Blog User Guide
Please click on one of the links below to jump directly to the information you require:
Getting Started
Log in
Open your University blog (e.g. blogs.adelaide.edu.au/yourblogname) and click on the ‘Log in' link in the right-hand side widget column under the heading Meta.
You will then be taken to a WordPress log-in screen prompting you to insert your Uni ID and password. Then click the 'Log in' button.
Dashboard
The dashboard will be the first screen you come to after logging in. It is a tool you can use to quickly create posts and access the most used areas of your blog.
Dashboard Administration Area
In the navigation on the left-hand side, you'll find a number of options available to you.
Posts
Here you can choose to edit a post, add a new post, choose post tags or add a post category.
Edit
Clicking on ‘Edit' will take you to a screen displaying all of your posts.
Add New
This is where you write new Posts.
Post Tags
Tags are the keywords that relate to each post and can help your readers find relevant information on your blog. Someone viewing your blog will be able to click on one of those tag links, and an archive page with all the posts relating to that tag will be displayed.
The 'Post Tags' section allows you to add, change, or delete tags.
Categories
Every post in your blog is filed under one or more categories. Categories allow the classification of your posts into groups and subgroups, thereby aiding viewers in the navigation and use of your site.
The 'Categories' section allows you to add, edit, and delete categories, as well as organize your categories hierarchically. Multiple categories can be selected for deletion. A search option allows you to find the categories you want to edit or delete.
Media
On the University blog, this Media option is not relevant. To add an image to your blog, you'll need to save the image in your website's 'images' folder. For more information, please read the 'Images' section of this guide.
Links
On the University blog, this 'Links' option is not relevant.
Pages
This option allows you to add a new page to your blog. This page will sit in a horizontal navigation alongside the 'Home' tab at the top of your blog.
Comments
This option displays all comments from your blog posts and allows you to manage these comments by approving, unapproving, marking as spam, deleting etc.
Main Dashboard Area
Please click on the thumbnail below to expand the image:
Right Now
The Right Now section provides a summary of your blog statistics, e.g. the number of posts, pages, categories and tags that you have on your blog. To access the relevant area to manage that content, click on either the name or number.
Recent Comments
A list of the most 'Recent Comments' on your blog is detailed in this section. Each comment that is listed has a link to the related post title and clicking that link allows you to edit the post.
Hovering the mouse over each comment activates a menu of choices to approve or unapprove the comment, edit the comment, reply to the comment author, spam--mark the commas spam, or delete the comment.
Quick Press
The 'Quick Press' section allows you to quickly and easily write a new post (or draft). Enter a post title, enter the post content, add tags, and click the 'Publish' button or click the 'Save Draft' button. It's that easy!
Recent Drafts
This module allows easy access to your recent draft posts. Clicking on the title of the draft post will take you to the page where you can edit the post.
Editing Your Blog
Writing Posts
To write a post:- Log in to your blog.
- On the dashboard, click the Posts tab on the left-hand side.
- Click the 'Add New' option.
- Start filling in the blanks.
- As needed, select a category and add tags etc. Categories and tags are explained above in the 'Dashboard Administration Area' section.
- When you are ready, click Publish.
Images
To add an image to your blog, you will firstly need to save the image to your development website (webdev) and upload in the same way as you would if the image was to appear on your website.
If you do not have access to edit your website, please contact your department web editor to add and upload the image. Alternatively, you can contact the Online Media Team for help.
Once the image has been added to webdev and uploaded, you will then need to follow the steps below to add the image to the blog:
- Go to your blog and log-in the begin editing
- On the Dashboard, click on ‘Posts' under the ‘Right Now' section
- Find the post you would like the image on and hover over that post
- Click on the ‘edit' link that displays
- When you get to the ‘Edit Post' screen, make sure you select the HTML view
- You will then need to insert the following code where you would like the image to appear (NOTE: you will need to replace the text shown in bold with the image URL and image description):
<img class="size-full wp-image-37" style="border: 0pt none;margin-right: 10px" src="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/ecoversity/ecorider/ecorider-2.jpg" alt="Image description goes here" align="left" />
Documents
To add a document to your blog, you will firstly need to save the document to your development website (webdev) and upload in the same way as you would if the document was to appear on your website.
If you do not have access to edit your website, please contact your department web editor to add and upload the document. Alternatively, you can contact the Online Media Team for help.
