DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Background:
A previous thread discussed the presentation of tutorials and how best to present them on UHH. The way they are usually presented is that someone writes a tutorial in a new thread. The thread is then open for others to comment on. This was in response to a tutorial which was presented in the Post-Processing Digital Images section. The tutorial described a method of doing some particular postprocessing action. A number of comments were made describing alternative ways to do portions of the procedure outlined by the tutorial. (I was guilty of at least one such comment). There were further comments complaining that presenting alternative methods provided some confusion and detracted from the value of the tutorial. A separate thread discussed ways to avoid the confusion.

As part of that discussion I suggested separating the tutorial from the discussion. One way to do that would be for the author to start a thread with the tutorial, the moderator would then lock the thread and the author would start another thread for the discussion. I felt this was cumbersome, and placed a burden on the moderator to lock the initial thread in a timely fashion. My suggestion was to use a personal page for the tutorial. The author would then start a thread that gave an introduction to what (s)he planned to present, then provided a link to the tutorial page.

The personal page, or user page, has some advantages over using a normal thread for presenting a tutorial. First of all, it is not a thread, so readers cannot add comments to it, thereby avoiding the possibility of confusion by presentation of alternative methods. Second, a personal page can be edited by the author at any time, not restricted to the first hour, as with a normal thread. That means that if the author considers a suggestion in the discussion worthy of adding to the tutorial, it can be done. Even years later.

Another comment was that a PDF could be used to present a tutorial. The advantage to a PDF is that it can be prepared on a word processor. That allows all sorts of formatting that is not readily available in a UHH thread, including font sizes and font faces as well as placing images within text. The disadvantage that I see in using a PDF is that it is presented as an attachment in a thread. That means that after an hour, that attachment can't be changed (without the assistance of the moderator, anyway, which adds an additional burden on the moderator). After thinking about it a bit, I realized that the PDF could be placed on another website. That would allow the author to change it within the limits of changing the file on the other website. To do that, the author has to have the ability to place a file on some publicly available website and also the ability to change it later.

It is my opinion that the UHH personal page would be the best solution. Since there were a number of comments that people did not know how to use personal pages I wrote a short tutorial on how to create a personal page. That raised further questions about the use of images within the personal page, since the normal UHH image attaching procedure is not available on a personal page. So I had to write a tutorial on attaching images to a personal page. When all was said and done I wound up with a pile of tutorials, which I present here.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


How to create a user page Presents the basics of creating a user page. Covers entering text only.

Formatting text using UHH tags Presents the basics of how to use UHH BBCode tags to format text and add other elements to a post.

Formatting text beyond UHH tags How to do fancy fonts.

How to add images within text in a UHH post Adding images in the flow of text rather than placing them at the bottom of the post. This applies to posts within threads as well as personal pages. It requires that the author have an image available on a publicly accessible secure website other than UHH. I use my own website, but for those without their own website I present a way to use images stored on flickr.com and link them to UHH. flickr has a free account available.

How to get a url from a 500px image This is a way to find a url for an image on 500px, an image sharing site similar to flickr, but which uses a different way of linking. 500px also has a free account available.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Thank you so much for this comprehensive set of instructions, Dirtfarmer! There are several UHH features that folks may be unaware of, and could use to advantage.

Just to be clear, User pages are not private! A member's entire list is linked in the same profile area where you can find their topics and comments history. Click on either DirtFarmer's or my user name, and scroll to "User pages/List" to see

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Excellent research, dirtfarmer! It seems that Linda has awakened a renewed interest in tutorials and learning, to which many others have also contributed.

Thanks to all!

Andy

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Appreciate your support, Andy. Like all the volunteer-moderated sections, we're a tiny drop in the overall UHH bucket of activity

Crichmond Loc: Loveland, CO

Great tutorial DirtFarmer!

Great job!

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Show-off 😄

Crichmond Loc: Loveland, CO

I like to play! That's how I learn.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I think it's always good to be in danger of learning something new.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

PS: for those out there who are interested in preparing a tutorial by this method note that at the upper left is a number. That is the date the tutorial was written (I write dates in the format YYYYMMDD because it sorts numerically and chronologically the same).

If/When I make a revision, I will note it in that space.

Bill Gordon

Dirt farmer my knees. This was as well - written and presented an essay as one is likely to see anywhere. Great job in pursuing the various threads of your thinking and experience. Thanks for taking the time. Where were you when I needed to hire more technical writers for my teams?

Crichmond Loc: Loveland, CO

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

That depends on when you needed the writers.
Been doing a lot of different things in a lot of different places at a lot of different times.

Bill Gordon

Ditto in spades.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

One

OK is what you are saying is that I can post a thread using some HTML coding, but not all coding will work? Or can I do a complete entry in HTML.

Two

There seems to be all sorts of things than can be accomplished within UHH: Personal Pages, Individual searches and other things most of us don't even know exist. Is there a list somewhere of these hidden functions?