I have already talked to Erin about this, and I am determined to learn how to post my own stories on this site. I am about to post the first chapter of a story I have been working on for a long time, but anticipate some problems trying to work out how to do the picture, the header, the story explanation, and the body of the story so that it looks the way I want it to.
I know several people have editing priveleges here, but please just leave my work alone. Helpful suggestions are welcome but I want to learn to do this myself. I'll freely admit that I am not really adept with computers and Drupal. In a few minutes it will be there, but I still have to figure out how to post chapters so that there will be links forward and backward and so that they will all be together.
I will try to keep this chapter, not visible, until it is ready.
Thanks a lot.
Gwendolyn
Comments
I'm thrilled...
...to see a new story by you coming soon! Great to hear.
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Ideas to help
Have you seen Bobbie Cabot's very informative post (I think it's called Top Shelf for Dummies). If you go into the "Working Girl blogs", it's in there. I thought it was wonderful, and I look forward to using the techniques in some of my future stories. I hope it helps you, too! I look forward to reading your story!
Wren
Can't find it
I've been all through the Working Girl Blogs looking for "Top Shelf for Dummies" and can't see anything of that name. Any more clues to its identity?
I have "Dummies".
It is saved to my desk top. I can email it to you if nothing else works. Bobbie sent it to me.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Gwen
If your entry messes up the front page, I'll have to unpublish it. You can still work on it in the background, but it wouldn't be fair for your posting, if it messes up the front page, to disrupt our viewers and keep them from reading the site.
Sephrena
Do you mind elaborating on that?
And if you can explain your concerns in plain language, I'd appreciate it. I anticipate a small picture at the beginning of each chapter. (The same one probably) a modest header, and the text. It will probably one of the simpler pages on the site. I figure if my writing can not carry the day, no amount of "fluff" will help it. :)
I had intended to post it and un pub it imediately so I could work on it, and then publish it when I am ready. It is my intent for there to be 5-10 chapters, about 40K in length each.
I have no idea what so ever what I could do to mess up the front page.
Gwendolyn
Primarily she is refering to
Primarily she is refering to if you have a problem in your header area, the part that comes out on the front page, it can cause the entire page to be displayed with issues.
Most notably, is starting a HTML tag, like italics or bold, and not having that be closed within the header, will italicise or bold the entire rest of the page. Those kinds of problems can't be left by the moderators. So basically what Sephrena is saying is if your header area is affecting the rest of the front page, she either has to fix it or unpub it. Normal practice is to fix them.
As someone else mentioned, I always just copy a header area from a prior story and change the text parts for the new story. But I don't put pictures in mine.
Good luck
Hugs,
Kristy
How do you unpub a story?
That looks a really useful facility when you're trying to put up a story, but I've never found out how to do it.
Tips
A few quick 'n' easy tips:
a) Make sure you clear all formatting before the <!--break-->
b) Likewise at the end of the story.
c) When previewing, make sure the rest of the page looks OK - if it doesn't, something's gone wrong!
d) If using the default editor, you probably won't do much damage through highlighting text and using the formatting toolbar to apply the required formats. The images on some buttons may look confusing, but if you hover over a button, a tooltip should appear explaining what it does. Alternatively, click the big question mark...
And, if you're completely stuck with a "How do I...?" question, there are numerous geeks on the site who'd respond to a PM - hopefully in plain English rather than technobabble! (Unsurprisingly I count myself among that group)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I can run the typewriter...
But most of the rest of what goes on in that little metal box is a mystery to me. Oh, I can manually make type bold and a few things like that, but that is about all.
So far, my biggest frustration when I have tried to post my own stories in the past is that all that laboriously built dialogue, and paragraphing just disappears, and if I allow someone else to fix it, it is never like what I had originally done.
I don't seem to sound ungrateful; most certainly not, but I just want it like I want it. :)
Gwendolyn
Well
Well, how do you type your stories up - do you type them up in word processor program - then copy/paste the text into the editor
If you do, and you have textual formating already done - i dont know if the what you see is what you get editor might retain it - i use the other editor
Why can't I edit my own reply?
