Tutorial LJ-Basics

[druffine]

I did this tutorial a while back when the LJ-pages where still all confusing. They changed their FAQ pages now and made stuff easier. I actually think they copied from me. LOL

Check out this page for easy and good original LJHelp to the following topics.





Basics about LJ-Tags

What is a tag? It's a command in < >
It tells the system to f.e. put text in italics.

Why do you need them? Coz it makes your entries look better.

LJ tags will only work when entered in HTML-MODE.


Something general about tags:

They always start with < > and end with </ >
If you forget to open < >or end </ > them,
a)nothing will happen
b)you get an ERROR
c) all the text is in like italics or something.

Linebrakes: LJ makes them automatically for you whenever you press ENTER. That equals the tag <br>. Disable Auto-Formatting if you don't want that. Bye why wouldn't you?



How can I link to another user?

insert <lj user=username> for username


How can I link to another community?

insert <lj user=communityname> for communityname

Hint: LJ changes the symbol automatically
Hint: It doesn't matter if the username exists or has spelling mistakes or something. LJ does not check it and will put it out as if it exists, even if it doesn't.


Appearance of text

insert <b>text</b> for text

insert <i>text</i> for text

insert <u>text</u> for text

insert <strike>text</strike> for text

insert <big>text</big> for text

insert <small>text</small> for text


Combine the tags above? YES. Just close in reverse order.

insert <b><i><big><u>texttexttext</u></big></i></b> for texttexttext


How can I link to another page?

insert http://www.google.com - lj changes it automatically in a link
lj changes everything starting with http:// or https://

insert <a href="http://www.google.com">GOOGLE</a> for GOOGLE

if you wish the link to open in a new page, insert <a href="http://www.google.com" target="_blank">GOOGLE</a> for GOOGLE

Hint: don't make a space between the <a href= and the first " of the link - the tag won't work
Hint: links always begin with http:// in the "" or it won't work


What is a lj-cut?

Have you seen this neat things ( Read more… ) or ( here ) ?
You click them and bam there is the whole entry? Yes, that s an lj-cut.

1. Decide which text you want to hide.

2. Before the first word of the text to hide insert <lj-cut>

3. After the last word of the text to hide insert </lj-cut>

4. The standard message in ( ) is "Read more…"
You can change that.

4.1. Decide where the ( ) shall be in your entry.

4.2. Decide which text to put in the ( )

4.3. Insert <lj-cut text="text from 4.2."> in the place of 4.1.

Hint: if you copy from word and you have enabled the stylized ", overwrite them in the lj posting box with straight " otherwise you only get " and not the text in it.

Hint: when you click on preview, you can NOT see the tag.
Yeah, right, you can NOT see it. You can only see the tag in your Journal Entries page. You have to save the entry and check on your standard journal page (http://username.livejournal.com) if the tag shows up.

If there's nothing of this in the PREVIEW:
a) [ERROR invalid lj tag…]
b) ( text )
c) text hidden (all text has to show)
c) <lj-cut> or you probably did everything right.


Images

First the image you want to link to HAS to be somewhere in the internet on a page.

go there, right click, attributes or properties click, find "URL" and select and copy the link there. let's pretend it's www.picturelink.com/picture.jpg.

insert <img src="http://www.picturelink.com/picture.jpg">

Please only hotlink when allowed. Hotlinking means that you link to the place where you found the image. It's better if you save it for yourself on pic hosting sites like Photobucket and link from there. Don't steal bandwidth! People have to pay for it.


HINT: hide pics behind a lj-cut!

<lj-cut text="Beautiful Icon">

<lj-cut>
<img src="(insert copied url)">
</lj-cut>

Of course you can write something before or after the image tag to be hidden too. What you write before the <lj-cut> and after the </lj-cut> is not hidden.

Yeah, there are more tags and stuff. check lj FAQs for them.

LJ-etiquette!

Don't be stupid - be polite.

LJ-Cut everything longer than a quarter of a page.
You spam your f(riends)list or your communities if you don't. You'll probably have a thousand friends and your friends have you and a thousand friends and it sucks to scrooooooolll through stuff. Yeah, you're important, your friends will click your lj-cuts or links, don't worry. Just make good lj-cut or link texts to inform about what to find under the lj-cut/link.

FIC POSTS: Post the fic/poem/text to your own LJ and only make posts containing a header (title/ author/ fandom/ pairing/ rating/ season/ spoilers/ warnings/ notes/ ...) and the link to your entry to the communities. It sucks to have the same (uncut) post showing up on several communities. Don't use some formated header table from your website or something to post in LJ - you mess up other's layouts with fix width settings.

PIC POSTS ALWAYS belong under a cut. Inform people about the pic under the cut and say if it's worksafe, kidsafe or has sexual/naked content. People with slow/expensive internet connections might want to not load your pictures.


And a completely private comment about the friending/defriending issue: Who cares? Really.
I friend people when I want to keep track of their life or their fic.
If people go to a different fandom or start hammering me with pseudo-religious speeches or don't ever figure out to ljcut/link, I defriend them. It's nothing personal.
Sometimes it is personal, but hey, I'm gonna tell them before or they'd notice we've had a fight. But that's none of anybody's business but me and my ex-lj-friend. Alright?


Any questions? Any complaints? Gimme a comment.

Comments

[crimsonsenya.livejournal.com]

You are wonderful!

[druffine.livejournal.com]

*blushes*

Thank you!
Glad this helped you!

