Popular Nostalgia

In this page you will find help on:

• Registering;
• Changing Your Password;
• Making Comments;
• Writing Posts, including:
  • Getting Started;
  • Writing a Post;
  • The Title;
  • The Post (including all the options available in the text editor);
  • Uploading Images;
  • Adding Video;
  • Categories;
  • Publish your Post;
  • Things to Remember.

Registering

Registering on Popular-Nostalia.com couldn’t be simpler. All you have to do is click on the register button at the right hand side of any page, near the top, and tell us your email address and the username you’d like to use.

Your password will be emailed to the email address you have given us, so make sure it is correct.

You’ll then receive an email straight away with your membership details. This email will also contain a link to the sign in page and you can click it to go straight there. Otherwise, just click the “login” button at the right hand side of any page.

On the login page, you should enter the username you chose, and the password that was sent to you (it will be a random mixture of letters and numbers). You can copy and paste this password from the email if you like (TIP highlight the password in the email and press CTRL C to copy it – then when you are at the login page put the curser into the password box and press CTRL V to paste it!).

If you’ve got these details correct, you will be taken to the blue “dashboard” area where you can change your personal details and profile.

Changing your Password and Profile

To change your profile, personal details and password, simply click on the “Profile” tab which is near the top of the page, or the “My profile” tab at the very top right-hand side.

This will take you to the “Your Profile” screen. Here you can enter as many or few details as you like.

Make sure that your email address is current, so that you can retrieve your password if you lose or forget it.

You don’t have to enter your real name if you don’t want to.

You can put whatever you like into the “about yourself” details. These will display when another member or guest clicks on your name next to a comment or post you have written.

You can update your password here too – simply enter it in both boxes.

Once you are done making changes, be sure to click the “Update Profile” button to save the new settings and you’re done!

To get back to the site after logging in, simply click on the “View Site” button at the top of the page.

Making Comments

You have to be registered and logged in to post comments.

When you make your first comment, one of our moderators or administrators will have to approve it before it goes onto the site. This is to prevent spam or abusive comments from making their way in as far as possible.

To make a comment on any post, click on the “view comments” button at the bottom, or just scroll down if you are already viewing the full post. If you are logged in, you will find a white box where you can add your comments.

Try to keep your comment relevant to the item you’re discussing – if you want to talk about something else, make your own new post!

Write Your Own Posts

To write posts we must first have upgraded your membership status to that of “author.” There are two ways that you can achieve this:

1. Write several good comments – we ask all good contributors if they’d like to be authors in their own right!
2. Visit http://www.popular-nostalgia.com/write-for-us/ and fill out the simple form. Once approved, we’ll upgrade your membership and send you an email.

Once you have been approved as an author and notified, simply read on below to find out how to write great posts about the things you love from your past!

Getting Started With Writing

As you were already a member, you should already be familiar with updating your profile and the general operation of the member’s area of the popular-nostalgia.com site. However, you may not know how to write a post of your own, or how to add cool pictures and videos, or links to posts correctly; or how to categorise your posts. Find out how here:

Writing a Post

Once you have logged in to the site and have arrived at the admin panel, you should see the “write a post” quick link near the top of the “Dashboard” page. Click that link. You can also click on the “Write” tab in the menu at the top, which will take you to the same page.

This will take you to our text based writing editor.

Here you get to write your own posts. There are a number of different boxes and things that you will need to become familiar with, but don’t panic, they are all explained here. We’ll start at the beginning.

The Title

In the “Title” box, sensibly enough, you should enter the title of your post. For example, if you are going to write about “Friends” the TV show, your would put simply “Friends” into this box. If, however, you were going to write about a particular episode of friends, you should put the title of that episode in with the word “Friends episode –“ at the beginning.

Keep your title short and sweet. Don’t add any other words here, except for what it is, or the year, if relevant.

The Post

Here is where you get to have fun!

The post area is much the same as your normal word processor. Just write away in here. There are a couple of things to be aware of though:

1. Only press “Return” once to start a new paragraph;
2. You should not copy and paste directly from Microsoft Word or other word processor, as it will insert extra lines and formatting which won’t work properly, though you can copy and paste from Notepad.

