Blog Tutorials_

Note to students: This tutorial applies to instructor blogrolls only. Student blogrolls are automatic copies of the professor's blogroll, and cannot be changed manually by the student.

Instructor blogrolls are automatically created and updated several times during the first few weeks of the semester. But at some point you might want to edit the blogroll yourself, either by adding new links, deleting old links, or changing the links that are already there.

This tutorial will show you how to edit your blogroll from the back-end, or administrative side, of your blog. To make these changes public, be sure to rebuild your site. Your students' blogrolls are linked to yours and will be updated automatically, but only when their blogs are also rebuilt. You rebuild your students' blogs by clicking on each one's blog on your administrative page, but the best practice is to encourage your students to rebuild their own blogs on a regular basis.

Let's first add a new student to our blogroll. Click on the "Add Link" button, under "Manage" on the left-hand menu.

There are two ways to fill in the boxes on this page. If you fill the URL of the new student blog into the first box and clicking "Quick Add", Movable Type will automatically fill in the rest of the necessary information and save the link for you. Alternatively, you can manually fill in the student's name into the "Weblog Name" box (this is the text that will become the link on your blogroll) and the blog's address into the URI box, as in the image at the right. Click on "Save" to continue.

At this point you should see a yellow box reading "Link Updated". This means that the new link has been successfully added to the system. Click "Rebuild Site" to make the change visible on the front end of your blog.

If you want to add another link to your blogroll, click on "Add New Link" on the left-hand menu. Do not simply enter the new information into the boxes on your screen, as this will overwrite the link that you just created.

Now let's learn how to edit existing links. Click on "Show Blogroll" to get back to the blogroll administration page.

To edit a link, click on its title. In the case of links to student blogs, this will typically be the name of the student.

Enter the changes you'd like to make, and click the "Save" button. Rebuild your blog to make the changes visible on the front end.

To delete a link from your blog altogether, check the box next to the link on your blogroll admin page, and click the Delete button. Keep in mind that this only deletes the link from your blogroll, and does not affect the student's blog or status in Movable Type.