vakkotaur

Many already know, but not everyone. Thus this.

One of the best things a person can do for themselves is write up LiveJournal entries, at least the lengthier ones, in a text editor (such as NotePad) and copy the text into LJ. That way if something goes wrong, it goes wrong with the copy and the original can be saved and posted later when LJ is behaving itself again - without having to re-type it all.

This is inside an "lj-cut" which allows things to be a bit out of the way. It's recommended for longer posts, or posts with pictures, or just stuff you might want to warn some folks about so they know what they're getting into, Here's how it's done:

<lj-cut text="In no particular order...">

"Hidden" text goes here.

</lj-cut>

And here is where non-hidden text resumes.

If nothing else, it will be appreciated if this is done for quiz results. Often the graphics for them load painfully slowly, if at all, and it slows everything down. If that's behind a cut, it only gets slow when someone is more likely to be expecting it.

That dividing line is just an html horizontal rule, done by: <hr>

It might be more useful to some if a listed LJ username is a link. That is, rather than simply say Vakkotaur, one might prefer vakkotaur. How it's done: <lj user="vakkotaur">

Something not immediately obvious is that such a link is really two links. The name is a link to my journal (or to whoever's journal) entries. The tiny graphic in front of the name is a link to the user information (interests, friends, friend-of, and such).

Another thing that isn't obvious is that the default icon, if any, on the user information page is a link. Clicking on this link leads to a page showing all the icons for that user.

LiveJournal, being on the web, uses HTML. This means that some characters might not be displayed as expected. Most of the time this is not a problem. For things with < and > it can be a problem. Something as simple as <Vakkotaur> would seem to disappear. So how did it just display? A bit of substitution:

<Vakkotaur> Oh, and & is how to display & without it triggering the substitution.

There is a way to get a mood listed that isn't in the list and still have a little mood graphic with it. Rather than just use the "none/other" choice, select the mood with the graphic desired and then type in the mood in the "other" field. The result will use that graphic with the typed word.

I've almost certainly left out a few things. Most likely someone will post a followup about them.