[joolzmp7.livejournal.com]

This is brilliant babe, well done.

It's nice to have all this info in one place - it makes it so much easier for us newbies to get around and make stuff look good.

muchos gracias arse!
*hugs*

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Thank you babe, you know that you and little_tenshi motivated me to do this. I am glad I was of some help.

*hugs you*

[frontyardninja.livejournal.com]

Just a bit of random: I frickin' love your more? yes! pretty please? icon.

And I didn't know lj-cuts could have images! Thank you! -hugs-

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for loving my icon! *laughs*

I am glad you could use something from this. It's really just the basics but the things I had to explain again and again to the people I dragged to lj. And so I thought I write it down. *shrugs*

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

wow. Thank you for a very clear explanation of what to do! It'll be so nice not to hit and miss with this stuff! You've made this techno-boob ver' happy...

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
I am glad you could use this.
*smiles*

[kpbkwrm.livejournal.com]

Great! Thanks for the info. I recently joined and am totally klutz at computer stuff. This rocks.

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I am glad this could help you figure stuff out.

[becca-luv.livejournal.com]

well hey, completly random person here, but hwo do you link a pic. Like I've got a pic and I want to link it back to it's site, is that possible on lj?

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Hi!

Have you put the pic in an entry and now you want to make the pic a link to where it is from?

or

Did you find a pic somewhere and now you want to post it in an entry and make the pic a link?

[gottarhyme.livejournal.com]

hmmm. I have a link to my fiction, but I have no idea of how to do the link thingy you guys do. It's on THE CRYPT, but what about fic that isn't online?

Sorry. I am a writer, not a tech! JK ROWLING and I use the old fashioned way, pen and paper, then I type them up, and put them in WORD, I post on some boards, get feedback, then get archived by people smarter than me. I know there must be an easier way can you help?

Thanks!

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Hm...

As you may have seen a lot of writers post their fics on lj and use it as their personal archive. You could do that too with the fics that aren't archived elsewhere or just generally with your fics so people can read them here too. It's not very different from posting on boards just there are some special things to be aware of when using lj.

Lj also offers a lot of community you could post fics in to reach more than just the people that have friended you.

It's really not that hard and if you want I could guide you through all of this stuff and show you how to do it.

But it would be better to do that per chat (msn or yahoo messenger maybe?).

[sufie58.livejournal.com]

I don't post much so I need to keep going back to the various instructions whenever I do anything - it's great that you've pulled all this together into one place. Thanks.

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is great. Thank you. Glad, I could help.

[vampiric-mcd.livejournal.com]

love you for this

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sharvie_/]

Came over be a link from fanbot.

That was wonderful! Completely easy to understand. Sticking it in my memories.

[moimoietmoi.livejournal.com]

Thank thank you thank you! I'm a newbie on LJ and your tutorial really helps! Excellent idea!

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

I'm new to LJ and I followed a link to your instruction manual. THANK YOU SO MUCH! You've answered so many questions that have had me stymied. I really appreciate your taking the time to create this guide.

[druffine.livejournal.com]

I am glad you found this useful. If you have any other question, feel free to ask. Thanks for leaving a comment.

[virtualpersonal.livejournal.com]

Great tutorial, easy to understand and straight to the point. As a non-techy, I highly appreciate your having taken the time to explain this :)

[tnmisery.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this! sockmonkey up there led me over here and man, is it helpful for a computer moron like me. :)

[thedabara-cds.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the incredibly helpful guide! And your icon is yummy.

[she-couldfly.livejournal.com]

question:
how do i make it so only one entry will show up at a time on my page = /
thnx in advance<3

[fearless5555.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this...the LJ page was sooo confusing for me as I'm a newbie...you made it LJ cut tags for dummies...thanks again.

[kateyes085.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you so much! I have been trying to figure out the coding and was having a hell of a time. This is so much easier than the LJ page. Thanks again!

[redrayne717.livejournal.com]

I. Love. You.

I have tried to use the tutorials from LJ, and while I don't usually consider myself to be mentally-deficient, the tutorials certainly make me feel as though I am. This is very helpful, tells me exactly what I want to know. I've referenced this many times (saved it in my memories, even), and just realized today I never thanked you.

So...Thank You!

[tabaqui]

Hey, this is awesome - good on you for putting all this out there!

I don't ever put in line breaks - don't need them. Also - you might tell your readers to take the ' 's out or the code won't work - that they're their for the purpose of showing the code only.

Might also mention that the lj-cut tag *does not* show in preview mode, which made *me* think, ages ago when i was new to all this, that the lj-cut wasn't *working*, when it actually was.
:)

[druffine.livejournal.com]

Hey, hm, the first sentence in BLOCKLETTERS doesn't seem enough, hm? I'm gonna go make it even bigger. LOL

Oh and yeah, you told me before that the cut doesn't show up, I always wanted to add that. Will do now.

Thanks for the hints. Going off to edit now.

[phase58.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the above info. I might have a little more success now.

[druffine.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you find this entry still helpful. With LJ offered Rich Text Formating most is superfluous but it's nice to know the basic html-commands when writing comments.

Thank you very much for your comment!

[imaginationhope.livejournal.com]

OMG This is like the kamasutra to LJ XXDD!!!!!! LOL, thanks so much for the help!!!

[bkrave.livejournal.com]

Thanks this helps a lot!!! just wondering is there a tag that will stretch a word out??