Class Site FAQ

In this space, I’m going to try to answer a few general questions about the functionality of the WordPress site we’re using for our course. This FAQ will be evolving, and I’ll keep adding to it throughout the semester as new needs arise.

In the comments:

The comments (on posts) aren’t really designed to accommodate media, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add pictures or other media to the comments. Most of the time, you’ll be asked to do this in actual blog posts (where it’s much easier to do), but should you want to add an image to one of your comments, you have to learn a bit of HTML.

Text/Font Changes

To manipulate text (to make it bold, italicized, underlined), you need only surround the text with the appropriate tags. For example:

  • <b>bold</b> = bold
  • <i>italics</i> = italics
  • <u>underline</u> = underline

Inserting Images

This is easy, but things get tougher when you want to include media. Embedding an image isn’t hard, but there are a few prerequisites (at least for comments);

  1. The image must already be online. Since you’re embedding, not uploading, you’re merely pointing out to the site where it can find the image at the present moment. Our site won’t be housing that image; it will be pulling it from its actual location. So, you can’t direct the site to pull from your own computer.
  2. The image can’t be behind any kind of password protected site (such as Facebook, Myspace, etc.). Our site isn’t going to have the password to log into a site like that and get images from it.
  3. You must have the URL (web address) of the image itself, NOT of the page that the image resides on. How do you know? Check the address bar of your browser. If it ends in the extension .jpg, you’re golden. If not, it won’t work.

So. Now you’ve satisfied all the requirements. What you need is the proper HTML tag to imbed an image. That tag is: <img src=”http://whateverthewebaddressoftheimageisgoeshere.jpg”>

If I wanted to upload a picture of Marcel Proust (remember this from earlier?), I would put in this code:

<img src=”http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/2/23/MarcelProust.jpg”>

And I would get this:

Keep in mind: some images are really large, and could totally screw up the page design, so if you post one of these, it’s probably best to delete it. I can send you specific instructions as to how you can resize pictures if you need it.

Embedding videos

Embedding videos from YouTube, Google Video, MySpaceTV, Comedy Central, etc. is actually quite easy. If you look on the page where these videos appear, you’ll find an “embed” link that has an HTML tag that begins with <object…>. Copy that tag (the whole tag), place it in the comment box and you’re all set.

When you get started on writing your own posts, this will all be much, much easier!