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Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML, and CSS
tip
You can contract directly with SixApart to have one of their experts install the package on your server if you’re so inclined. You have to share your account password with them, however, so be careful; that might violate the account usage policy of your ISP.
Configuring a weblog Both hosted and software solutions use the same basic model for configuration: You pick a template for your site from a range of possibilities and then do either a small amount or a ton of fine-tuning to complete things to your liking. Configuration is really where you’ll spend lots of time. And I do mean lots of time. I probably spent upwards of 100 hours tweaking and fiddling with the various components of my weblog before I could finally move to another project. When I redesign my site, I’m sure I’ll once more find the MTtemplates to be a veritable black hole. The configuration time varies significantly based on how much you want to have your weblog look like your existing site (and/or want it to not look like everyone else’s weblog). If you just use a predefined template, inevitably other sites on the Web may have the same column design, color scheme, type treatment, and so on. If that’s okay with you, you can almost completely sidestep configuration and move onto the fun part of blogging: writing entries and beginning to share your ideas, thoughts, and vision with others. If you are going to dig into the design, and you’re running Movable Type, learn about the many templates the software uses. Figure 13-5 shows the basic administrative interface for my Intuitive Life weblog. Again, other systems have similar configuration menus. From a configuration perspective, the buttons on the left are the most important. Start with WEBLOG CONFIG to ensure that the basics of your weblog name, archiving policy, whether you allow people to add comments to your blogs, and similar settings are all set to your liking. Then define your categories with CATEGORIES and finally move into the central design area, TEMPLATES.
caution
Think twice about allowing people to add comments to your weblog. In the last year or so blogspam, junk postings to weblogs that promote unrelated sites or busi nesses, has exploded. You can use some elegant solutions that you can learn more about from the blog vendors, but you should anticipate that this could be a problem as your site gets more popular.
Like many modern software systems, Movable Type is built atop a set of templates, essentially HTML pages with lots of CSS sprinkled in, and a special scripting language that says “insert new entry title here,” “insert entry here,” “link to archived articles here,” and so on. These are a bit tricky to learn, but the good news is that many bloggers (as people who maintain weblogs are called) never touch any of the scripting code and just focus instead on fine-tuning the templates to get the look and feel they want. Figure 13-6 shows the list of the main templates, including the two RSS feed templates, which I discuss a bit later in this chapter. For now, focus on the main templates. The RSS material isn’t directly read by humans so you won’t have to touch it.