How-To: Write an Article (Updated 5/24/2011)

[Lummoxx]

Articles are here!

For easy access by category, there is a new menu block on the left side of the page, "ADKJ Articles".  As of this writing, there aren't any.  If you write one, feel free to post in General that you've posted an article.  At some point, I'll figure out a way to "advertise" them a bit better, too.

A simple way to describe the purpose is this...the forums are for discussions and information that is not intended to be "permanent".  Not that your forum thread won't be there...but it does get pushed off the first page of posts...and over time, into complete obscurity.

Articles, they're more permanent.  You write it, and it's going to always be in the same basic spot.  On the trail and want to tell someone how to find it?  It's a lot easier to remember to just tell them to hit the Member Builds category on the site, rather than having to search through the forums.

The basics:

All members of ADKJ can write an article.  Officers/BOD have the ability to do some management tasks.

On the right is your User panel.  See the links for writing an HTML article, BBC article, and the link to My Articles.  You can also get to those options from the TinyPortal menu item in the top menu.

Writing an article is no different than writing a forum post. and I suggest you use the "Write BBC article" option.  BBC is BBCode, the same code you use in forum posts.  Easy!  I do recommend that you spend a little time on it, format it nice, make sure images are sized nice (use the Gallery!).

If you have a build thread in the old forums, it's easy to get it into an article.  Select Write BBC Article, as shown above.  In another browser window or tab, go to the old forum build thread, and select the option to edit it.  You want the raw post, including the bbc code.  Right click anywhere in the edit box, Select All, then copy.  Go to your article tab/window, and paste it.  Save it.

Pretty sure you can preview your article.  Do so.  It should appear just like it did in the old forum, or it should be close.  At this point, you can mess with making it look prettier, or whatever.

There are some "gotchas"....because there always are.  I think, if you used the attachment feature on the thread, not sure how to get those over.  You want to use the bbc img tag, as documented in the Gallery how to here.

As always, shoot me a PM for help moving an article.  Pretty sure you can keep an article as not published while you work on it, so feel free to give it a shot, get started, and see what you come up with.