How to Post Articles

So you have an amazing idea for an article and want to share it with the Squad. Here’s how to go about it.

@feenwager Good question. We could do some sort of communal liveblog using a Page and the comments system… though I’m not sure if that updates live like the main page.

Anyone got any thoughts?

I approve with all the approval I have of the changes to the site. It’s kind of amazing what WordPress themes let you do.

Any thoughts of adding anything for E3 related zaniness this year?

EDIT: False alarm. Five goddamn days of very spotty internet connections have thrown things into chaos it seems. Carry on.

@rocgaude Invigorating! Great work, man!

EDIT: After WIMP, I mean, this kind of netizen deftness is where the bar has been set.

Pete!

Go to your site’s dashboard.
Navigate to Appearance → Extras.
Check the box next to “Show falling snow on this blog.”
Click the Update Extras button.

Please!

@mjpilon I used GIMP, mainly because it was free and worked on a mac, but that seemed to do the trick. What are you trying to do in photoshop?

@zegolf At least your attempt for a new avatar was successful. Photoshop really doesn’t cooperate when you’ve never used it before :p

Thought I’d play around with a new avatar. Ideally, I’d like the name to be a bit bigger, but I guess you can’t win them all.

@rothdog: I believe you failed to post a picture, there.

For anyone who has had issues posting pictures, due to some weird WordPress quirk you have to do it like this:

Click the “Upload/Insert” button with the picture frame.
Click Select Files and choose your picture to upload.
Scroll down beneath the picture info and choose Save All Changes.
Click Media Library.
Click “Show” next to the picture you just uploaded.
Scroll down beneath the picture info, choose the options for it and press Insert Into Post.

In normal WordPress pages, Insert into Post should be there without having to do the Media Library nonsense. But for some reason it isn’t here.

Alternatively, if your image is hosted somewhere else, you can just insert it using standard HTML.

@beige @angryjedi We should be able to easily export the page, store it on the Squad server, and host it from there. That way, we can do all kinds of hawt shit with it.

@beige: As it stands, not much. We can change the background colour, choose what goes in the sidebar and change the header image. That’s it. For $14.97 (I think) per year we can have full access to the CSS for custom pimpage. I don’t know how much of the appearance is CSS and how much is WordPress PHP trickery, though.

I’ll make you an admin and you can have a look. I think you can play with the CSS and preview it without having to pay, just not make the changes stick on the main site.

EDIT: You’re now an admin. http://squadronofshame.wordpress.com/wp-admin

Posting this from Safari on my iPhone. Nice work, Pete!

@feenwager: Good! It stays for now then. I know it’s not perfect as – OMG U HAS TO LOOK AT THE SECOND POST TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS NEW OMG – but it does the job.

Also, I sense you are going to be the official custodian of the “Thatswhatshesaid” tag.

I dig the sticky. Makes it easier.

Posting from iPhone. Is this thing on?

EDIT: Success! You can now log in/register from the mobile page thanks to the sticky post. Perhaps not the most elegant solution in the world but it works.

Clarification: The post titled “Welcome to the Squawkbox” should always be the first post when you first arrive at the page now. That means mobile users can use the login link there, since the sidebar doesn’t appear on mobile devices. I’m just going to test this now.

Yeah, not having any luck trying to access it through the mobile app.

It’s readable on the iPhone, but not great. I can’t access it at all through the mobile app. It works just fine on the iPad.

@angryjedi: I’ll install the app and see if I can post something. I did check it out today on iPhone and it doesn’t look too bad. A bit of banner cropping in portrait view, but otherwise readable. Didn’t have access to the squawkbox via the browser, though…no sign-in option, either.

@feenwager: Ahh dammit. Oh well! Not a lot we can do about it then, I don’t think. I haven’t actually tried it from a mobile device – does it at least work, even if it doesn’t look pretty?

No can do, Pete.

Test post from WordPress for iPhone app. Can someone else try this too to see if you need to actually own this blog to contribute to it?

EDIT: I can certainly post from it. If others can too, that could be a suitable workaround solution for the P2 theme’s not-great mobile variant.

@feenwager: Oh, stop moaning, you old curmudgeon. Red’s was easy to fix. I did have a go at yours but realised it would involve manually adding everyone to the database which I was far too drunk and full of kebab to do.

As @Chris Whittington says, if you’d like your name and avatar in lights in the sidebar, let us know your email address that you use for WordPress and we can add you. Unfortunately there’s not a way to do it automatically so far as I can make out.

I’ll throw my hat in the “likes ‘em big” ring, as well.

I also noticed that there are four different user types: Contributer, Author, Administrator and Editor. I wonder what each one of them does?

Feen likes ‘em big, I see.

For the record, I agree with him. I guess that means…nothing, really.

I like the bigger one.

For purposes of seeing what they look like, I’ve placed both “Author” widgets on the right bar. Put it to a vote?

I’m totally for what Zach mentioned, by the way.

Attention: For those of you who want to be a “contributer”, let either me, Zach, or Pete know what email address you’re using for your WordPress account and we can add ya.

@feenwager @angryjedi I think our best bet might be to make each person that posts a “Contributer” and use the Author Avatar widget. Kinda defeats the purpose of having this be open to anyone, but we’d just have to stay on top of it.

Just a thought.

Hey everybody.

Here’s the situation on the mobile theme. This WordPress theme (known as “P2″, should you want to use it for any of your own projects) has its own mobile theme built into it that overrides WPTouch. Unfortunately, it’s not very good. Automattic claim to be “working on it”, but that was some time ago.

In the meantime, as @zegolf says, you should be able to use a WordPress app to contribute mobile-ly.

@redredswirl depending on what mobile device you’re trying to post from, they should have an app. Android has one, and I’m fairly certain the iPhone does as well. I was able to link the Android app to this blog and post, edit and maintain from that. Sadly, the plugin associated with the theme doesn’t really turn it into a “mobile” website in the presence of a mobile browser. I guess you can’t win them all.

@beige So I haven’t left Texas yet. Are you saying you recommend actively seeking and completing the stranger missions?

@zegolf Nah, you can’t install new plugins on wordpress.com sites, unfortunately.

@angryjedi if there are options to install plugins, you could always try another mobile plugin like WordPress Mobile Edition – http://crowdfavorite.com/wordpress/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/