Lonnie Lazar recently posted some guidelines, via a comment, on how to add links to other Web pages when you're commenting on a blog post.  I thought it might be worthwhile to list some of the things I've learned about working with Open Salon software.  Feel free to add your own informational tips or correct any mistakes I've made.  (Note: I'll include a few observations about improving Open Salon software in parentheses, like this.) Update: Some of my suggestions have been obviated by changes in Open Salon software.  I won't delete text, but I will cross it out.

Composing a timely post: I once spent a couple of days adding material to a post before I published it; I discovered at that point that it was dated at the moment I hit the "New Post" button--that is, in the list of recent posts, it was already apparently a couple of days old, so it had essentially vanished into the mists of time.  (I'm reminded of one dog year being a seventh of an ordinary year; I estimate that one blog year is about 45 minutes of ordinary time.  Scientifically speaking.)  I now keep a "sandbox" post, in draft form and never published, which I can see on my "Manage Posts" page.  I work on the post until it's ready to publish.  On my "Edit Post" page, I copy the sandbox post (in the "Body" box), hit the "New Post" button, and paste the copied material in.  I then "Publish" it.  (Note: Posts should probably be ordered by their publication time.)

Saving your post: I've occasionally been automatically logged out by the system, which means that anything I'm in the process of editing is lost.  To avoid or at least to ameliorate this situation, I do two things.  I write most posts in a separate editor and paste the material into Open Salon when it's done; this gives me a local copy, a reasonable thing to keep in any case. I also use "Save Draft and Preview" often, especially if I use pictures in the post, cycling between editing and saving.  It's always a good idea to preview your post, giving it one last read, before publishing it.

Deleting your post: If you decide to publish a test post, to see how it looks, please think twice: that's what "Save Draft and Preview" is for.  If you publish a test post, you can delete it.  Please do, using the "Manage Posts" menu option.

Using HTML in comments: Being a computer scientist, I tend to type a good amount of raw HTML.  Currently this is the only way to put more than text in comments, as far as I know.  (Note: Some commenters may find a formatting toolbar and a preview facility helpful; a few commenters have already asked for editing of posted comments as well.)  Here are the basics:

If you want something to appear italicized, type <i>italicized</i>.  The <i> is an example of an HTML tag; tags often appear in pairs surrounding some text, the closing tag with a forward slash before its name.  If you occasionally find that your entire comment is italicized, you've probably mistyped or forgotten a closing tag.

For bold text, type <b>bold</b>.  You can even combine bold and italicized text.

To add a link to a different page (I'll use the address of this post as an example), type <a href="http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=8182">Rob's post about in editing in Open Salon</a>, which comes out looking like this: Rob's post about in editing in Open Salon.  (If you're curious, A is for Anchor and HREF is for Hypertext REFerence.)  It's important to give enough information in the text of the link--what readers will see--so that they know what to expect if they click on it.  No one likes to be rickrolled.

If you write a complex comment that contains lots of HTML and want to make sure that you haven't mistyped anyting critical, one workaround for the lack of a preview facility is to create a new post, type or paste in your comment, and see how it looks in draft form, following the advice above.  If it looks good, edit the draft post, copy its contents, add the comment where you'd like, and delete the draft post.

 

Also, if you ever try to post a comment and it doesn't appear, and yet you haven't been logged out, see another comment from Lonnie Lazar for a possible explanation.  Summary: you may have clicked the "Post a comment" link that opens and closes the comment box, rather than the visually-different-but-similarly-named button that actually posts your comment.  See Lonnie's comment for recovering.

You can find out more about HTML in any one of the dozens of HTML primers out there.  You should know, though, that not all HTML tags work in comments.  For example, blockquote (which usually indents a paragraph to indicate it's a quote) doesn't.  Use italics instead.

Using HTML in a blog post: There's an HTML button you can use when composing a post, which pops up a window full of text interspersed with HTML tags.  You can edit this mess, but there's an easier way: If you type raw HTML into the usual editing window, and then "Save Draft and Preview", you'll see the HTML tags in your post.  "Edit" and then "Save Draft and Preview" one more time, though, and the system will properly translate the HTML.  (Note: This functionality is a bit unintuitive and might be streamlined--but not removed!)  Not all HTML tags work in a blog post; you'll have to experiment a bit to see what works.

