Create and edit blog posts

Creating a new blog post 

If you have permissions to create a blog post in at least one category, you will have access to both Add post buttons:

And here:

Click either Add post to display the Add post screen:

Blog permissions are based on the categories associated with a blog post. If the blogs listed on the home page are filtered by a single category and the user does not have the right to create blog posts in this category, the Add post button will not be displayed.

The creation of each blog post involves three required steps, plus additional options that can be configured:

• Give the blog post a title

• Enter content in the main section

• Select at least one category. Only the categories for which the blog author has edit permissions will be visible, see Blog categories and permissions.

Click Save to save the new blog post.

In addition to those required steps, you have other options available:

• Tags - You can add one or more tags to your post, which will be then displayed in the tag cloud
• Attachments - Via the Attachments tab:

You can add attachments by browsing on your computer, or dragging and dropping the files. Click Save to save the documents to the post.

These can either be files that have already been added to the Files module of the site (or from another site), by using the Recent or Search tabs, or files the user chooses to upload from their computer, via the Upload tab.

Tasks can also be added to a file from the Files module: 

• Status - You can save your post as a Draft instead of publishing the post immediately

• Notifications - You can determine whether other site users will receive an email notification about the new post or any changes to it. The options available for notifications are:

The Settings tab:

• Header image - You can choose a header image for your blog post, which will be displayed both in the list of blogs and in the actual blog screen
• Author - Here you can change the author of the blog post, although you can only have one author
• Publish date - You can use this to pick an exact date and time that your post will be published:

• Allow comments - If the site administrator has configured the Blog module to allow comments, this setting will be displayed. It is left to the blog author to determine whether comments will be allowed for this post. This setting can be changed later by the author or an administrator.

Most activity in the Blog module, including creating, modifying and commenting on blogs, is included in the Activity module for the site and the Activity section of the dashboard.

Autosaving

As a precaution, blog posts are autosaved every minute while being drafted. If you attempt to cancel your post, you will receive the following message:

Where you can Save your post as a draft, or Discard it completely. If you accidentally navigate away from the post without saving, lose your internet connection or session, or your computer crashes, the last auto-saved version of the post will be available to the user on the Drafts page.

Approval workflow

If the site administrator has enabled the approval workflow for the Blog module, when a non-administrative user attempts to save or edit the blog post in any way, the approval of a site or content administrator must be obtained.

Blog categories and permissions

Blog categories serve two related purposes. First, categories make it easier to identify and navigate to blog posts related to the same subject. Categories can also be used to limit a user or groups access to certain blog posts by associating access rights with a category. For example, third parties may be prohibited from viewing any blog posts associated with the Internal category.

A site administrator can configure the categories for the Blog module and categories can be added, renamed and deleted. In addition, for each category a site administrator will determine which groups can access the category and what type of access rights to the category those groups will have: only View rights, or both Edit and View rights. A user in a group that has only View rights to a given category will be able to view and comment on blog posts in that category. A user in a group with Edit rights to a category will have all View rights and also will be able to create blog posts in that category.

A user cannot edit a blog post created by another user, even if that blog post is in a category to which the user has Edit rights. Only the original author or an administrator can edit a blog post.

If a blog post is assigned to more than one category, a user needs to only have access rights to one of those categories to view the post.

Editing and deleting blog posts

Only the original blog post author or a site or content administrator can edit (or delete) a blog post. 

The reason that only authors can edit or delete their own blog posts is due to the nature of blog posts. Unlike wikis, which are collaborative, blog posts are based on a more traditional publishing model of a single author and many readers.  

Edit Blog Post

To Edit a blog post, click More actions > Edit:

A page that is virtually identical to the create blog post form will be displayed. From here, you can:

• Change the title

• Edit the content area

• Add or remove attachments

• Add or remove tags

• Change the blog categories, which may impact which users can view the post

• Change the policy concerning comments. If the policy is changed from allowing to not allowing comments, any existing comments will be hidden and not deleted.

Once changes have been made, click Save.

Unlike wiki pages, prior versions of blog posts are not maintained. There is no way to compare two versions or restore a prior version.

When editing a post, the author can determine to save it as a Draft instead of publishing it immediately, and can also change notification settings for post updates. If the approval workflow has been enabled, any changes will need to be approved by an administrator.

Delete Blog Post

The author of a post, or an Administrator, can choose to delete a post entirely by clicking More actions > Delete:

Confirm that you want to delete the blog post:

Click Delete to permanently delete the blog post.