* Write.freely blog - a guide for new users *
@angedestenebres made a nice and illustrated guide for new users of Write.freely blogs, but it's all in French.
Goal is to help people interested in using the write.freely instance at TeDomum.net — which has been my blog's home. This morning I took some time and translated her guide to English.
Now the page is on my blog: https://write.tedomum.net/rgx/write-freely-wiki-documentation
[ Repost of Release announcement, December 2019. ]
#WriteFreely #Blogs #NewUsers #Writers #Tools #QotoJournal worthy
@design_RG @angedestenebres
Thanks to both of you for this work. I was looking for such help to make the most of my blog...
So happy 😀!
Merci à vous 2 pour ce travail.
Je cherchais une aide de ce type pour tirer le meilleur de mon blog.
Super contente 😀 !
Ah, thank you so much, Coralie. The work is mostly Ange's -- she created a full and logical Guide which is sorely missing for Write.Freely.
I just posted at their own Mastodon server today, hopefully it will be seen and used. I am glad you liked it, I loved it too.
I could make another translation, to Portuguese, fairly easily as I am fluent in the language (and now I have the text from Ange's Wiki cleaned up and easily manipulated and copied to Translation software.)
Merci a vous. 😺
@design_RG @angedestenebres
Yes she did a great job!
I'm searching for ways to make the most of it and i posted a toot on it to @DavidBlue who does an amazing job on his blog. I think I'd need to learn more on CSS and JS to make my blog look great.
Of course the content is king and I do have major work to do on it for sure!!!
You are very welcome. 🐸
I just went and visited your profile here, and saw the link and followed to the Blog.
Will tell you one thing, and this is personal option, of course -- but I haven't touched the CSS controls or looked at the suggested pages they offer.
I find there's so much to do, with the provided framework and format, right off the box.
Always work on my PCs and laptops, and try to make it work really well - and then I was surprised by how nice the pages (default theme untouched) look on mobile device.
They look lovely, use the screen appropriately and I am afraid of touching something and breaking it. You need to make sure the finished pages look good in both PCs and mobiles, as so many people use mobile those days.
Things that were and are important to me :
* to have a functional and efficient tool set to work with, so it flows nicely. Got it, and I plan to write a guide for new users sometime, explaining those (text editor, image editor, image host and uploading tool, etc).
* to have a good working knowledge of MarkDown, which I absolutely love. I learned it just as I started my very first blog in December 2019.
Used the wonderful tutorial at https://markdowntutorial.com/ -- which is interactive, so you learn the concept, and type the code to see if you can match the example.
I have worked in Education for many years and this tutorial is Top Notch ,an amazing tool. Kudos!
* and then -- what to write, we need inspiration.
I am currently back on the Groove, after a dry spell, and publishing pretty frequently. I did also start a totally different, themed blog -- as my main one is heavily Tech and Fediverse oriented, and people would be confused if I started blending in other themed posts.
So -- a new one, focused, and whoever visits is there for that theme.
My personal goal is to create one page per day, doable, but for my Long Form style, that means hours of work, research and preparing to get it done.
Then, we have to spread the word -- in Fediverse, on Twitter, or any other network you find useful.
But you know what -- it's SO fulfilling, when I see and read my pages, I like and am proud of them. I am very picky and demanding of my own work (INTJ, no surprise). LOL...
Nice talking to you and to Devid.
Suggestion -- really consider finding a mastodon instance that allows more than 500 characters maximum. My post here is at about 2,400 atm, but our instance allows 65,500 max.
Writers like space... 😛
@design_RG @angedestenebres @DavidBlue
You may be right.
But if you look at what David did, he was able to implement nice things (pdfs, social network tabs, lines in the posts and down under, centering titles...)
But maybe I should apply permaculture principles and do more with what I have already.
Thanks for your kind advices.
And I will definitely look at other instances😉
@globcoco
You are very welcome, and I will look at David's blog if I have a chance.
Thing is, I am stretched pretty thin and writing is a priority. If I started developing new layouts it would take time and experimentation -- likely on a separate blog, so I don't mess up a nice going one. I have an account at wordsmith.social, and they allow up to 10 different blogs per user.
That is ideal for testing and posting things in separate streams, which I plan to do.
@globcoco
Oh, that is a good thing. 😃 We can use more than one account, and then you have a chance to use the better parts of one of another.
It will become easier as you get accustomed, and you can keep them both (or any others that you want to use) open in tabs on a web browser simultaneously.
To try one out, you don't need to move your current life completely there, but just start using it, and if you think it's nice, eventually start moving house. Your Following list can be exported from one place, and imported into another, and once you imported it, contacting all the people you know will be easier.
Just give it some time, learn as you go, but we should not get stuck in to a limited instance, just because it was your first home. (keeping the older account and exploring a bit for nice ones is a good idea)
Regarding wordsmith.social, I am glad you found out, I noticed your blog is at Write.as, but their free offer is very limited. They are a business, and it's understandable; luckily there's alternatives. 👍
If you were interested, Qoto, where I am writing from this message, is a good instance. Ange's home at TeDomum is a French speaking instance mainly, so maybe it could be interesting.
I would definitely suggest trying to find a Glitch-Social based instance -- I have accounts of 3 of them now, one of them becoming my new publishing home, and the full #MarkDown support there is such a difference. I really suffer when I am back to plain text here at Qoto, although the admin knows I need and will move for it. 😉
Long post
@design_RG @angedestenebres @DavidBlue
Yes maybe it is a good idea to have a look elsewhere before moving out (if I feel like it). I'm just afraid that people who follows don't find me if i'm scattered all over...
Sorry for my ignorance but what is a Glitch-Social based instance?
Nothing to be sorry for, Coralie -- I was a teacher for many years, and it might show. I love helping people and presenting information, lol.
Glitch-Social is a project that broke out of the Mastodon development project because they wanted to add more features and enhancements. And it's difficult on the main Mastodon branch, which is run pretty tightly under one lead developer control.
They got tired, packed up and left -- and created a 'fork' or a new project derived from the old one.
Glitch-Social is Mastodon, but it has added features, which they have developed, it's the Cutting Edge, the fancy kid on the block. Very nice features in comparison.
The docs for GS give you an idea of the features - https://glitch-soc.github.io/docs/
And if you want to consider one or two, I could recommend https://koyu.space/ and https://kafuka.me/
Koyu is larger, and has a lot of customizations added to it. Kafuka is a small intance, about 30 users, but well maintained and with nice features too.
Both run Glitch, so you could try it out to see.
Long post
@design_RG @angedestenebres @DavidBlue
I also like (in Pinafore) the focus mode it allows not showing more toot i can chew on. I can decide the time I see it on not.
Really great app!
Ah, you are a quick learner -- caught on really fast! There's lots you can do, and it works so well. A gem really.
@design_RG @angedestenebres @DavidBlue
You made me think about joining another instance. I hope I won't lose the nice chats I have with all mastodonters (new word?).
I didn't know about wordsmith.social. Now I do 😊