The Blog Answerman

Today’s question comes to us from Virginia, host of Conservative Politics Today. She asks for an explanation of the buttons that are available in the basic editor mode and how to use them.

The biggest difference you are going to notice - especially if you aren’t familiar with HTML coding - is that you have lost your WYSISYG (”What You See Is What You Get”) screen, so you are looking at raw code that may take some getting used to. That being said, it isn’t impossible to learn to use the basic mode, it just takes a little understanding, so let’s get down to it!

For starters, let’s take a look at what the console looks like in the basic mode.  You will notice in the image below that the Advanced Editor text link shows that it is OFF:

Wow, what the heck do all those buttons mean, anyway?
Let’s take them each individually and I will explain what they are and how they are used:

Now before I explain the meanings and uses I need to tell you about an odd thing that happens in basic editing mode that will take some getting used to.  Most of these buttons can operate in two different ways.

The best way to use them is to highlight the text that you want to apply a particular feature to then click the button.  This will automatically apply the correct code where it needs to be and will eliminate further confusion.  In the interest of saving time I am going to assume that you will use this method for applying any of the features covered in this article.

Beginning from the left to the right, the buttons you see are as follows:

• b: This is the boldface button.  Highlight the text you want to make boldfaced, click this button and it will make the text look like this.  The code will appear in your editor as <strong>this</strong>.

• i: This is the italics button.  Highlighting the text you want to make italics and clicking this button will make it look like this.  The code will appear in your editor as <em>this</em>.

• link: This is the hyperlink button.  Highlight the text you want to turn into a link to another page and click the button to make a link.  A linked text will appear in your editor as <a href="http://www.yourlinkhere.com/">link</a>.

• b-quote:  This is the block quote button.  It is used to indent a block of text to make it stand out, most commonly when you are quoting something that someone else has written or said.  Highlight the text, click the button and the finished product will look something like this:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

That code will appear as the tags <blockquote>your text here</blockquote> in your editor.

• del:  Trust me when I say that 99% of you will never need, nor should you use this button.  The sole purpose of this button is to show that you have edited / corrected text.  If you make a missteak mistake, it allows you to strike through the text rather than delete it and even includes the date and time in the code tha the correction is made.  So yeah…moving on…
• ins:  This one works in conjunction with the del button.  It allows you to insert text to replace what you just struck through.  If you need to use it, you probably already know how. ’nuff said.
• img:  This is the button to use when you are adding an image to your article or blog post that doesn’t reside on your blog server.  If you have a URL, use the button.  If you need to upload the image to your server from your computer, use the text link below the content entry box labeled “Upload/Insert an Image?”.
• ul, oll, li:  These buttons refer to making lists, either ordered or unordered.  Due to the fact that this article is already too long, I’ll cover those tomorrow.
• code:  This is useful if for some reason you need to display your page code on the site (like I did in the examples above), but again, if you have the need to do so, you probably already know how.
• more:  This is the best invention ever for the long winded blogger (shut up, I know…750 words already.)  To subdivide your blogs , post a teaser paragraph or two, then add the more tag which looks like this <!--more--> in your editor but creates a cool link in the finished product.
• lookup, close tags:  lookup is for people who don’t know how to use a dictionary, and close tags is for people who haven’t followed the instructions in the article.  I will therefore not comment further on either of them.
• SWF, Media:  These links are to be used with you are either including a a Flash file (SWF) or other MP3, video, or other media-type file (Media).  Simple enough?

Okay folks, there you have the quick and dirty, nearly 900 word tome on the basic editing mode.  If you are a Mac user who is trying to learn basic mode because you don’t want to download Firefox, the tech support ends here because I am not a Mac user and you really just need to download Firefox , because the Blog Answerman said so.

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