Blogging Procedures

Blogging With WordPress

The University has moved from blogs.usask.ca to a new platform called WordPress. The functionality is basically the same but there is a different look and way of managing our iportal blog. All of our current guidelines for adding entries to the blog remain the same (scope and content).

Things to Note:
• Most staff in the iPortal are currently using IE8 as their browser. The iPortal blog does NOT show well in this browser. It is recommended that any management of Iportal blogs be done using Mozilla Firefox
• Previous issues concerning the use of certain characters within the title seem to no longer be a problem. For example, apostrophes and diacritics seem to be accepted in the new platform.
• Firefox should be preset to do an automatic spell check as text is entered. If not, follow these instructions to get this set up:
Alt + t -> Options -> Advanced -> General tab -> “Check my spelling as I type”
Ensure that this box is checked off
It should working similarly to IE: Misspelled words are underlined in red. You can right click for suggestions.
• WordPress will lock an entry that someone is working on or if someone has not logged out. An editor can ‘take over’ the entry to finish the final editing for publication.

Getting Started
• Add the following URL to the firefox bookmark menu:
http://www.usask.ca/its/services/webpage_hosting/words/
• Login using your NSID/password
• You will automatically be sent to the Dashboard page
• If you are passworded to access more than one blog, you will first need to get to the iportal blog. Under My Sites, choose Iportal News which will take you to the Iportal dashboard
• From the left hand menu, hover over Posts to either go to All Posts (for editing) or go to
Add New (for adding new entry)

Add new Entry
• Adding a new entry is similar to the previous platform. Add the Title and Body of the entry and any appropriate category (from the lower right hand corner of the screen). When adding the body, choose the Visual option tab from the top of the body box. The text tab will display the html coding if you need to see that.
• After you have text in the body box, you can highlight your intended hyperlink and the option to link should become active in the tool box.

There is a new option within this platform for hyperlinks to open in a new window. We will use this option but we will not have to put in a title for the hyperlink.
• Since all of our entries are edited by someone else, we usually always publish each entry for sometime in the future. This is done from the top right hand corner under
Publish immediately Edit. The edit function will allow you to change the publish time to the future.
• The Preview button will show you what the post will look like
• Publish button will make the entry LIVE.
• WordPress incorporates an internal Save feature, which will periodically save the post as a Draft. The Draft versions should not be published or visible to the public.

Edit an existing Entry
• From the Left hand menu, choose All Posts
• The entries will display in order of published or scheduled date
To edit an entry, hover over the title of the entry to display your edit options
Edit | Quick Edit | Trash | View
• Use the Edit option instead of the Quick Edit option. This will pull up a screen that is similar to the Add entry screen (as seen above)
• Check the entry and use the Preview button to see the public version and ensure that the hyperlink is working. Preview opens in a new pane, which can be closed after viewing. You can reschedule the published date from the edit screen, you can trash the entry, or you can update the changes you have made to the entry.
• Return to All Posts to review further entries.
• The top of the screen will give you a breakdown of all the entries in the iportal blog post.
All (1,652) |Published (1,645) |Scheduled (6) |Draft (1) |Trash (2)
• If you previously saved a draft (or the system did it for you), you can find it here.
• When finished logout from the top right hand corner under your NSID. Currently WordPress is having issues with the logout screen. You will be asked if you really want to log out? But this does not seem to be working so it is best to just close the application.