Author: Craig Stone

The Tools section allows for a few important options; the first option is Turbo, which is an option for speeding up the performance of your blog through Google Gears. For more information about this option go here.

There is also the Import sub-section that allows you to import your work from a wide array of other services like WordPress.com, Blogger, LiveJournal, Drupal, etc. — pretty much anything with an RSS feed. NOTE: WHEN I GO TO IMPORT MENU, WORDPRESS IS ONLY OPTION.

The Export sub-section allows you to download the contents of your blog to an XML file that can then be imported to another blog, using several services like WordPress.com, Blogger, or your own hosted site/blog using an application like Drupal or WordPress.

Import Users
The “Import Users” tool is the quickest and easiest way to add multiple students to your class blog.

• Under the “Tools” menu, click “Import Users.” This will take you to a page that says “Import Users Deluxe 2!”



• Paste a list of the Baruch email addresses for your students into the field on that page (faculty members can download an eRoster with student email addresses here). The list must be in the following format, using Baruch emails:



• Select the appropriate user role from the drop down menu
• Click “Import Users”

The page will then give you a report of accounts created and accounts added to the blog. Please copy that report and save for your files in case there are any problems.

Each of your students will receive an email to their Baruch email account with their username, password, a link to your blog, and a link to their BuddyPress profile page (and a nudge to fill it out). Speaking of which, if you haven’t filled out your profile, please do so!

Blog administrators can use this section to add other users to their blogs and control the level of permissions granted to those users.

Once you add a user by putting their email in the appropriate field, an email will be automatically sent to them asking if they want to accept the invitation. Keep in mind that a user must be a member of Blogs@Baruch already for them to be added to your blog. Once an invited user accepts the invitation, they will show up as a user within your blog with the permissions you specified. Read more about what the different user levels (editor, author, subscriber, etc.) can do here.

The Users -> Your Profile sub-section is where you edit your own profile, such as changing your nickname, changing your password, adding your IM address, and various other personalized options. Here, you can enter your full name and a nickname, choose how you want to be identified when you publish to the blog, add contact information, and change your password.

Publishing Under an Alias
In the Your Profile page, you can also change how your name will appear on the blog.

• Scroll down to the Name section.
• In the Nickname field, replace your full name with your desired alias.
• Then, when you expand the Display name publicly as dropdown menu, you should see your new alias available. Select it, then click the blue Update Profile button at the bottom of the page.

The Appearance section is where you control the overall look and feel of your blog/website.

Themes
If you go to the Appearance section, you will see a number of images that highlight different themes you can use for your blog.

Click on any of the over 100+ themes available for a preview of what your site will look like with this theme. If you like it, click Activate in the upper right-hand corner, or close the preview by clicking the X in the left-hand corner and preview another. Once you’ve selected the new theme, click on “Visit site” next to your blog title at the top of the admin screen to see how you like the new look.

Widgets
If your theme allows Widgets, you will see a “Widgets” link in the menu under appearance. Widgets allow you to alter what appears in the sidebars and footers of your blog.

WordPress widgets are content elements that can be added to the sidebar of your blog or website. For example, there are widgets that include Delicious bookmarks, Flickr photos, etc. Depending on the theme, you can also further customize the look and feel of your blog/website. Some themes allow you to add a custom image header and other features.

By default, your right side bar will have items such as Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives and Categories. These sections will automatically populate as people begin posting and commenting on your blog. However, you may also find it useful to add other widgets to the sidebar, which you can do simply by dragging items from the “Available Widgets” box over to the “Primary Widget Area” box on the right side. You can also change the order that the widgets appear by dragging and dropping within the “Primary Widget Area” box.

Some widgets that you might find especially useful:

• Authors – This widget gives a list of all the authors who are registered on the blog. It also allows you to quickly click on an author to see all of that author’s posts. This is useful if you have a class in which each student will post many items and you’d like to get a snapshot of an individual student’s work.
• Links – Displays the items you’ve entered in the Links section.
• Tag Cloud – Shows the tags that have been attached to posts on the blog, with more frequently-used tags appearing larger.
• Text – This allows you to plug in any text or HTML code that you’d like to appear in the sidebar.

Menus
Most themes place all of your pages in your blog’s top menu by default, but custom menus allow you to override the default top menu settings of the blog or create secondary navigation sections that you can place in the sidebar with Widgets. You can create menus that will link to any page, post, category, tag, or outside link that you’d like.

These options can be found by clicking the Menus link under Appearance.

Start by giving your menu a name in the “Menu Name” field. Then use the Custom Links, Pages and Categories boxes to create new menu items.

• Custom Links – This option allows you to create a link to anything on the web. Simply paste the URL from any web page into the “URL” field, then use the “Label” field to give a short designator that will show up in the actual menu, and click the Add to Menu button. You can also use this box to create links to specific posts from your blog, or to all the posts that fall under a specific tag. Just navigate to the item on your blog, copy the URL and paste it in like you would for an external link.
• Pages – Use the checkboxes to select any page that you’ve created on your blog, and then click the Add to Menu button. The full title of the page will show up in the menu, so you may want to keep your page titles short. (You can also use the “Custom Links” option as a workaround.)
• Categories – Use the checkboxes to select any category that you’ve added to your blog, then click the Add to Menu button. The title of the category will automatically show up in the menu.

IMPORTANT: Whenever you’re done editing a menu, be sure to click the blue Save Menu button or else your changes will not be saved.

Once you’re done, you can replace the top menu on your blog with your new custom menu by using the “Primary Navigation” dropdown menu in Theme Locations box in the top left corner of the page. You can also go to Widgets and drag your custom menus into any of the available widget locations.

The Comments tab is where you can manage, moderate, or delete any comments you receive on your blog.

To establish the settings for Comments, you need to go to the Settings -> Discussion area. This is where all of the settings for commenting are controlled, including turning off comments or requiring the user to log in before commenting.

Pages are similar to Posts, but they exist outside the chronology of the blog. These tend to be used for syllabi, “About Us” statements, class procedures, or an annotated list of suggested readings.

Some themes will automatically display pages in the menu bar at the top of the home page, while others allow custom menus that you can edit in Settings -> Menus. You can then place these custom menus in the Widgets section.

You can also create a Page that will act as your static homepage, rather than having your homepage display the most recent blog posts. To do this, go to Settings and click the “Reading” link. The first option says “Front page dislays” and gives you options for “Your latest posts” or “A static page.” Click the button for “A static page” and select a Page that you’ve created from the “Front page” dropdown menu.

The Links section is where you can add new links to other blogs and manage existing links that will show up in a predetermined space on the blog, depending on your theme:

To add a new link, click on the Add New sub-section and enter the appropriate information in the following three fields: link name, web address and description. Also, you can categorize your links by simply adding a new category in the categories section, or by choosing an existing category. You can also manage these categories in the Link Categories sub-section. Once you have added links and categorized them, they can then be added to your sidebar using the Links widget in the Appearance –> Widgets section. (Read more about Appearance options here.)