to your layout, do check to make sure your Journal displays correctly in different browsers. - WesDem

DON'Ts

Don't add large images to the right-hand column of your Journal. In some of the pre-made skins this screws up the design, and in a worst case scenario your visitors may be forced to scroll sideways - not a good thing. To be on the safe side, use images that are 150 pixels wide or less. Similarly adding images which are more than 400 pixels wide to the center column may cause a problem for people with smaller monitors.