User Instructions for the Safety Pharmacology Society Blog

• User Profile
• Search
• Make Comments
• Contribute
• Moderation
• Archive & Calendar
• Categories
• Recent Comments
• Most Popular Tags
• RSS
• Subscribe via E-mail

User Profiles

Each user on the SPS blog can define a profile, with details such as their password, screen name, e-mail address, instant messaging aliases etc, if they want to. Users can also control the way in which their details are displayed on the blog. Edit or updated your profile.

Search

The SPS blog offers a functional built-in search tool, which allows you to search for terms you are interested in.

Make Comments

Comments can be submitted for all postings. Simply select the “No Comments” or “Comments” option at the top right of a posting to submit a comment. No Comments will display if the posting has no comments posted. Comments are displayed immediately. The blog moderator has the right to remove any offensive or inappropriate comment at any time. Submitted comments can be removed or edited by accessing the contribute, edit or delete Comments option from the right column on the main page.

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Contribute to the Blog

Writing Posts

Posts are the articles that display in the blog in reverse chronological order on the home page.

To write a post:

1. Go to the SPS Blog: http://www.safetypharmacology.org/blog/
2. Under the Contribute header on the right, click “Create new posting.”
3. Log in to the WordPress Panel.
4. Select the Write tab.
5. Start filling in the fields.
6. As needed, select a category and add tags from the sections below the post. Each section has a brief explanation.
7. When you are ready, click Save, then Submit for Review.

To add an image, video, audio or media:

1. Select the related Add Media icon: image, video, audio or media
2. Select the Choose File tab to upload media (to upload multiple files, use the shift key)
   • To use the From URL option copy the absolute URL of the image and paste into the Image URL field.
   • Add the description in the required field.
   • Then, select Insert into Post, to display image into the post
3. Then, select the Gallery tab to insert file to post and set size attributes, caption or position.
4. To view all uploaded media, click the Media Library tab to select an image from the library.

Descriptions of Post Fields:

Title

For the title of your post, you can use any words or phrases. Avoid using the same title twice as that will cause confusion. You can use commas, apostrophes, quotes, hyphens/dashes, and other typical symbols in the post like “My Site—Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid.”

Post Editing Area

The large box titled Post is where you enter your writing, links, images, and any information you want to display on your site. You can use either the Visual or the HTML view to compose your posts. For more on the HTML view, see the section below, Visual vs. HTML Editor.

Save

Allows you to save your post as a draft rather than immediately publishing it. To return to your drafts later, click the Manage tab, click the Drafts link that appears below the Manage Posts title, and then click your draft post.

Preview this Post

Allows you to see how your post will look before officially publishing it. You must Save post as a draft before this option is displayed.

Publish Status

Shows three states for the post: Published, Pending Review, and Unpublished. A Published status means the post has been published on your blog for all to see. Pending Review means the draft is waiting for review by an SPS blog moderator prior to publication. Unpublished means the post has not been published and remains a draft. You can see all posts organized by status by going to Manage >> Posts.

Tags

Refers to micro-categories for your blog, similar to including index entries for a page. Posts with similar tags are linked together when a user clicks one of the tags.

Categories

A general topic the post can be classified in.

Advanced Options:

Excerpt

A summary or brief teaser of your posts featured on the front page of your site as well as on the category, archives, and search non-single post pages. WordPress will automatically use the first 55 words of your post as the Excerpt. If you submit an Explicit Excerpt, the one created will be used instead.

Password Protect This Post

So you want to share something with some people, but not everyone? Easy, protect the article in question with a password. Be sure and write down the password and keep it in a safe place.

Practice Accessibility

To be compliant with web standards for accessibility, be sure to include ALT and TITLE descriptions on links and images to help your users, such as <a title=”WordPress Codex” href=”http://codex.wordpress.org/”>WordPress Codex</a>.

Use Paragraphs:

To break writing up into paragraphs, use double spaces between your paragraphs. WordPress will automatically detect these and insert <p> HTML paragraph tags into your writing.

Using Headings:

If you are writing long posts, break up the sections by using headings, small titles to highlight a change of subject. In HTML, headings are set by the use of h1, h2, h3, h4, and so on. By default, most WordPress Themes use the first, second, and sometimes third heading levels within the site. Simply type in:

<h4>Subtitle of Section</h4>

with double lines before and after and WordPress will make that title a headline in your post.

