Blogs & Shout Boxes. Dynamic Content 1

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1 Dynamic Content 1 Add interactive blogs and shout boxes in this tutorial. You ll learn how to: Configure, insert, and manage a blog. Format and insert a shout box.

2 2 Dynamic Content Blogs are online diaries. They allow you to frequently update articles and allow your visitors to post their own comments on your blog. Shout boxes are more like web-based instant messengers. A shout box allows visitors to chat to each other in real time. While these objects might sound complicated to create, thanks to the WebPlus Smart objects, they re actually very easy! Over the next few steps, we ll add a blog and a shout box to our SCUBA diving website. You ll find a version of the project file, scuba.wpp, in the Workspace folder. In a standard installation, you ll find this folder in the following location: C:\Program Files\Serif\WebPlus\X4\Tutorials To add a blog 1 On the Site tab, double-click the Blog page entry. The page opens in the workspace. 2 On the Web Objects toolbar, click the Smart Object Tool. If necessary, log in to your account. 3 In the Smart Objects dialog, click New... 4 In the Create Smart Object dialog, select Blog, select a Language option, and click OK. 5 In the Create Smart Object dialog, in the Style pane on the right: Type a name for the blog. Adjust the appearance of the blog text (text colour, font style and size, and border colour and thickness). Serif Web Resources For further information about creating a Serif Web Resource account, see the Web Statistics tutorial or Using Smart objects in online Help.

3 Dynamic Content 3 The Blog Preview pane updates as you make your changes. 6 Select your time zone from the drop-down list. 7 When you are happy with your blog settings, click Create to add the blog object to your Smart Objects Library. Advanced blog options You can control the appearance of your blog even further by selecting the following options: Blogger Name, Description, and Photograph URL: Use these boxes to provide additional profile information about the blog and its author. Visual Style: To change the layout and presentation of your blog, select a preset visual style from the drop-down menu. Alternative style sheet (CSS) URL: To change the layout and presentation of your blog using a custom style sheet, type the URL of the style sheet *.css file into this box. Layout: To hide the header and/or sidebar of the blog, select the relevant check box(es). Permalink: Select to add a hyperlink beneath each blog article, allowing blog users to bookmark an article and return to it later. Article home link: Select to add a link to the bottom of an article, allowing the user to navigate from an archived article back to the main blog. Comments disabled: Select to disable user commenting on your blog articles. Blog RSS: Select to include an RSS feed for the blog, allowing blog readers to keep up-to-date with the most recent blog articles. Comments RSS: Select to include an RSS feed for each blog article. This is a particularly useful for blogs containing very popular and active articles, where blog users want to be informed of new comments that have been added to an article. Archives: Select to provide blog readers with access to monthly archives of blog articles. Profile Info: Select/clear this option to display/hide the blogger profile information. Send Trackbacks: Select to scan new blog articles for links to other blogs, then automatically notify the blog that it has been referenced (using standard trackback and pingback protocols). The Social Bookmarks section lets you provide blog users with the ability to submit articles to popular social bookmarking sites.

4 4 Dynamic Content You can also add your blog as on offsite link. For more information on creating offsite links, see online Help. 8 Click Insert and then click on your page to add the blog. 9 Resize and position the blog object as required. Managing blogs Due to the nature of blogs, you ll probably want to manage these objects quite frequently. For example, to add new articles or even delete comments posted by site visitors (hopefully you won t need to do this too often!). 1 Click the Smart Object Tool. 2 In the Smart Objects Library, select the blog then in the Object Preview pane click Manage. 3 In the Manage Blog dialog, several options are available. To create a new blog article: Click New. Type your article title in the Article Title box. Type your article content in the main window. To format the text, use the toolbar controls.

5 Dynamic Content 5 If you want your blog to receive trackbacks, posting references from other blog sites as a comment on the referenced article, select the Allow Trackbacks check box. To categorize your article and allow blog users to search for similar articles of interest, type tag keywords into the Tags box. (For a list of suggested tags, click the suggest link.) Click Save to add the new article and return to the Manage Blog dialog. (You ll see your new article listed.) To edit an existing article Select the article and click Edit. Make your changes and click Save. WebPlus lets you control who is permitted to post comments to your blog articles is available in WebPlus. For example, you can: Prevent spam by using a CAPTCHA control. Restrict access by granting access to specific user groups. For details, see Access control in online Help.

6 6 Dynamic Content To delete an existing article Select the article and click Delete. To edit article comments Select the article and click Comments. You can delete selected comments for an article, or clear all comments. Shout boxes Now let s add our shout box. To add a shout box 1 In the Smart Objects dialog, click New. 2 In the Create Smart Object dialog, select Shout Box and click OK. 3 In the Create New Shout Box dialog: Type a name for the shout box. Use the controls to set the appearance of the shout box. Click Create to add the shout box object to your library. Click Insert and add the shout box to your page. 4 Preview the Smart objects on your new Blog page in your web browser. (Your page will not look like ours as you do not yet have any blog or shout box entries.) Well, that concludes this project. If you want to take things further allowing visitors to make online purchases from your web site see the E-Commerce tutorial. You can also remove unwanted lines of text from your shout boxes. To remove a shout box entry: In the Manage Shout Box dialog, click the word Delete next to the unwanted entry.