I merely want to fix a spelling error of mine. It seems odd because I seem able to edit another of my posts just above it.
Gwendolyn
Once a reply has a reply to
Once a reply has a reply to it you cannot edit the reply. As long as there is nothing below it you can.
Kristy
Formatting
Well i thought i had formatted the first chapter of my Duelist of time series alright but it mucked up - proberly mucking up when html coding in the editor - but this was corrected for me and i looked at the formatting for the story and just copyed the code there after.
So after only making one mistake i could format my stories correctly now - unless it involves pictures
Greek To Me
RAMI
Gwen, I'm probably more clueless then you. Most of the comments that the author's thought were in "Plain English" were Greek to me. I start writing my story in Word Perfect, Yes that still exists. Then copy it over to MS Word, play around a little, and then post and pray. It never comes out the was I want.
So you are not the only author who is a little slow on the uptake. I am sure you're better then me.
RAMI
RAMI
Don't bet on it. LOL
I have a slight learning disability, but I can usually get what I want to do done if someone insults me enough. Once I learn it, I'll do my best to find a way of explaining this stuff so that even a goat milker can do it. Inshallah.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
I've been ingracious.
I've been ingracious
I think I need to stop right here and apologize for those who have posted my stories up to now. I've been going back to look at my previous stories, and using the "Edit" window can see a lot of HTML (?) in there that I would never have thought to use. I can see that Erin, Sephrina, Holly and perhaps others have done a lot of work to get my stories onto the site. I am sorry, and did not mean for it to sound that way.
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Markup
HTML is a 'markup' language - in the days before word processors learned the subtle trick of displaying text in the same way as it would be printed (known in geek-land as WYSIWIG - What You See Is What You Get), you had to put special codes either side of the text you wanted in bold / italic / whatever.
Many people use the WYSIWIG editor which allows them to paste text created in word processors directly into the edit box without losing formatting, but even so it's worth having a basic knowledge of some of the underlying HTML code, so if something doesn't look as you expected, you can scroll down to the relevant section and see what's going on. Tags (as the surrounding bits of markup are called) are always encased in angle brackets and include br(eak - line break/new line) strong, em(phasis), img (image), p(aragraph - starts a new one) and a(nchor - used for links). Find Bobbie's guide and add it to your favorites/bookmarks.
Here's an idea: if you've got something short lying around you could post, do that first as a test run. If you don't have any problems with that, you can be fairly sure your main story will be OK.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Now you are espeakin da English !
Thank you so much! Not many people have the talent of speaking down to their audience, so the rest of you should take note! This is something I can understand, Wallah ! So, you are telling me that if I cut and paste my story into WYSWIG, it might come out readable? This is like so totally cool!!! Ok, so now the only problem I have is that the only version of chapter one is saved in a 93 verson of Word, and I have word 2007, I think. So, if I have to hand type all 45K back in to get it into my Word verson, I think I can handle that.
Someone I know uses Open Office and says that they don't have problems. Hmmmmmm
Well back to the "Command Console", but first I have to wait for the Tornadoes to pass the Cleveland Area. Should I be worried? Maybe it will take me to Oz?
Much peace
Gwendolyn
Backwards compatibility
Try opening Chapter 1 in your current version of Word. Microsoft usually retain a certain degree of "backwards compatibility" whenever they release a new version of Word - i.e. it can understand documents produced in the last version. Even if it can't understand the formatting, at the very least it should be able to import it as plain text, which would save you the effort of discovering your copy-typing speed :)
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I havent tried to do anything fancy
because of the fact I am something less than computer literate. Someday, I would like to learn enough to create pictures and other such modifications to the baseline that others do so well.
Computer Literate
I consider myself as being computer literate, but that doesn't mean that I can format a fancy page to put on BCTS - or any other website, for that matter.
Computer Literate to me means knowing enough to wrestle the beast to the ground and getting it to submit (Usually accompanied by a significant amount of profanity). What one needs here are typesetting (ish) and design skills, neither of which I have much of.
That's why I tend to keep to the Engineer's dictum: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Penny
Me too ...
