Post Editor

The Post Editor allows account owners to add, update or delete blog posts.

If you clicked on an existing post the Post Editor form will be pre-filled with the information from that message, allowing you to change all the values. If you selected Add New Blog Post, the form will appear blank, with the exception of the date, which is set to today by default (but can be changed to anything).

Post Date & Time

• Every date must include a time. If no time information is specified, time information is automatically added
• Dates can be in the past or future, messages posted with dates in the future will not be visible to visitors until that date has arrived.
• If no date is present on Remote Posts, current date and time is assumed.
• Accepts just about any English date representation: for example:
  • 1972-09-24 (ISO 8601)
  • 72-9-24 ( Assume 19xx for 69 through 99, 20xx for 00 through 68)
  • 72-09-24 (Leading zeros are ignored)
  • 9/24/72 (Common U.S. writing)
  • 24 September 1972
  • 24 Sept 72 (September has a special abbreviation)
  • 24 Sep 72 (Three-letter abbreviations always allowed)
  • Sep 24, 1972
  • 24-sep-72
  • 24sep72

Ambiguous date formats assume US style, i.e. 7/1/08 or 7-1-08 will be read as July 1, 2008, not January 7, 2008. When using European formats, it is best to use something unambiguous, like "7 Jan 2008".

Title

No title is required. However, RSS feeds will not be posted without a title as the title IS required for the feed

See also: RSS Information

Location

Generally, this field is used for location, but it could also be used for other data you would like to have appear near the title of each blog post (i.e. weather, distance traveled, etc.) Not to be confused with the XPlot Lat/Long Field - see below.

LAT / LONG (XPlot users only)

• If you have XPlot enabled, a field will be available here to post a latitude and longitude associated with this blog entry.
• Positions must be posted in Degrees - Decimal Minutes format (i.e. 10 23.33'). North and East are assumed if no directions are given.
• Lat and long are separated by a colon ( : )
• Valid examples:
  • 44 59.93'N : 93 33.56'E
  • 44 59.93N:93 33.56E
  • 44 59.93 : 93 33.56
  • 45 : 93 34

See also: Latitude & Longitude Format

Author / Weather

Similar to location, this field is typically used to indicate who wrote the post, but could be used to submit any kind of data that you would like to have appear at the top of the message.

Body

This is the main text of the message.

• Line breaks will be literally translated to the visitor page, do not add line breaks at the edge of the field, the text will automatically wrap.
• While some HTML formatting will be accepted in the Body, most HTML and script tags will be removed. See HTML in blog posts for a complete list of accepted HTML tags.
• Messages cannot exceed 64,000 characters (~10,000 words).

Image

This field allows you to upload an image with your blog entry.

• Click the browse button to select an image from your computer
• Images cannot exceed 3MB in size. If your image exceeds 3MB, refer to Pre-processing images for information about sizing and scaling images before uploading to the system.
• Images must be in jpg, gif, or png format
• Images that exceed the size of the max image width specified in the Blog Properties page will automatically be scaled down (the original image is not saved).
• A thumbnail image is automatically created

Video Clip

If you are a premium member, you have the option to add a short MOV or AVI file in place of an image.

• Click the browse button to select a video clip from your computer
• Video clips cannot exceed 6MB in size
• Video clips must be in AVI or MOV (QuickTime) format
• A thumbnail image is automatically created with a "Play" button.
• Visitors will have to have the QuickTime plug-in available in their browser to view the uploaded videos.

Category

If you have created message categories, this drop down will present a list of your categories so you can assign one to the post. Currently, you can only assign one category to a post. Refer to Using Categories for additional information.

Close Comments

If this box is checked, visitors will not be allowed to comment on this post.

Display

Controls whether the post will be visible to visitors, checked is on.

Delete This Message

Deleting a message will remove it completely from the message database, and it will be GONE FOREVER. If you are not sure about this, switch the display to off until you are sure the message will never be needed again.