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• Tutorial 2 - Using Blogger to post an entry on the site
Logging in to Blogger To add something to the site, you need to log in to your Blogger account. This is a very similar process to signing up. First go to the www.blogger.com site, and enter your username and password in the SIGN IN box (right-hand column of the page) and click the 'sign in' button.
You will go to a new page, with a box on the right called YOUR BLOGS displaying the message: "Welcome back, Fred..." etc. There should be a GPVTS option in orange text - click on it.
The next page is the business end of Blogger - its text-entry interface where you get to type in what you want to publish to our website. It should read 'Post to GPVTS' in big black letters near the top left.
The Blogger Editor The Blogger editing window is split horizontally into two main areas: the top half is where you enter the text for a new entry, and the bottom half is where you can see the text of old entries to the site. You can edit your older entries by clicking the 'edit' link below them.
At the very top of the window are the 'Posts' and 'Team' buttons. The Team option will let you view the other members who can post to the site, and allows you to email them. The Posts option will just return you to this page.
The top half is where you enter the text of a new entry: There is a 'Title:' bar where you type the title for your post. This is what will appear in bold text in the horizontal blue bars on the website. Below the title bar is the area for typing the body of your post. Just type your text as you would type an email, hitting return twice to separate paragraphs.
Above this window are a number of buttons for formatting the text - making it bold or italic for example. These buttons work in the same way as in Word - select the text you want to change and click the button. There is a spellchecker and a button for adding a hyperlink to your entry.
To add a link, select the text you want to act as the link, then click the button. A small window will pop up allowing you to enter the web address you want to link to. Type in the address and hit return. You will see that some HTML (website) code has been added to your post around the text you selected - this will generate the link. If you don't know anything about HTML, don't worry about it. If you do, it is possible to add code to your post to customise the way your link will appear.
Finally, there are the 'Post' and the 'Post & Publish' buttons. These do pretty much what they say: Post adds your entry to the GPVTS blog, but allows you to check it before publishing to our website. Post & Publish will update our site straight away. It is always possible to come back to your entry and edit it later, then re-publish, if you want to change something.
Don't worry about the 'Options' or 'Upload File' buttons just yet.
The bottom half of the window shows your older posts: You will see all the previous posts listed here, including your own, with the date, time and author on the first line, followed by the title, then the text. If the post is yours, there will be an 'Edit' link below the post. If you click this, the entry will appear in the top half of the screen for you to make changes. Click 'Post' to finish.
In the black bar separating the two halves of the screen is an option in orange text: 'view web page' which you can click to check your entry has been added to the site. There is also an orange Publish button, which does what it says. Don't worry about the other options at the moment.
To the right of the screen, you will see a calendar which allows you to view posts from a specific date. You also have the option to specify how many posts will be shown in the bottom window.