There are several options that you can choose from for formatting your post, here is a quick rundown:

• Bold – makes text appear in bold – either click it and start typing, or highlight the text you want to appear bold and press the B button once;
• Italics – makes text appear in italics - either click it and start typing, or highlight the text you want to appear in italics and press the B button once;
• Underline – puts a line under selected text;
• Strikethrough – puts a line through selected text;
• Hyperlink – allows you to link selected text to another webpage – you can use this to link to other pages within the popular-nostalgia.com website by entering the full URL of the page in the box within the pop up window that opens when you click this symbol. If you wish to link to a third party website, be sure to select “opens page in a new window” and make sure it is obvious that the link is to another website (i.e. by calling it by the URL in text – e.g. “www.google.com”);
• The Anchor symbol allows you to insert “anchor” links – you may use these if you like, but should be familiar with anchor links to do so – otherwise, you will probably not need to!
• Image – this button allows you to insert images from elsewhere on the internet. To do this you should enter the full URL of the picture you’d like to insert (i.e. not just the page it is contained within, but a page that ends in .jpeg, .jpg, or .gif – image files) you can leave the rest of the boxes as they are if you like, however, if you’d like your text to flow around the picture you have inserted, simply align the picture to the “left” or “right”. Otherwise, the text will begin after the image. You can also drag the corners of the image to resize it. Have a play around until you are confident!
• The More Tag – this is good for long posts – when you write a post, this shows how much you’d like to display as a summary (anyone who reads it will see “click here to read more” where you put the more tag).
• Subscript and Superscript – these are pretty self explanatory, and you can use them for dates or mathematical formula… as if you would.
• Text colour – you can change the colour of the text to add a bit of colour to all our lives. Try to change it to a colour which is fairly easy to read!
• Background Colour – you can also change the colour of the background of your post if you like.
• Insert Custom Character – sometimes we need to put a sign in that isn’t on our keyboard – use this button to do so.
• Embed Flash – Use this button to embed flash animations into your post.
• Embed Media Links – use this button to add videos from YouTube or Google – or any other online media site, which will add to your post.
• Format – you can choose the style of certain bits of your post – use this for headings etc.
• Bullets – use this to insert a bullet point list
• Numbers – use this to insert a numbered list
• Indent / Blockquote – use this to indent selected text – this will display in quotation marks when the post is published, so it is best for direct quotes.
• Align – use these four buttons to align left, right, centre or justify your test. Ordinary left alignment will usually suffice.
• Undo / Redo – undoes and redoes any changes you have made
• Spell checker – check your spelling – stop those silly mistakes!
• Help – if you have any problems, click this button, it is much more comprehensive than this guide, and will pop up without disturbing your writing.

Upload a File - Images

If you want to add a picture of your own, you’ll need to upload it. Simply Browse to it on your computer, and click the upload button. Once it is available, you’ll get a number of options to use. Place the cursor in the text box where you’d like the image to appear and click “send to editor”. Your image will magically appear in there!

Again, you can resize this image to fit correctly.

To make the text flow around the image, click on it, and press the “left align” button.

Adding Videos from YouTube

One of the most fun things you can do on Popular-nostalgia.com is add videos of your favourite memories from other sites like YouTube who allow you to embed video. This is really simple:

1. In a new window of your browser, find the video you want on YouTube and copy the link for it - from the bit where it says “Embed”;
2. Go to the Text editor of popular-nostalgia.com and press the Embed Video (‘A’) symbol;
3. Enter the link details and press ok.

That’s it! It is that simple. You can do this with most other video sites as well.

Categories

This is the only other thing that you need to worry about before pressing the “Publish” button – select each category that applies from our huge list. For example, if you’re talking about the TV show “Friends” you would select “TV Shows” “US & Canada” “UK & Ireland” “1990s” “2000s” etc. Once you’ve ticked them all, you’re done, and ready to publish!

Publish Your Post

Press the Publish button. It is published. View the site to check it is there. When you are looking at any post you have written, you may click the “edit” button to make any changes and add to your post whenever you are signed in to the popular-nostalgia site.

Things to Remember

• Save your post if it is long! There’s nothing worse than your computer breaking half way through a long post.
• Be sure to select all relevant categories – but don’t put it in the wrong place.
• Practice makes perfect – if you’re not happy, change your post. Keep trying, and it will get better!
• Ask us for help – leave a comment at the bottom of these help pages and we’ll be sure to help you as much as we can! We want you to be able to write, and we want everyone to see the solution we give!