... but I've been playing with computers on and off since 1961 when they were hardly the sort of thing anyone would have perched on a desk in the front room - or even capable of being IN the front room in the first place. However most of my use has been as an engineer using them to measure or control some process and that's meant writing bits of software and actually designing the hardware to suit.
I know quite a bit about esoteric things like Boolean algebra but that doesn't help me to drive the high level stuff that permeates PCs or the internet. I suppose, like most engineers of my generation, I'm self taught from necessity because there weren't any courses when I was attending part-time college as was the norm at the time. So I salute Penny's dictum of KISS. I just wish car manufacturers would do the same - I can't even fix ours these days :(
I use an ancient copy of 'Word' which does all I want and much more besides. Also I've learned enough programming languages to last me a life-time; I can't be bothered to learn yet another. :)
Robi
My boomerang won't come back!
Well, last night I tried cutting and pasting several different saved versions of Katia to the PM box and sent it to myself. I think there were 5 tries and each made a loud plop, stunk and drew flies. :(
Tonight, if I get time I will try WYSIWYG.
A while back, someone told me that open office worked great, so if I get some advice on its use, I will try it.
Gwendolyn
OpenOffice.org
It has its quirks (e.g. Page Setup sits in the Format menu, rather than the File menu), but it behaves similarly enough to MS Office for the learning curve to be very shallow (particularly in Writer).
The available components are:
Base - database (think Access)
Calc - spreadsheet (think Excel)
Draw - drawings, flow charts and logos (think Visio)
Impress - presentations (think Powerpoint)
Math - equation editor
Writer - word processor (think Word)
I have it installed on my box, so if you have any non-urgent questions (i.e. you can wait up to 24 hrs for a response) that can't be answered with a web search (being freeware, you'll probably find lots of help and support forums [fora?] - some of which will probably be more understandable to a novice than others...) feel free to drop me a PM.
Unsurprisingly, the package is quite large, so if you're downloading it and your broadband package has a monthly usage allowance (some in the UK only allow you to download up to 1 GB/month before penalty charges are applied), check your usage first (esp. if you've been watching a lot of YouTube videos or online TV services).
There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
Open Office
I've been running it alongside my 10yo version of Word for months now and there are a few little quirks but nothing dramatic. Basically it's very similar and compatible with everything I've tossed at it.. then I'm not that adventurous. Still I'm about ready to dump that old Works Word suite. I've done my most recent things all on OO and have had no problems at all. Do take a little time though to tweak it to work as you wish. That just means going through the options and adjusting, language and similar settings. Simple rather than curly quotes and things like that. I use UK English even though I'm in Oz and yes there are some differences, but it 's how I was taught. Can I hear laughter...hmmpphh.
Kristina
MS Works looks promising.
OK, so last night I remembered that some one once told me that there was a text editor that worked OK, so I went looking for it and discovered that I have it on my computer. So.....I cut and pasted it to Works and it did the same thing as BCTS does to my work. Sooooo..... I think that if I write my work in Works, and cut and paste it to bcts then it might work. I will save it as a text file. I might not be smart, but I don't give up so easily.
Gwendolyn
Works Text, or Works wtf.
Does anyone use works as a writing word processor? If you do, should the files to be posted to BCTS be posted as text or wtf files? I am laboriously plodding through this 44K chapter, making it look right after pasting it from a word.doc file took all the good stuff out.
By the performance of Works so far, I may just make this my default word processor if everything works.
Gwendolyn
Works
The suite I have..2000... includes Word so I've never used the Works word processor. By default I save everything as rtf's. This avoids most of the bloat with .doc's and is a bit more fancy that plain text. Not sure if you can do that in the basic one in Works. Open Office does it and can read .docx's too which is handy. The only drama I've ever had is needing to do some re-formatting. Mostly spacing and re-doing italics. Headings and pretty fonts I just copy and paste adjusting the wording as req. Never used pics so I can't advise on that one. If you take it slow and do previews to check everything should be good. Then hit that enter button, a curiously nervous thing that.
Kristina