Site updates - an update - Sister Toldjah

Hi everyone,

FYI, I’ve uploaded a few plugins to the site this weekend to help make it more user friendly for both you and me. You’ll notice that there is a new toolbar in the comments section. Some of the features are the same as the old one, but a few have been added, like the blockquote, dictionary, and footnotes buttons. For those unfamiliar with how to use any of those buttons, here’s a quick tutorial:

1. Blockquote: For example, if you want to quote someone’s comment and post a response to it, copy and paste it into the textbox as you normally would, then highlight the entire comment with your cursor. Then click the blockquote button. Compose your response below the quote, and when you post it you will see the other person’s comments spaced over towards the middle of your post, with your response aligned left underneath it.

2. Dictionary: If you’re unsure of the meaning or spelling of a word, once you type it, highlight it with your cursor and then hit the dictionary button. The meaning should pop up in a new window and if it’s not spelled correctly, possible words which match closely to the incorrectly spelled word will be provided. I tried to install a spellcheck option for comments (as well as my admin toolbar) but it was too complicated.

3. Footnotes: This is a neat button I’m just now getting familiar with. Say for example you type something but you don’t necessarily have a link to back it up. Once you type it, click on the footnotes button and you will see a little box appear that asks you to type your footnote. Type whatever your footnote is (for example – “I read this in a magazine but I can’t recall the magazine”). Then click ok. Here’s an example of how it will look once you hit the post button:

It’s Saturday night. ¹

Neat, eh? Clicking on that little “1” takes you to the footnote. However, the footnote shows up right below your original sentence, but I think to make them show up at the end of your post rather than right below your original sentence, copy and move them to the end once your done composing your post. I’ll recopy them here just to double check. Updated to add: I copied and pasted the footnote to the end of this post, and it worked fine. Clicking on the “back” link takes people back to the original sentence.

I also made the textbox where you type your comments a little bigger. A lot of us here write comments that were a lot longer than that little box and I figured having a textbox that was a little bigger would help on the scrolling a little bit. Also, remember that as you’re typing your message, your preview is being shown right below the box under the “say it” button. Some of your formatting may not show up, but your text should. You can use that to preview before you post to check for spelling and/or formatting errors.

I uploaded a blogroll update plugin that installed successfully but is not working. I would really like to get it to where my Word Press blogroll shows when blogs are updated (when I used the Blogrolling service, I had it formatted to show when blogs updated with an asterick beside the blog). I’ve emailed the plugin creator to see if he can help out with this so for the time being that plugin is in limbo.

Outside of that, I added some things to my admin panel that have made my job much easier in terms of managing spam, and just the overall user friendliness of the admin panel.

If you have any issues posting or viewing the blog since I added these new plugins, please let me know via email. Feel free to use this post as an new toolbar test post if you like Any questions, let me know.