Jun 03 2008
Posting a Playlist
Start by login into the site as described in the login howto. Once you are on the dashboard, click on Write a new Post
near the top-right of the page:
The browser should now show a page similar to this:
Next, enter the post’s title. This should be the name of your show and, ideally, you should make it consistent across all playlists you’ll continue to post in the future. If your show is named “Super Fabulous” then always use “Super Fabulous”. Please avoid changing to “The Super Fabulous Show” or “Superiorsly Fabulously” after that - stick to a name. You don’t have to add the date as it will be indicated by the post’s date which you will set shortly:
If you’d like to add a description, it’s best to do it now so type it in the text area:
Now it’s time to enter your playlist. You do not have to have each track numbered but it will make things much easier if you have each track in its own line and formatted in the way you want to present it. Alternatively, you can type it all by hand into the post’s text area. Just be sure to use correct spelling for the artist, track and any other data you’d like to add (album, length, etc.). We recommend you copy and paste the text to an application that saves plain text files (e.g.: Notepad under Windows or TextEdit under Mac OS). If you don’t do this step, additional formatting might be included in your post when you transfer the text to WordPress. Here’s a sample playlist in TextEdit:
Next, use your mouse or keyboard to select all text in the editor. Then copy the text using the menu or keyboard shortcut and paste it into the wordpress text area:
Now, in the text area, use the mouse or keyboard to select only the playlist (don’t select the description above):
If you want to list your playlist as a numbered list, look for the ordered-list button in the formatting toolbar above the text area. It’ll look like this:
Click the button. Your selected text will should now be shown as a numbered list:
There may be times where only a 1. will appear in front of the first track. This happens when the editor can’t identify the newlines in the pasted text. In this case, place the cursor at the beginning of each line (starting with the second) and hit the ENTER (or RETURN) key. The number should appear in front as soon as you do that. Move the cursor down to the next line and repeat.
(If instead of a numbered list you prefer to have a bulleted list (shown as lines with a left-to-right arrow), use the bulleted list button.)
Now it’s time to tag your playlist. The tag will be used to narrow down results on the playlist page when someone only wants playlists for a specific show. For this reason, it is very important to choose a tag and use it consistently as was the case with the post’s title. Also, choose something that is not too long since it has to fit within the sidebar. Here, I’ll use music mosaic for the show “Music Mosaic”.
Once you enter the text, click on Add or the tag won’t be added to the playlist (on subsequent playlists, wordpress will automatically suggest previously used tags as you start typing them so that should help in remembering what you’ve used in the past). Wordpress will indicate once the tag’s been assigned to the post:
Next up, categorize the post as a playlist. You’ll find the category section further down on the page. Just click on the Playlist category:
Almost done now. You just need to set the post’s date to match the air date of your program. To do this, look for the text “Publish Immediately” on the right side, above the Save and Publish buttons:
Click on the Edit link to see the date-editing fields and modify them. For this example, I’ll set the post’s date to 02/25/2008. You can set the time to match your air time as well if you’d like but it is not as important:
You’re now ready to publish your playlist. Click the Publish button.
The wordpress editor will now show a link on the top that you can click to view the post as it is now shown on the site. Click the link to view it and you should see your playlist by itself:
If you notice any errors (here, for example, I accidentally selected the Reference category as well as Playlist), you can edit the post at any time by clicking on the Edit This link under the post’s title.
This will take you back to the wordpress editor where you can make your changes. Once done, make sure you click on Save or your changes will be lost.