We encourage you to link back to your own website. Log into your account, go to the left hand column of the dashboard and look for the tab marked “users” open it and go to “your profile”

Go down to the box marked “Biographical Info” and write a biography for yourself (in 3rd person!) and link to your website from there. Your bio and links will then be included at the top of your category archive page and at the bottom of each of your posts. You may also include your contact email, a small logo, or further details.

Passwords and lost passwords: Go to the log in and click “lost your password?” Enter in your username or the email address associated with your account. Check your email, and follow the instructions sent to you (don’t forget to change your password to something secure as well as easy for you to remember.)

Questions? Please do NOT email or skype me unless you absolutely need to know right now (in which case skype is going to get a much faster response.) All comments are emailed to me anyway– so please leave a comment on this or the most revelent post pertaining to your question.

Use the button below to skype me.

Remember to click the “add custom field button” and update the post in order to save.

Otherwise the theme will choose the first image in your post (or displayed in the gallery) as the default image for the post.

features gallery

The scrolly thing is actually called the features gallery, which is very cool but unfortunately there’s a conflict with the javascript for lightbox, so for the time being the lightbox feature has been deactivated.

Remember how not so long ago we had to do custom fields in order to show thumbnail images on the first page?

The features gallery chooses images from a set category or tag (so fill in those relevant tags guys!) And we choose which category or tag will be featured– so you have to be ready and do a custom field so that your image (and post) will show up in all it’s glory on the home page of MMM.

Go to your post in edit mode, open your gallery (by clicking on the “Add an image” button next to the words “Upload/Insert”, and going to the gallery tab.) Choose the photo most representative of your post, copy the file path, and close the gallery box (no need to save your changes yet.)

Scroll down to where we add our custom field and choose “Feature Image” from the drop down menu, in the value field paste your file path, and then click the “Add custom field” button, save the changes to your post (”update post” button to the right of the text editor.)

And that is all you need to do.

Remember, all this may seem a little confusing to you now, but after a few posts it’ll be second nature.

Bios and authors pages are now automatically created. If you do not have a gravatar (aka Globally Recognized Avatar) one will be provided for you automatically (in the form of a silly cartoon monster.) If you’d like to maintain your dignity go get a gravatar and use your own image or logo, don’t worry, it’s free and relatively painless. Be sure to use the same email address as your account at MMM.

You’ll also need to log in at MMM, go to your user profile and fill in your bio. Write in the 3rd person, brag shamelessly and revel in the glory of your fans.

Another change is that you no longer need to use the custom field in order for your images to have a thumbnail display on the front page (or elsewhere.) However, remember that only jpg files are converted to all sizes, if you are using any other file format you’ll still need to make your thumbnails manually and then upload them.

Video posts can now be featured on the front page (without significant drama) as well as in the sidebars.

Don’t forget to set the alignment (your choices are none, left, center, right) make sure to “link to image”, save changes, and then insert the image into the post.

When readers click your image it will open up in lightbox (the background of the page will appear shaded and your image will open up full sized over the center of the page.)

The advantage (or drawback) is that images opened in the lightbox are more difficult to right click and save. Please note, more difficult, slightly more difficult. Very slightly.

Consider yourself warned.** Edit: 01/03/2009 Lightbox is disabled

Now gallery does not have a light box feature. Please do not complain to me that the light box is not working when you use the gallery feature, a lot of thought and consideration has gone into this arrangement and it’s a good functional compromise. If it’s really important to you that your gallery images open in a light box, then it should be important enough for you to take the time to add each image into the editor and arrange them as you like.

To use gallery click the “add an image” button (top of the text box), upload your images, and go to the gallery tab– it’s pretty intuitive from there.

**01/01/2009 ETA: All it takes to bypass the javascript for the light box speed clicking (refreshing and right-clicking the page before js has a chance to load in the browser) or simply using a browser that has javascript disabled.

This tutorial will show you how to change that default setting so that clicking the button will open the image independant of the page at full size.

It’s very simple, in the editor upload your image(s) in the normal way. *The uploader now works on the default so you do not need to choose between the html and flash uploader any more.*

Go to the gallery view, where it says “Link thumbnails to:” tick the box that says “image file” then click the button that says “update gallery settings”

If you forget to do this, and hit publish, you can always go back and edit your gallery in order to make the necessary changes. Just remember to save your changes and update the page when you’re done.

A: When editing a post, scroll down below the editing box and open the custom fields; enter “Thumbnail” (case sensitive, and it should already be in the dropdown menu, if not type it in) and in the values field put the full address of the image thumbnail. Click the add custom field button and do enter “Thumbnail Full” (case sensitive, this should also be in the dropdown menu, if not type it in) and in the values field put the same url as you did in the first (don’t put the full sized image in unless it’s 150×150– certain doom if you do– or at least you’ll screw up the index page and be very embarrassed.) No longer relevant, post updated 01/01/2009

Q: My pictures aren’t being resized to thumbnails what’s wrong?

A: Only full color .jpg are reliably resized. Delete the files that you uploaded. Open them in your favorite image program and export them into .jpg format and upload them again *or* manually resize your images into thumbnails and full sized images, then tinker with the html so that the thumbnails are displayed in the post, but when clicked link to the full sized image.

Q:I’m using IE and (fill in your problem here)– what should I do?

A: Install Mozilla Firefox and join us in the paradise that is websurfing

Q:What if I have a question that isn’t covered here?

A:Leave a comment at the bottom of this page with your question in it, and I’ll post an answer here.

Log in and go to Write>Post or Write>Page. When using the visual editor you can add media at any time, at this time you may add images or flv (flash) movies (scroll over the buttons at the top of the box) click on the appropriate box to add images, video, audio, or media respectively.

The flash uploader is by default the first choice offered, if you are using Flash version 9 or older it should work properly, Flash version 10 does not work. This issue should be resolved with the next release of WP (if its not removed completely) but until then bear with me and select the browser uploader option. Resolved with the 2.7 upgrade.

Next you’ll want to browse to the folder on your computer and select your image or images. Click the upload button.

You may choose to upload all of your images into the gallery at one time, or you may upload as you are writing and insert images as you go. The choice is yours.

You may also choose to add a gallery into your post by choosing the gallery tab, and selecting the “insert gallery” button.

The gallery will then be displayed as:

Any of the thumbnails may be clicked for convenient embiggening.

Note that the pictures of the text editor are now outdated, and remain for amusement purposes only. Page last updated 12/31/2008