How easy is it to create and update a blog on the B&C? (Blog owners only)

[Brother Tyler]

Please reply in this discussion only if you either have your own B&C blog or you have your own external blog (and if the latter, please include a link to it).

 

This is a transcript of the replies to the title question that we received from various members in the PM. This transcript is provided for continuing discussion and background, especially as additional members join the club and participate in the effort to improve the Blogs feature.

 

@Mr Farson

1. I find it pretty easy creating blog entries and uploading images.

 

@The Yncarne

It's pretty easy to create and update blogs here.

 

@Wormwoods

Seconding everything @Mr Farson has said, really.

 

@Brother Nathan

as some others have noted i quite like the layout of the actual blog posts and ease of putting them together.

 

@firestorm40k

1. I really like the blog feature, and creating blog posts has some neat facilities (such as categories and being able to link to your galleries) that are very useful. I'd say the only issue is that it can be easy to 'lose' your blog one the blogs home page when others have added entries to their blogs, pushing it from the front page. To get round that I leave a tab with my blog open for when I need it.

 

@Bouargh

It is quite easy to use on a computer. Yet I gave up trying to use it on mobile as I am not that able with touch screens...

 

@ZeroWolf

1. I found it quite easy to set up and create new posts. It's like making an extended forum post.

 

@GreenScorpion

Hi I think I agree with most points, the blog setup is quite simple and easy to use especially when compared with blog platforms outside of this forum.

 

@Kaede45

I’ve been enjoying the blogs as a means for me to write down my ideas & put them in a public space where I can get feedback & critiques to better flesh out my ideas.

 

@Harrowmaster

I find that it is very easy to create a blog and maintain it (from a technical standpoint).

 

@W.A.Rorie

1- The creation and updating is easy. I had other blogs via blogspot and I feel that B&C is easier to use at it also host my photos in my albums and that their are individuals that do read and react to the blogs, so I am aware it is giving traffic. 

 

@apologist

1 – Easy to set up, and fairly easy to update. The main sticking point for me is remembering where to find it! I'm sure there's a better way of bookmarking it than my current method of clicking on 'blogs' at the top, then scrolling through each page in turn until I find it. I appreciate the fact that creating a new entry appears very familiar to normal posting elsewhere on the forum.

 

@drakheart

1. I found it really easy to use, no issues there.

 

@Xenith

It was quite easy, things are laid out well and the blog creation process was simple. Though I have created and run a few blogs in other places. I can't speak for someone new to it. 

 

@zulu.tango

• Incredibly easy

 

@Mike Zulu

Easy enough. There are some nuisances with formatting, but most not unique to B&C (Blogger/Blogspot used to annoy me the same way. Some do require me to swap between IPS mode and B&C theme to double-check the formatting.

 

So the initial batch of feedback is unanimous in that users of the Blogs feature find it to be easy to set up and maintain blogs.

 

Subsequent participants may feel differently, however, or they may want to reinforce the conclusion, so replies are welcome.

Edited February 2 by Brother Tyler
Added a late PM response

[Ioldanach]

Thanks for inviting me into the club!

 

I have found the process of creating and updating my blog and blog entries to be very easy. Creating/composing a blog entry is virtually identical to creating/composing a discussion topic/reply, so there was no real learning curve aside from one thing.

 

One element of the blog entries that was new to me was the image that appears at the top of each entry. It wasn't difficult to come up with images, but it often required me to edit existing images from my articles. I finally figured out that I should take a screenshot of a blog entry to get the right dimensions, deciding upon 1288 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. If I used a smaller image, the system automatically stretched it and I couldn't really control which portion of the image displayed. By having an image prepared, I was able to exercise a bit more control. This is something that I would have loved to have known when I first started working on blog entries, though it wasn't difficult to figure out and it didn't really hamper my efforts much.

 

For what it's worth, aside from my introduction entry, I've been using my blog to consolidate all of my old DIYs. I haven't yet reached the point where I'm creating truly new stuff, but I hope to do that in the future. So I suspect my feedback will be a bit skewed because I'm not really looking for feedback or engagement at this point (not that I wouldn't love to get any, of course, but most of these posts received feedback from other members back when they were first posted in the forums).