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A Starters Guide

by Cheeseminer

Please note that this page is for members who have been invited to join as contributing authors.

These pages are to guide you gently into the way of contributing to GRC.  I don't know of any Garden Railway site quite like this one, so do not be surprised if things are 'unfamiliar'.  Many of us met on forums* but this is very definitely not a forum, and that takes a bit of getting used to.  How no doubt, we have all made very messy mistakes - it's only that we 'originators' made them when no-one was watching.

* Yes, I know, I was going to type "fora" but too many would think I was talking about flowers :-)

The Mindset

Forget your preconceptions about forums; with topics and postings and stuff.  Also, those of you who speak to the Geek Gods of Html and Css, forget that this is a web site, for fear that you be drawn into dodgy assumptions.  Been there, done that.

Think, rather, that this is a magazine; one where the article pages are held in a loose-leaf folder.

You are the authors of those articles, with the mixed blessings of instant publication and unquestioned acceptance. To write an article, just open a page somewhere, and start writing (your name first, please).  remember this is a loose-leaf folder - you can start anywhere.  We'd recommend the "The Sidings" until you've got the hang of it.  When it's done, it's trivial to move your page to the right location.

Warm-up Exercises

If you click here you'll open the the Sidings in a new tab on your browser. That way you can keep this handy while you fiddle there.  The 'Sidings' area is intended as a quiet area where no-one's looking.

Now I am assuming you've signed in.  If not, do so now - on the tab/window that you've just opened with the link above.

To the top right of the screen there's a Create page button.  Press it. 

On the page now facing you...
  • Select the "Article (Plain)" box (it should already be selected by default)
  • Select the circle to the left of "Put page under The Sidings"
  • Enter your name in the box
  • Lastly, click on the "Create Page" button at the bottom
OK- what you should now be seeing is a page 'outline'.

Now just type some text into the body of the document.  We'll do Photo's later.  Notice that the text wraps just as in a word processor, so don't type Return at the end of the line.  You should also find tpyos get underlined in red.

You can format using bold, italic, underline and highlighting using the toolbar at the top of the editor.  Similarly you can do bullet points, left/right or centred text, and so on.   At this stage it's just like a word processor.  The Tx tool is a formatting-remover.  Don't select the HTML thing.

A strong recommendation is that you don't change font face or size - just keep it 'Normal'.

Click on Save at the top right of the page, et voila!

Well done. Time for a cuppa.
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