Posting Tips

I thought I’d throw together a few tips for posting stuff to the site. First of all because some of the set up for the site is complex and it might help to have things spelled out. And second because some of us *ahem looks at Juliette* forget from one moment to the next what to do. And if this page is available all the time, then we can keep it a living document so I don’t have to repeat myself ad nauseum or go behind and clean up because frankly that takes a chunk of time that none of us has.

  1. Things to Remember When Posting
  2. Formatting Tips
  3. Bio Pages

Things to Remember When Posting

  1. All in One SEO pack
    • I added the All in One SEO pack to the site to help optimize our site with search engines. To allow it to work for us, the following must be done:
      • The Title must be copied to the All in One SEO pack box toward the bottom of the screen.
      • A description of what the post is about must be entered in the description box
      • The tags for the post need to be entered into the tag box separated by commas. What I usually do is type the tags in that box, then copy and paste them into the wordpress tag box.
  2. Category Tagging
    • Since we use our categories to drive a lot of the site navigation, there are a few things to remember about the categories you assign to the post.
      1. Less is more when it comes to categories. By this I mean that all of the categories have a parent-child structure, and when you tag something, you only need to tag the child category and not both the child and the parent. For example, if I wanted to tag a post with Field Reports, I click the category box for that. I don’t need to check Official Dispatches or Command Center because by clicking the child category of Field Reports it will automatically show in the parent categories of Official Dispatches and Command Center
      2. You cannot combine members only categories with those which are public. For example, a common error I see is tagging the PSA’s with the brigade specific tag, because the brigade specific category is members only, then the general public will not be able to view the PSA because it has been classified as restricted material.
      3. As far as the brigade specific information — this may be a point of discussion. Do we make the brigade specific public access, but remember to tag anything that should not be available to the public on the individual post as Members Only? Or do we leave as is that every post tagged as brigade specific will automatically be members only. The Brigades parent category is public access.
  3. Exceprt
    • Every post (not page) needs to have an excerpt entered in the excerpt box (under the post box). The box is re-sizable should you need to see more of the excerpt verbiage. I usually copy the beginning portion of the text and input an image.
    • Why is this important? When someone clicks on our navigation links they are actually (most times) clicking on a category link. If the excerpt is not entered then it will display the entire post and cause additional paging for our members and we will display less content per page.
    • Pictures: – there are a couple of things to remember about including pictures.
      • Use the link for the thumbnail in the excerpt section. Since you can’t insert the picture in the excerpt like you can the post, what I usually do is copy the portion of the picture from the <img through the > and paste it in the excerpt box. Modify the image information to be that of the thumbnail. **Tip** — All thumbnail pics (with very few exceptions) are the picture name -150×150.jpg or png. For example Juliette’s leader pic is http://zombiesurvivalcrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/terzieffpromo11.jpg so the thumbnail is: http://zombiesurvivalcrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/terzieffpromo11-150×150.jpg.
      • Included in the image information is the size marked with width & height, change those numbers from what they were in the post to 150 for each. The 150 must remain inside the quotation marks.
      • Please make sure the alignment is either alignleft or alignright. It is usually found in a statement like this: class=”alignleft size-medium wp-image-3170″. While you’re there, change the size to thumbnail.
      • I usually don’t copy the hyperlink information, so the picture will not be clickable in the excerpt format. So don’t copy the <a href= statement.
      • If there is a caption in the post itself for the picture, do not copy the caption information, or delete it from the excerpt, because captions do not display in the excerpt format, but the code will.

Basic Formatting Tips

  1. Explanation — Essentially what you’re doing with the code is tagging the text which tells the HTML how you want the text to appear. In HTML the text must be between the opening tag and the closing tag. The opening tag is <whatever direction you’re giving html for the formatting> then you put whatever text you’d like the formatting to apply to and follow with the closing tag </the command word>. While this may seem a little confusing, it will make sense as you go through the examples below.
    • Example: the opening tag is bold green and the closing tag is bold red<em>Italics</em>
  2. Bigger Font
    • To increase the size of the text, instead of using the header codes, which in the Zombiepocalypse template adds a vertical line to the left of the big text, use <big>text</big>
    • Remember to put a space after the >
  3. Smaller Font
    • To decrease the size of the text use <small>text</small>
    • Remember to put a space after the >
  4. Text Color
    • To modify the color of the text, use: <span style=”color: red;” or whatever color you choose>text</span>
    • Remember to put a space after the >
  5. Underline
    • To underline the text, use: <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>text</span>
    • Remember to put a space after the >
    • To combine things like color and underlining, you can either add them separately like: <span style=”color: red;”><span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>text</span></span> And you must remember since you used 2 tags, that you must close both of them.
    • OR you can combine the commands since they are both span style statements into one: <span style=”text-decoration: underline; color: red;”>text</span>
  6. Nesting
    • When combining tags like bold with italics or bold with larger font size, it is important to keep the order of the tags in mind. The way it works is that you consider the text the formatting is being applied to as the center and the tags themselves work like hugs… those with the opening tag closest to the words must have the closing tag closest to the words. The illustrations below will help to make this clear using a combination of bold, italics, & large font:
    • Correct Nesting: <strong><em><big>Important!</big></em></strong>
    • Incorrect Nesting: <strong><em><big>Important!</strong></em></big>

Bio Pages

  1. Bio Pic — Placement: Upper left-hand corner. Size= 150×150 (thumbnail)
    • Remove the pic hyperlink
  2. Brigade Chicklet — Upper right hand corner.
    • An email with the code for including the chicklet has been sent, if you need it, let LK know.
    • The code should be placed right next to the Bio pic without any line breaks.
    • If the brigade has NOT been announced, use the White Chicklet and it will be updated when the entire tier is announced.
  3. Page Template — In the past we used the One Column no sidebar template. From now on, use the Default Page Template.
  4. Text format — In order for the chicklets to look sharp in the upper right hand corner of the post, it is important to use text justification on the Bio pages. To do this use:
    • <p style=”text-align: justify;”>

    And after the text use </p>

  5. Internet presence — Use 150×150 (thumbnail) pics and place in a table
    • Remove the pic hyperlink and link to the applicable web item
    • In the web link, use the code to open in a new page (we want people to remain on OUR website)
      • <“a href=”link” target=”_blank”>
    • Use Captions to identify where the link will take you.
      • In the caption use two lines — the first line identifies the site: Twitter, Facebook, Website, etc.
        • To create this type of break: “Twitter<br />@lkgg”
    • Tables — The code for creating the table is:
      • <table class=”image”>
        <tbody>
        <tr>
        <td>Picture Here</td><td>Picture Here</td><td>Picture Here</td>
        </tr>
        </tbody>
        </table>
  6. Back To Fearless Leaders — at the bottom of each bio page needs to be a link to direct the browser back to the Fearless Leaders page, if that’s where they want to go. With the dismantling of the menus, the navigation changes a bit.
    • <p style=”text-align: right;”><a href=”http://zombiesurvivalcrew.com/fearless-leaders/”>Back to Fearless Leaders >> </a></p>
  7. Brigade Chicklet — At the bottom of the page, once the brigade assignment has been formally announced, we need to add the brigade chicklet along with the words “Proud Member of the XXX Brigade”.
    • <a href=”http://zsc.techsurgeons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/LKs-button-logo-21.jpg”><img class=”alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1761″ title=”LK’s button logo 2″ src=”http://zsc.techsurgeons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/LKs-button-logo-21-150×150.jpg” alt=”” width=”50″ height=”50″ /></a><p><br /><em>Proud Member of the Purple Brigade</em></p>
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