FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

General

Technical

Wordpress Specific Questions

General Questions

How do I request a new blog?

The first time you log in to the service an empty blog is created for you at http://blog.uta.edu/~netid/wp-admin/. To have any other blogs, you must first have logged in. You may request additional blogs by contacting the OIT Computing Helpdesk. Additional blogs are available for individuals, departments, courses, special groups.

What is a “blog”?

“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles or other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more eclectic, presenting links to all manner of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.

Generally speaking (though there are exceptions), blogs tend to have a few things in common:

  • A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories.
  • An archive of older articles.
  • A way for people to leave comments about the articles.
  • A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a “blogroll”.
  • One or more “feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files.

Some blogs may have additional features beyond these.

How long will my blog remain available?

Your blog will remain active as long as you are affiliated with the university and update your site. Blogs which have not been updated will be removed after 1 year of inactivity.

Are there any space restrictions?

It’s conceivable that your blog may hold thousands of posts. The actual number of posts, comments, and pages that your blog may contain is highly dependent on their content — specifically the use of attachments / uploaded media files. There is no hard limit on the number of posts or comments that you may have.

Your blog may use up to 10MiB of space for attachments / uploaded media files, with an individual file size limit of 3MiB. We encourage the use of links to external sites for media files (including images and video). Your MavSpace account is ideally suited for this purpose.

Acceptable uploaded file types include: jpg jpeg png gif mp3 mov avi wmv midi mid pdf doc xml

As with other services offered by the university, blogs which disproportionatly use resources may be limited, deactivated or removed.

Can I request more more space for my blog?

Your blog may only use 10MiB for attachments / uploaded media files, with an individual file size limit of 3MiB. This is a global limit and cannot be modified on a per-user basis. You are free to link your attachments (including images and videos) from other web sites. Your MavSpace account is ideally suited for this purpose.

Can blogs have multiple authors?

You can have an unlimited number of authors/users on your blog. Authors must be registered blog users, which means they must meet the requirements for obtaining a blog.

You may assign different roles to each user on your blog (including editor, admin, and author).

Technical Questions

How can I make my blog visible to only UT Arlington Faculty/Staff/Students?

You can make your blog visible to only UT Arlington Faculty/Staff/Students by enabling the Registered Only plugin from the plugins page.

How can I make my blog visible only to specific users / groups / classes?

In short, you cannot. You can make your blog only visible to UT Arlington Faculty/Staff/Students as outlined in the previous question, but there is not currently a way to restrict a blog to a select group of internal users. We will be working to add this functionality in the future.

You can, however, grant access to an UT Arlington netid as an administer, editor, contributor, author, or subscriber to your blog. They must have logged into Maverick Blogs at least once in order to be visible to the blogging software.

Blogs can also now be restricted on the post-level by enabling the “User Permissions” plugin. Once this plugin is enabled, an additional section, “Permissions,” will appear in the Writing/Editing screen. Simply check the boxes of the roles that you wish to allow read and/or write access to. This plugin can be used in conjunction with the beta group plugin, as outlined in the next paragraph, to only give students enrolled in a course (or another directory group) the ability to read the post on the blog. Users without a role on the blog (Administrator, Contributor, Subscriber, etc.) will simply not see the post when they view the blog.

Additionally, we have a beta program where a directory group (a specific course offering or a departmental group) can be added with one of these roles. In this case it is not necessary to have all of the users login prior to adding permissions for them. An administrator of the Maverick Blogs system will need to complete this request. Please contact the OIT Computing Helpdesk for assistance.

How do I manage content on my blog using a blogging tool?

There are many blogging tools available for managing your content. WordPress supports the following APIs:

  • Blogger
  • MetaWeblog
  • Movable Type
  • WordPress

The server URL will depend on your blog’s name and is in the format:

https://blog.uta.edu/blogname/xmlrpc.php

How do I change the tagline from “Just another Maverick Blogs weblog” to something else?

The tagline can be changed through the ‘Options’ tab for your blog. If it is for a blog other than your primary blog (i.e. for a class blog and not your personal blog) make sure that you have selected the correct blog from the drop down box in the upper left hand corner of the admin screen. The option page can be accessed directly at (where blogname is the name of your blog):
http://blog.uta.edu/blogname/wp-admin/options-general.php

Wordpress Specific Questions

General How-To

How do I add a link to the RSS feeds for my blog to the sidebar?

There are two methods for adding an RSS feed link to your sidebar.

  • Enable the “Feeds Widget” in the Plugins tab. Go to “Presentation”->”Widgets” and drag the “Feeds” widget to the location in the sidebar that you desire. Click on the upper right corner of the “Feeds” widget to open the configuration dialog. Enter a title of your choice and choose either http:// or feed://. For the RSS icon, enter http://blog.uta.edu/wp-includes/images/rss.png. This will display the available feeds for your blog in a list style under the title that you chose.

  • Go to “Presentation”->”Widgets” and drag a text widget where you would like it to appear on the sidebar. Click on the upper right corner of the “Text #” widget to open the configuration dialog. Optionally, enter a title in the top text box. In the bottom text box, enter:
    <a href=”http://blog.uta.edu/~netid/feed/”><img src=”http://blog.uta.edu/wp-includes/images/rss.png” />Text to Display Describing Your Feed</a>
    Using this method will require you to add an additional link for each individual feed you wish to add (i.e. comments, main feed, etc.).

How do I add another user to my blog so that they can create posts/administer the blog?

To add a user to your blog, simply go to the “Users” section of the dashboard. At the bottom of the page, enter the netid or e-mail address of the user that you wish to add. The netid being added must have logged into Maverick Blogs at least once in order to be visible to the blogging software. Select the role that you wish for them to have on your blog and select the “Add User” button. You can find information about roles here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

Themes

I really like a theme that’s not listed. Can I add a theme?

Contact the OIT Computing Helpdesk with a link for the theme you would like installed. Note that we may may need to modify your theme for it to comply with our web publishing guidelines. Additionally, some theme features may not work in Wordpress-MU. An administrator of the Maverick Blogs service will need to complete this request.

Can I change the header image on my theme ?

We can not allow you to change the theme header image for a given theme because it will change the image for everyone that uses that theme. However, we have added the “K2″ theme which allows you to add a custom header image as well as change the Blogname/Tagline text color or hide it. We will attempt to add more themes that offer this functionality, but addition of these themes requires modifying them for Wordpress-MU.

Can I have custom CSS on my site?

Currently we do not support custom (or inline) CSS on Maverick Blogs. We are currently working to add this functionality in the near future.

Plugins

I really like a plugin that’s not listed. Can I add a plugin?

The Maverick Blogs service uses Wordpress-MU. While most normal Wordpress plugins will work without any modification at all, some that modify core tables or create tables of their own in the database might have difficulties. Contact the OIT Computing Helpdesk with a link for the plugin that you would like installed. An administrator of the Maverick Blogs service will need to complete this request.

I want to add YouTube videos, but when I add the embed tag wordpress strips it out. How can I add a video?

Wordpress filters tags and tag attributes for security reasons. In order to add a YouTube video, you will need to first enable the YouTube plugin. Then, you can add a video to a post or page by adding [youtube video_id].

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