Main tab
The Main tab is the tab that most reflects the main entry page of most Blog servers. It contains four text boxes that are used to type up your Blog draft, as well as controls for Category selection and UI control.
Text boxes:
- Title:
- The title box denotes the title of your Blog entry. The text that is entered here is also used to "suggest" a file name when you save a draft for the first time, helping you to tie the File-based name with the Draft-based title.
- Entry Body:
- This corresponds to the "Entry Body" field of your Blog server and is often a "shorter synopsis" or "first paragraph" of your draft.
- Extended Entry:
- This corresponds to the "Extended Entry" field of your Blog server and is often the "full body" or continuation of the Entry Body.
- Excerpt:
- In a stock implementation, a shortened and sparse bit of text that describes the draft can be stored here, but each Blog server may have a different function for it.
Categories:
- Primary Category:
- As per the design of most Blog-servers, every draft has one primary category but it can also have additional categories assigned to it. The list of the categories is automatically downloaded from the Blog server when a Server Option is changed or manually by clicking "Update Categories". To select a primary category, select one from the list.
- Additional Categories:
- Before selecting additional categories, you must first have selected a primary one. Once a primary is selected, you can click on the "..." button and select addition categories. You will find the currently selected primary category at the top of the dialog and you will not be able to select it a second time in this dialog.
Visual enhancements:
- Splitter bar
- Since some authors use only the Entry Body and other authors use only the Extended Entry - and yet other authors that use both - there is a splitter bar that allows you to share the majority of the main window's height between both Entry fields. You will be able to nearly hide the entire Body or the Extended field, or leave
an equal amount of space between them both. The last seen position is stored and restored with the application's settings.
- Minimize Links
- Because some users do not have very large screens running at maximum resolutions - particularly in the case of notebook computers - there are two Minimize Links that can help to maximize the space within the dialog. The Minimize Link at the top of the main window is used to hide and restore the Title and Category fields; the one at the bottom of the page hides and restores the Excerpt field. Both are there for UI benefit; if the fields are filled out and hidden, the text is still collected. These settings are also stored and restored with the application's settings.