getting_started | Entries tagged with ~tutorials

Hi! I've made a Dreamwidth Starter Kit, which is a compilation of tutorials and links and various persuasive meta I've found about DW by clicking around a lot. I figured that with the recent massive move, it might be useful to have all these things in one place.

Also appreciating links to any tutorials/guides/etc. that I may have missed!

(Some links on the list are really old though and may be outdated - let me know.)

promethia_tenk

Hello all,

When LJ moved their servers to Russia, I wrote a post called How to Move to Dreamwidth and Like It with my accumulated advice and resources on making the switch and a heavy dollop of pep-talk and getting in the right frame of mind. Now with the Terms of Service debacle, it occurred to me that I should share it a little more widely than my circle.

When I wrote the post, I was operating under the assumption that most people would and should move in small stages, so the post is structured to support that. Now, I will admit that my basic advice has shifted to 'abandon ship as soon as possible,' but hopefully people still find it useful : )

Please feel free to share with anyone who you think could benefit.

esper

I recently did a tutorial on how to code simple tables for Dreamwidth, because the HTML used on this site is a little different from other journalling platforms, and someone pointed me here as a good place to link to it! Here's the tutorial, I hope it's helpful to someone.

soukup

I posted this How To for LJ refugees a long time ago, and it's only just occurred to me to share it here. It should be noted that my method is not without pitfalls -- flocked and members-only posts won't show up in your DW reading page, and entries that have cuts in them will show up there without cuts. Even so, though, I think it was well worth my while.

Here you go.

ninetydegrees

Important: this guide is outdated. I am no longer involved in this community so comments are disabled. You can make a new post or go to style_system if you have questions.

This is for LiveJournal users who would like to use Dreamwidth styles but are a little lost when it comes to finding one or customizing it. I hope you'll find it useful. Suggestions and corrections are welcome.

( Selection )( Customization )

jana

A few days ago I created a custom mood theme, but it took me a little while to figure out how to create a custom theme without having to copy & past hundreds of links... I'm probably not the only one experiencing this problem, so I thought I could share my newly acquired skills with other Dreamwidth:ers ^^

Read more here.

Current Mood: geeky

wychwood

There's been some discussion of how to set up mood themes here already, but I wrote up my notes on How To Make Your Custom Mood Theme in a comment on someone's journal, and I thought they might be worth sharing here as well:

Basically, you need to:

a) upload your images somewhere

b) copy the text block from here (all the lines of "moodtheme_setpic 1234 90 http://www.yourdomain.com/accomplished.jpg 100 60" etc) into a simple text editor such as Notepad

c) go to the console (the reference is here, if you wanted to look at it).

d) create your moodtheme with "moodtheme_create " - eg "moodtheme_create "SGA moodtheme" "SGA doodle moodtheme"" or whatever

e) find-and-replace:

www.yourdomain.com with whatever the actual path to your image files is

.jpg if your files are .png or .gif, etc

100 60 if your images are a size other than 100px by 60px

1234 with your actual theme number, as created in step c)

f) go back to the console and paste in the edited block of text

ta-da, instant moodtheme!

facetofcathy

I noticed the Icon creation tool--the page that comes up when you try to import a picture larger than 100x100 pixels--wasn't working. I ran into a note in a news post that it is a know issue, and it's being worked on.

In the interim, a tip for making Icons if you don't want to resize the image in another program:

If you have icon space on Livejournal or another similar service that makes 100x100 icons, or if you can temporarily delete one you alread have to make space, you can make the icon there and then copy the resulting URL of the new icon into Dreamwidth's Icon importer page in the From URL box. I've tried this and it works fine.

In Firefox you right-click on an image and select properties to view the URL, I think IE is the same.

sqrfruit

I just figured out how to post to DW from Flickr, and thought I'd share! Original helpful post here.

Log in to Flickr. Go to Your Account > Extending Flickr > Your Blogs (Edit) > Add A(nother) Blog

For LJ, there was a handy option in the drop-down for type of blog. For DW, select Blogger/API Enabled.

The API endpoint is www.dreamwidth.org/interface/blogger. You will also need to enter your DW username and password. Standard password sharing caution applies!

You will be given a drop-down menu with a list of blogs you have access to (including your own). Select your blog. Give your new post-to blog a name. Done!

You can also use this method to post to communities here and on LJ, and (in theory) other LJ based sites.

And now my question: Posting to DW this way (and via Semagic) does not trigger DW's cross-posting, even though I have cross-posting set to automatic. Posting from the DW site cross-posts successfully. Bug? Feature? Am I doing it wrong?

Current Mood: accomplished

zvi

If the usernames on your reading page have suddenly disappeared,

afuna has provided a fix to update your reading page and display usernames.

melannen

The ease of cross-site OpenID and importing journals from other sites is one of the coolest things about Dreamwidth, but not all the other sites are as seamless as DW, alas.

For example, Journalfen is one of the LJ clone site from which you can import to DW, but it does not have a functioning OpenID server. So it is difficult to actually use the openID JF accounts that the Dreamwidth importer creates. However you can still use a JF OpenID by using OpenID delegation. That is, link your JF page to an account that does have an OpenID server, and Dreamwidth will use that server to give you a JF OpenID. I've written a tutorial, intended for people who know nothing about what they're doing, that will walk you through setting up openID delegation for a Journalfen account. If you're interested in setting up an OpenID account for another personal blog or website, the notes at the beginning should also help you out.

In terms of DW, you will be able to use a delegated openID like any other openID account, and to claim and put an icon on imported comments originally made on that account, and eventually associate that account with your personal account. It will not affect your ability to use the OpenID account you delegated to (so, I delegated my JF openID to my LJ, but my LJ openID account still functions completely separately ~~and it counts as another openID account for invite code lottery purposes~~)

( The basics of OpenID delegation, and picking a server to delegate to. )

How To Delegate an OpenID on Journalfen
( The Easy Way: Using an S1 style. )
( The Hard Way: Using an S2 style )

And you should now be set! Thanks to

zvi and

stellar_dust for helping out with this. (And

afuna, an ancient S2 tutorial of whose let me finally figure out how I had to do this in S2.) If you have any questions about delegating, or you have problems working through this tutorial, leave a comment & someone will try to answer.

Current Mood: *thud*

grrliz

jennem and I have collaborated on a tutorial on how to install LiveJournal's Mixit themes on your Dreamwidth journal. Ironically, it's posted at LiveJournal so you'll have to head on over there to check it out. Hopefully this will help some people out!

(If you have questions, please post them over there as we're trying to keep all the questions in one place to avoid having to duplicate answers.)

holyschist

I posted a very quick-and-dirty tutorial for changing the colors in Negatives, if you find them painful:

http://holyschist.dreamwidth.org/2291.html

It's not a permanent or ideal fix, but it's pretty easy to implement and should hold you over until the official options are all active.

Hope it's helpful and reasonably clear--I'll try to rewrite it in the next few days, since apparently not everyone gets the same starting point I did.

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Getting Started with Dreamwidth

Entries tagged with ~tutorials

Link to: Dreamwidth Starter Kit

How to Move to Dreamwidth and Like it

Tutorial: tables

How to get your LJ friends' and communities' livejournal entries to show up on your DW reading list

Getting Started: Styles

How to create personal mood themes

How-To: Custom Mood Themes

Icon creation tool

Posting to DW from Flickr, and a Cross-posting Question

Core 1 Styles Users

Dreamwidth, OpenID delegation, and Journalfen

Tutorial: Installing Mixit Themes on Dreamwidth

Quick-and-dirty hack for changing colors in Negatives