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Options Blog Options Appearance Template Editor Authors Sections Links Blog Options This is where you can configure the title, time and date related options for your blog. The first two options are the Title and Sub-title The title should be what you entered for the Blog Name when you setup your blog. The sub-title is blank by default. Whatever you enter in this field will show up underneath the the title (in smaller text) in you blog. The third blog option is the . There are five options for the date format. The date will show up in your blog above the post(s) that were made on that date, in which ever format you choose here. The next blog option is the the Time Format. There are three time format options. The time shows below each blog entry in whichever format you choose here. The fifth blog option is the Time Zone. The time zone is UTC/GMT (coordinated universal time/Greenwich mean time) by default. You can add or subtract from UTC/GMT to compensate for the difference between UTC/GMT and your time zone by choosing a positive or negative number from the drop down menu. The last two options control the entries in your blog. The value for Show most recent determines how many entries will show up on the main page of your blog. Any entries beyond the number specified here will be relegated to the Archives. The last option is the order of the blog entries. The default is reverse, as in reverse chronological order. This will put the newest entries at the top of the blog. Alternately, you can choose chronological order if you want the the oldest entries first with the newest last. Appearance Template Editor Intro to Templates Weblogs generated in IlohaBlog can be customized through a number of methods. The easiest way to customize the look of your weblog is to use the Appearances pane, which allows you to change colors, font sizes and styles. However, if you would like to make more extensive changes, you may also create/modify the template. The IlohaBlog template consists largely of three areas: CSS - Obviously, the CSS code. Head HTML - HTML that's inserted after the body tag, but before the main content. Foot HTML - HTML that's inserted after the main content, and before the closing body tag. There are no restrictions as to what you can do with the templates, at least with CSS/HTML/JavaScript. Because the static files generated by IlohaBlog are simple HTML files, you will not be able to embed PHP in your template. It is recommended, however, that you modify the default CSS code instead of writing your own from scratch, because certain CSS classes must be present for your blog entries to be displayed correctly. Even if you're not very familiar with HTML, there's no harm in tinkering with the template system. If anything goes wrong, you can always revert back to the default theme (see below). Editing Templates To edit your template, you may use the online Template Editor. To get to the Template Editor, log into your IlohaBlog account and click on the "Configure" link for your weblog on your home page. Then, click on the "Appearance" tab in the upper toolbar. In the "Appearance" pane, click on the "Template Editor" link found in the brief introduction. The first time you use the Template Editor, you probably would want to see the default template. To do so, click on the "default" buttons found next to the various template areas. You may edit the code in the text boxes in your web browser, or you can copy the code to a text editor or web page editor, and copy the code back to the Template Editor page. After making changes, make sure to click the "Update" button found at the bottom of the page. To revert back to the default template (always an option if your custom template gets all wacky!), simply delete all text from the text area(s) and click on "update". When no custom template code is present, the system automatically uses the default template. Place Holders Template code can contain certain "place holders". IlohaBlog will replace known place holders with corresponding data when generating pages. Currently supported place holders are as follows: %title% - Inserts title %subtitle% - Inserts subtitle %links% - Inserts list of links It is likely that more place holders will be added in the future. Please let us know if you have any specific suggestions. Authors This is where you can give other IlohaBlog users access to your blog(s). Maybe you just want another blogger to be able to make the ocassional post, or maybe you want to participate in a collaborative blog with a team of authors. Either can be done as long as everyone involved has an IlohaBlog account. The Users screen is broken into two sections. The top section details the permission of each user of the blog. The bottom section is for adding another user to the blog. The top section lists each of the blog's users and their permissions. Each user can permission to do up to three things with a blog. They can Make Entries, Edit Entries, and/or change Blog Options. To change permissions for a user check or uncheck any of these three options and then click on the Update Permissions button. The bottom section of the Users screen is where you can additional users to your blog. If you know the the IlohaBlog ID and email address of another IlohaBlog user you can give them permissions to use your blog by entering that information into the tex fields in the Add User section of the screen. When you add a user select which permissions the user will be granted using the three check boxes below the Email Address text field. The first is User can make blog entries. If you want the user to be able to add new entries to your blog check the box next to this option. The second is Allow user to edit others' blog entries. This will allow the new user to change previously posted entries, even yours. The last option is Allow user to modify blog options. Checking this will allow the user to change your blog's settings. That includes the appearance and even user permissions. Once you have made your choice for these three options and entered the user's ID and email address click on the Add User button. The user should then show up in the listing at the top of the screen with your chosen permissions specified. If you change your mind about these permissions you can change them in this top section or remove the user by clicking on the Remove link to the right of their permissions check boxes. Sections This is where you can create sections for your blog. It is often nice for the readers of your blog to have the content broken into sections. For example, you could create sections for each potential group of readers. You could create a Friends sections for postings that you think will interest your friends, a Family sections for family members that read your blog and maybe a Quilting section for readers who share your interest in quilting. Or you can break up into sections like Politics, World Events, Personal Rants and so on. Be creative and create, edit and delete categries as needed. The categries page is broken up into two parts. The top part lists your blogs existing sections with an Edit and Delete link to the right of each. The bottom section is where you actually edit a section or create a new section. To edit an existing section just click on the Edit link to the right of the section's name. The name and description of the section will show up in the text fields below. Just change the information in these text fields as needed and click on the Update button to make the change. To create a new section specify the Section Name and Description (optional) in the blank text fields and click on the Enter button. The new section should show up amongst the pre-existing sections. Links This is where you can share your favorite web sites with the world. Link to you favorite blogs, news sites or whatever you want. Then break your links into categories so that they are easy to use. The Links page is broken into two parts. The first is the Add Link section and the second is the Links section. Add Link To add a link fill out the three areas: Link Label, URL and Category. The Link Label is what will show up on your blog. It is the name of the link, not necescarily the address. The address for the link goes in the next field, URL. For instance, if you wanted to have a link to the website named Daypop that has an address of http://daypop.com you would put Daypop in the Link Label field and http://daypop.com in the URL field. The last thing to enter for your new link is its Category. Categories allow you to break your link into sections. Either choose an existing category from the drop-down menu or type the name of a new category in the field next to the drop-down menu. Now just click on Enter and the link should show up in the links section of your blog. Links This is where your current links are listed. They are broken down into categories if you have created them. You can edit or delete a link by clicking on the Edit or Delete links to the right of the links address. Once you click on Edit the links information shows up in the Add LinkUpdate button.