Since Shinobi has started blogging on his Dark Age blog, I thought a brief How-To introduction to Blogging in Boardgamecafe.net will be useful.

Note: For those gamers who are keen to contribute their own experiences and knowledge in gaming (which shall cover boardgames, miniatures and CCGs), send me an email to request for your own blog.

EDITING BLOG ENTRY

Post tab
This is the main input form for your blog entry. You have a RTF input box in which you can type your blog entry supported with various HTML formatting options including images and hyperlink support.

For those with HTML knowledge, you can actually drop in a full HTML-formatted page (including tables) into this input box via the HTML tab (located near the bottom of the page next to the Design tab).

Post Attachements tab
Depending on whether you are given the privilege to upload attachments, you can use this tab to upload one attachement to this blog entry.

Video tab
Our Blog engine supports inline video inserted into your blog and autoplays when user reads your blog. However due to the space and bandwidth requirements (read: cost), this feature is only likely to be available to the Mods of this portal or to paid bloggers.

Options tab
This tab allows you to customize your blog entry;

• Excerpt - Allows you to enter your own short description for this blog, which shall be displayd in the Blog Home page. If no Excerpt is entered, the system will take the 1st 200 words of your blog entry as excerpt. 
   
• Categories - selects the categories for your blog entry. Each entry can belong to multiple categories. Categories are very useful to group your blog entries for easy reference by visitors.
   
• Name - to replace the PostID used when referring to your blog
   
• Post Date - you can backdate or future-date your blog entries; useful when you are entering backdated blogs or inputing blogs ahead of time for eg. typing a whole month's worth of weekly blog entries in one sitting.

Advanced Options tab
More options for the experienced blogger to control your blog entries.

• Is this Post Published? - If you wisd to keep your post as Draft (unpublished), you set this option to No. In Draft mode, your blog is not published to the portal and only viewable by yourself. Very useful when you are working on a long blog.
    
• Allow Replies/Comments - Determines whether you allow users to provide feedback/comment.
   
• Comment Moderation - Allows you to determine whether you want to moderate comments before they are being published.
   
• Email Feedback Notifications - You can use this option to have comment/feedback emailed to you when they are submitted
   
• Enable Trackbacks - To support trackbacks.. ar... slight technical stuff. Click here to learn more.
   
• Enable Ratings - Allows registered users of this portal to rate your blog
   
• Publish to my aggregrate list - By default all your blog entries are published to your Blog's Homepage. You may use this option to choose not to have your entries published on your homepage. Your blog entry is still accessible by its direct URL link.
   
• Publish to my site's aggregrate list - By default your blog entries are published to the home page of this portal (under the Frontpage News section). You can use this option to choose not to have this post published on the site's frontpage.
   
• Syndicate Excerpt - Use this option to control whether the entire content of this blog or just the excerpt is syndicated. Click here to learn more about web syndication.

Preview tab
You can preview how your blog entry looks before posting them.

Happy Blogging!