Spell Check and Proof:

There are spell check alert available, but check all the spelling and proof it thoroughly before copying and pasting into WordPress.

Use HTML:

You don’t have to use HTML when writing your posts. WordPress will automatically add it to your site, but if you do want control over different elements like boxes, headings, and other additional containers or elements, use HTML.

Visual vs. HTML Editor:

When writing your post, you have the option of using the Visual or HTML mode of the editor. The Visual mode lets you see your post as is, while the HTML mode shows you the code and replaces the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor buttons with quicktags. These quicktags are explained as follows.

• b—<strong></strong> HTML tag for strong emphasis of text (i.e. bold).
• i—<em></em> HTML tag for emphasis of text (i.e. italicize).
• b-quote—<blockquote></blockquote> HTML tag to distinguish quoted or cited text.
• del—<del></del> HTML tag to label text considered deleted from a post. Most browsers display as striked through text.
• link—<a href=”http://example.com”></a> HTML tag to create a hyperlink.
• ins—<ins></ins> HTML tag to label text considered inserted into a post. Most browsers display as underlined text.
• ul—<ul></ul> HTML tag will insert an unordered list, or wrap the selected text in same. An unordered list will typically be a bulleted list of items.
• ol—<ol></ol> HTML tag will insert a numbered list, or wrap the selected text in same. Each item in an ordered list are typically numbered.
• li—<li></li> HTML tag will insert or make the selected text a list item. Used in conjunction with the ul or ol tag.
• code—<code></code> HTML tag for preformatted styling of text. Generally sets text in a monospaced font, such as Courier.
• more—<!–more–> WordPress tag that breaks a post into “teaser” and content sections. Type a few paragraphs, insert this tag, then compose the rest of your post. On your blog’s home page you’ll see only those first paragraphs with a hyperlink ((more…)), which when followed displays the rest of the post’s content.
• page—<!–nextpage–> WordPress tag similar to the more tag, except it can be used any number of times in a post, and each insert will “break” and paginate the post at that location. Hyperlinks to the paginated sections of the post are then generated in combination with the wp_link_pages() or link_pages() template tag.
• lookup—Opens a JavaScript dialogue box that prompts for a word to search for through the on-line dictionary at answers.com. You can use this to check spelling on individual words.
• Close Tags—Closes any open HTML tags left open–but pay attention to the closing tags. WordPress is not a mind reader (!), so make sure the tags enclose what you want, and in the proper way.

Workflow Note—With Quicktag buttons that insert HTML tags, you can for example click i to insert the opening <em> tag, type the text to be enclosed, and click /i or Close Tags to insert the closing tag. However, you can eliminate the need for this ‘close’ step by changing your workflow a bit: type your text, select the portion to be emphasized (that is, italicized), then click i and your highlighted text will be wrapped in the opening and closing tags.

Managing Posts & Media Library

Manage your posts and media library by selecting the Manage tab. The Manage Posts and Manage Media pages will display all articles and media, but you only have the opportunity to modify your own posts and media.

Comments

Manage your comments by selecting the Comments tab. The Manage Comments page will display all comments, but you only have the opportunity to modify your own comments.

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Moderation

Comments posted to the blog are published real-time and reviewed periodically. The moderator had the right to remove any offensive or inappropriate comment at any time.

Written contributions (aka postings) are approved by a moderator before displaying within the blog. You can check the status of a posting or modify a posting in the contribute, edit or delete posting section of the blog.

Archive & Calendar

The SPS blog provides links to archives containing all the posts. You can choose from monthly calendar feature and easily link to the recent and archive postings from the main page.

Categories

Organize your posts into categories, and sub-categories, and sub-sub categories.

Recent Comments

The recent comments section provides a quick reference to the most recent comments made to the blog postings and provide a link to the related comments.

Most Popular Tags

The most popular tags feature ranks the most published topics in the blog with links to the related postings.

RSS

RSS feeds bring automatically updated information straight to your desktop. You can monitor news, blogs, job listings, personals, and classifieds. More and more sites offer feeds, which you can identify by a small button that says either RSS or XML. However, if you click one of these links, you will most likely get a page full of code in your browser. To properly read the feed, you need an RSS reader. Read the RSS instructions from the option on the main page for complete details.

Subscribe via E-mail

The SPS blog can keep you in the loop by sending you an e-mail each time there is a new posting or comment. Manage or select your e-mail communication preference from the subscription option on the main page.