Tips for new users coming from other platforms

[vriddy]

I was recently asking about Dreamwidth tips for new users on my journal, and this community was suggested to me in the replies! Here to my first post in a DW community. I am wondering, what little tips and tricks do you have that make for a more comfortable experience? The kind of tips that wouldn't be obvious for someone coming from another of the modern platforms.

For example, I only recently discovered the "Track this" option to keep an eye on post with thriving/interesting discussions in the comments without necessarily getting emails for it. Love how this lets me participate in conversations for longer, or get a notice if it was e.g. a request for recs and someone replies later.

Thank you!

Comments

[misbegotten]

You can link to another user or community by putting an @ in front of their username. @ + vriddy = vriddy.

Cuts (hiding text in your post) are really useful if you have a long post or want to hide a spoiler in your text. You can find out more about creating a cut here. Note that if you click on the little triangle next to a cut, you can view the cut text without it loading a new page, which it does if you click on the cut itself.

Subscribing to your own journal means you see your posts on your circle feed and are able to spot formatting or HTML errors right away! I've found that very handy. It also helps me keep track of what entries by other people on my feed are new since I last posted.

[raine]

One of the ways I've found new communities and people to follow has been through the "Network" tab.
Also: subscribing to a community is not the same function as joining it. DW allows you to separate those functions - for example, I might want to check out a community before I join it so subscribing is step 1 and I might never go to step 2 (join), and that's totally OK.

[azurelunatic]

https://www.dreamwidth.org/feeds/ is good for subscribing to off-Dreamwidth stuff (if it has a feed, sometimes they don't).

[azurelunatic]

I prefer the new create entries page over the old, even though it doesn't have a rich text editor yet; the way to use the new one is to turn it on in the beta testing page: https://www.dreamwidth.org/beta

[yourlibrarian]

One thing that occurred to me is that people may not know about ways to view content on DW, which is to say that they can make it all either look like their own layout (helpful when people decide to create poor contrast layouts and tiny type in their posts) or in a simple black on white view.

Just go to https://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

then pick one in the dropdown:
"Entry Pages: Shown to You When viewing entry pages (including yours), use this style:"

As it happens, this year I got a small TV to use as a monitor and I had to switch as many of my usual sites to dark mode as possible. That includes DW which has one at the bottom of that page.

[feast_of_regrets]

Here is a rundown of free vs paid accounts, if you're curious what the differences are. The Network and increased number of icons are the big things, if you're into icons, although someday I plan to need those extra tags too.

Speaking of which, nested tagging is a thing, making it possible to organize your tagging system into neat components on your tag list if you're into that. (I am.) For instance, if I tag fandom: mcu: iron man on my post, "iron man" will show as the tag link under a heading called MCU, which in turn is under a heading called fandom. That way I can keep all my fandom tags corralled together on my tag list, and also all my MCU tags corralled within fandom if I so desire, but "fandom" and "mcu" won't become linked tags unless you also post an entry tagged just "fandom" or just "fandom: mcu" - also if you tag something just "mcu" it will get a new separate tag outside the nested fandom heading. (This is just an example; I don't have anything nested inside my MCU tag at the moment. But I do have "fandom: mcu" so if you want to see it feel free to stop by.) I hope that's not all terribly explained; I saw the thing about nested tags in a Tumblr post years ago now and it made no sense to me, but now that I have the hang of it I really like it.

Also if all you have in a tag are private entries, that tag isn't visible to the public, so that's nice too.

Also also! Tag editing is really easy if you need to rename a tag or merge two different tags that end up being pretty much the same thing. Just click on your tag link and then on "manage tags" at the bottom. AND you can set your journal to show all your tags on the taglist in your default journal view in your journal style settings "customize your theme" (along with some other fun settings). (YES I love my tags and YES I AM tired of Tumblr eating them, why do you ask?)