After specifying where to store your blog locally, Thingamablog creates the necessary files and directories in the directory you selected. In this directory you will find the following subdirectories...
The General tab of the Blog Properties Dialog includes the following options:
Blog Title – The title of the current blog
Blog Description – The blog’s description
Date Format – The date format for generated blog pages
Time Format – The time format for generated blog pages
Main page filename – The filename for the main blog page. This will be the front page that includes the current entries.
Generate RSS – Optionally generates an RSS 1.0 file for syndication of your blog.
Write Oldest Entries first – If this is checked, blog entries are written in reverse order, with newest entries appearing at the bottom end of the page
Limit main page entries – If this is checked, the number of entries on the main page are limited to the number parameter. Otherwise, all current entries are written.
Base Date – Entries before this date won’t be included in the archives.
Archive Type – Select how to divide your archive pages (Monthly, Weekly, Day Interval)
Day Interval – If you selected a "Day Interval" archive type, this value specifies how many days a particular archive page encompasses.
Index page filename – This is the filename of the Archive Index Page
Archive List Format – The format for the list of archive pages.
Archive List Order – Generate archive lists either ascending or descending
The Categories tab allows you to add, remove, and rename your blog’s categories. Renaming, or removing a category effects the entries that belong to it. For instance, if you remove a category, that category is also removed from all entries that belong to it.
You can also limit the number of entries each category pages contains.
The Authors tab allows you to add, remove, or edit Authors that belong to your blog. This works similar to the Category tab.
FTP Server – This is the address of your ftp server… e.g. ftp.yourserver.com
Port – The FTP port… typically 21
Login – your login
Password – your password
Save password – If this isn’t checked, you’ll be prompted for your password each time you publish
Passive Mode – Toggle between active and passive mode for ftp transfers
The following options pertain to the location of the blog.
Blog FTP Path – This is where your blog is stored on the FTP server. It should be the ABSOLUTE path to the directory where you store your files on the FTP server… eg. /public_html/user/blog
Base Blog URL – This is the base url of the blog eg. http://www.yoursite.com/blog/
Archives Base URL – The base directory of the blog archives. This URL must include the Base Blog URL above. eg http://www.yoursite.com/blog/archives
Media Base URL – The base directory for any media relating to the blog such as images. This URL must include the Blog Base URL eg… http://www.yoursite.com/blog/images
To avoid any confusion, always use the ABSOLUTE path to your public web directory. For instance, on earthlink.net's FTP server, the path to the user's html directory is /webdocs, etc.
To define a new service, click the "Add" button and supply the Service Name (It can be anything you like) and the url to ping. For instance, to ping weblogs.com, enter "Weblogs.com" in the Service Name field and the url http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2 in the Ping URL field.
To enable or disable a service, click the checkbox next to the service name. When a service is disabled, it won't be pinged when you publish your changes
To create a new entry to your blog, simply select New Entry from the Blogmenu. An entry editor appears. From the entry editor you can specify a title, author, and categories for the entry. In addition, there are various HTML formatting features you can use to edit the body of the entry.
To insert an image into your entry, select Insert/Image…
from the menu bar. The Image Dialog appears. If you want to insert a
local image, you’ll need to click the "upload local image"
button on the Image Dialog to select and upload an image. This will
upload the image to the Base Media URL that you specified in
the Blog Properties.
You can also edit existing entries. To do so, double click an entry in the entry list. An entry editor dialog appears. Edit your entry and click the Update button to save the changes. Entries that have been edited will have a modified date. The modified date may or may not appear on the generated blog pages depending on how your template lays out the blog.
After you’ve finished editing your entry, you can post/update it by clicking the Post/Update button on the entry editor tool bar. You can also save an entry as a draft by clicking the Save as Draft button. Drafts won’t appear on the blog pages.
Once you've posted or edited entries, publish the changes to the
blog by clicking the Publish button. Thingamablog uploads the
changed pages of your blog to the ftp server you specified on the FTP
tab and pings the services you defined on the Pinging tab of the Blog Properties dialog.
If you want to republish the entire blog to the server click the Publish
all button. Conversely, if you only want to publish the current
entries, click the Publish current button.