Videos
YouTube
In order to add a YouTube video to your blog, please follow the instructions below:
- Go to the YouTube website and find your video
- Click on the Embed button to get the embed code (see example below) for the video
- Copy the code to an empty document or email so you are able to copy a specific section of that code. YOU ONLY NEED TO COPY the value showing the video URL. This is shown in bold text below:
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wQAzKEMjg_I?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wQAzKEMjg_I?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Note: If you aren’t sure of where the URL ends, go back to the YouTube page and look in the address bar at the top of the screen.
- Next you need to go to your blog and log-in
- Navigate to the relevant post and click 'Edit'
- Place the cursor on the blog content where you want the video to appear, then click on the 'Insert Stream Video' tag icon
- The Stream Video Generator will appear - you then need to paste in the URL into the ‘Video’ section.
- Then scroll down and click ‘Generate’
- To check the video is working, click ‘Update Post’ and then go back and visit your blog by clicking on your blog name link in the top left-hand corner of the screen.
If you have another video that you would like to add to your blog, please contact the Online Media Team for assistance.
Vimeo
WordPress alters Vimeo's embed code when embedding in their software. As such, Vimeo videos cannot be embedded on the blog at present.
The Online Media team are working on a solution to this. In the meantime, a link to your Vimeo video can be inserted by:
- Going to your Vimeo video webpage
- Click on the Embed button to get the embed code for the video
- You may see the following text:
“NEW! This is our new embed code which supports iPad, iPhone, Flash and beyond. Don't like change? Use the old embed code instead.”
If so, click on the old embed code link to display the <object> code (see image below):
- Next you need to go to your blog and log-in
- Navigate to the relevant post and click edit
- Paste the code into the HTML view of the editing screen
- Update Post
Design & Layout
Theme
The Online Media Team has created a University theme which is required for all University of Adelaide blogs. If you would like to make any feature requests for this theme, please contact the Online Media Team.
Blog Homepage Banner
University blogs use standard image banners, however the Online Media Team can assist with setting up an alternative if you prefer. Most University blog banners are photographic images but other alternatives can be considered. Here are some sample blog banners we have available for you to use.
The banner images are 736 x 180px and will be stored in the 'Images' folder of your website.
Comments
If you leave the comments on for a post and someone comments, the comment is not published until it has been approved by the editor. This is done on the dashboard under 'Recent Comments'. Hovering over the comment will display options to either approve, edit, reply, spam or delete.
An email will also be sent to the editor once the comment is published.
RSS Feed
If you would like to include an RSS feed from your blog on your website, please read the information below:
What is an RSS Feed?
An RSS feed is a simple way for you to keep visitors to your website up-to-date on news and events that are posted on your blog. The RSS feed on your website will automatically update every time a new post is created on your blog, meaning that you won't need to edit that page on your website.
On the blog, there a various different RSS options available to you. The symbol 
in the widget column on the right-hand side of the page, and alongside your blog categories, indicates that an RSS feed is available. An RSS for ‘all posts' and ‘all comments' is also available from the RSS links section in the grey widget column.
How to set up your RSS Feed
To set up the RSS, click on the RSS icon or on the relevant link and you will be taken to a page displaying the posts that will appear in that RSS feed.
You'll then need to copy the URL in the address bar at the top of the screen. For example, http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/ecoversity/category/news-and-events/feed/
Place this URL in the code below (see bold text) and insert on to the HTML code view of your website:
<!--WFINC="rss2html(url=http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/confucius/category/events-calendar/feed/;hide_title=1;num_items=3;len_item_descr=70;hide_date=1)"-->
You may also wish to change the following options to tailor your RSS display:
- hide_title: =1 means the title of the blog can be hidden so the news items are shown. =0 will display the blog title above the news items.
- num_items: the number of news items that will be shown in the RSS feed display.
- len_item_descr: the number of characters that will be displayed in the feed underneath the news item title.
- hide_date: =0 means the date and time that the news item was posted will be displayed underneath the item title and description. =1 will allow you to remove the date and time from the RSS feed display.
If you need any help setting up your RSS feed display on your website, please contact the Online Media team.
Help
This user guide will be updated on a regular basis. If you can't find the information you are looking for, please visit the WordPress website and search for the relevant topic you need help with or contact the Online Media Team for assistance.
Some of the University's existing bloggers use externally hosted blogs and, as such, have a blog URL which doesn't begin with blogs.adelaide.edu.au. An example of this may be ‘nameofblog.wordpress.com'. If you need help with any of these blogs, please refer to the relevant third party's website for instructions and support.