Including images in a blog post: You might notice that some Open Salon bloggers post images that are much bigger than the ones that are appearing in your posts.  In some browsers, once you upload an image file into the editing window for your new post, you can resize the image.  If this isn't possible, then you can press the HTML button (editing the mess I said you wouldn't have to) and do the resizing by typing in the right data.  Look for one of two things: the caption you gave the image when you uploaded it, or the number 285, which is the default width that Open Salon assigns to images.  Change this number, up to a maximum of 485 (to which width your image is downsized by Open Salon when you upload it.)  Give it a try--see whether your beautiful pictures look more beautiful if they're just a bit bigger!

Wrapping text around pictures in a blog post: This explanation may be a bit confusing, but I hope it's worthwhile.  The paragraph below, which consists of meaningless text, wraps around the picture I've included.

Nunc commodo interdum lectus. Nam massa. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Morbi tincidunt imperdiet leo. Praesent euismod bibendum odio. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Etiam blandit dolor non est. Nam quis justo. Integer rutrum turpis non nisl vestibulum fringilla. Praesent scelerisque ultricies elit. Phasellus rhoncus ullamcorper urna. Duis vitae erat ut augue iaculis sagittis. Praesent in felis.

Here's how it works: I won't type out the HTML to do this, but I will ask you to view the source of this page in your browser.  Search for the sentence beginning "Nunc".  The form just preceding this sentence includes a DIV (i.e., division) tag to hold a picture.  The style of this section is such that the picture (produced by the IMG tag) is right justified and padded on the left with 5 pixels.  The next bit, after the div, is a P (paragraph) tag that specifies how the text should be aligned, in this case with respect to the picture--it's fully justified and vertically aligned to the top of the picture. That's it.  How do you do this on your own?  Probably the easiest way is to just copy the HTML and paste it into your post, replacing the IMG SRC value with the file name of one of your pictures.  Tedious, yes, but if you want to do this. . .  (If there's an easier way, please let me know in a comment.)

Including youtube videos in a blog post: When you visit the youtube page for a specific video, you'll see a textbox on the side, labeled "Embed".  The contents of the box will begin <object... Copy these contents.  When you return to Open Salon, start a new post. (It's easiest to start from scratch, add a video, and then add text and possibly other pictures around it.)  Press the HTML button.  When the HTML editing window comes up, paste in the text you copied from the youtube page.   Exit this window with the "Update" button.  Now when you "Save Draft and Preview" your post, you should see something like this:

Dealing with platform issues: The vast majority of Open Salon bloggers use the Apple Macintosh OS, Microsoft Windows, or some flavor of Linux for their operating system, plus some Web browser (obviously).  As with many newish pieces of software, Open Salon has limitations specific to the combination of operating system and browser.  (Note: These are the kinds of idiosyncracies that go away as software matures.)

Going outside Open Salon: bbd suggests that you can use external services, such as bloglines, to keep better track of posts by friends within Open Salon, until Open Salon gains the capabilities you'd like to have.  It's also useful to keep in mind that Open Salon is just a bunch of Web pages, from a techie perspective.  If you want to keep track of an individual page, you can always bookmark it in your browser.

Exploring Open Salon: Finally, some Open Salon bloggers have found ways simply to have fun with the site, to answer questions that perhaps no one has thought of answering.

How many members are there? bbd observes that Open Salon allocates a number to you as an identifier for your blog when you join.  Thus I have the number, or uid (user identification), 1487.  These uids seem to be given out sequentially, which means that whenever anyone new joins Open Salon, which you can see in the Activity Feed, you can go to their Web page and look at your browser's address bar to see what uid that new blogger has been assigned.  As of today (late September), it's over 6,000.

Can we play games? Mark Pritchard proposes the mystery tag game, which involves clicking on a topic that someone has blogged on, and then changing its tag id at random.  (The allocation for topics is similar to the allocation for bloggers, above.)  You get some interesting stuff.

Where is Open Salon going? These posts by Caveat Canem Croceum, here, here, and here, give useful insights into the current capabilities and future possibilities of Open Salon.

As for other advice, new users should probably explore the menu options Open Salon provides; it may take some searching around to find out how to do things.  (For example, it's possible to edit a post after it's been published, via the "Manage Posts" menu option; deleting comments for one of your posts means going from "Manage Posts" to "Manage Comments" on the sidebar.)  That's all that comes to mind.  You can find further bits of advice in the comments below.