This page’s only purpose is to go over some of the stylistic thingers that make the site look the way it does. Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to make everything automatic when posting, so to keep with the style of the site you have to add a couple of pieces of code.
frontimg
The first thing you will probably want to get familiar is the CSS class frontimg. You don’t have to really know what a CSS class is, just where this one little bit of code goes. frontimg basically makes the first image in a post go “full bleed,” or to the edges of the content box. For the first image in a post, you will want it to be about 700px wide to accommodate the full bleed (the actual pixel width is 662px if you are curious). So long as it’s that wide or larger, you will always be shrinking the image rather than enlarging it and making it more pixelated. If the image happens to be smaller, that’s ok, the frontimg will make it the right size. In the image chooser, under the Size option, do Full Size.
The settings for the first image in your post should look something like this:
Most front posts won’t have have a Link URL, but if you need the image to pop out in a lightbox, then push the File URL button. Otherwise, leave it blank.
So where does the code go? Within the img tag for the first image, simply find the “class” parameter and add a space and thenfrontimg to the end of the string of text between the quotes. It’ll look something like this:
<img src=”https://www.hardmode.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/imageSettings.jpg” alt=”” title=”If you want the images to pop out – like this one – in a lightbox, push the File Url button.” class=”aligncenter size-large wp-image-2292 firstimg” />
Lastly, make sure you push the “Use as Featured Image” link that is displayed next to the Insert Image button. This will make sure that if the post ends up in the Popular section in the sidebar, the image will be displayed there.
note: you might have to jump over to the HTML editor to see this code.
Other Images
Images inside the post don’t need any extra code. They should, however, be of the “large” variety (620px width). In the image chooser, simply select the Large size, and it will be correct, so long as the image was already larger than 620px. Otherwise, just use the Full size.
More
This one is pretty easy. To get a post to cut at a certain point so the whole post isn’t shown on the front page, use the More button. It’s up at the top of the text editor, and simply add it after a paragraph or two. It will put a link that says “Read the rest of this entry” on the front page, and that link will take the reader to that point in the post.
Youtube
There are a couple of ways to embed Youtube videos to the site. The easiest (to remember) way is to just go to the Youtube video’s page, hit the Share button under the video, and do a custom size, inputting a width of 620px. Then simply copy/paste the embed code that it provides.
WordPress will also understand this shortcode:
[youtube http://videourl&w=620]
Notice that at the end of the code there is &w=620. This needs to be there to be the correct width. Without this little bit, the video might show up all crazy.
Tags
Always remember to add some tags to the post. Not only will it help people narrow down posts about a certain topic, but it also keeps the design from messing up. If there are no tags, the post might look off (although probably not really that crazy).
Categories
On the right side of the page when making a post, remember to always put it in a proper category. It will default to “Misc,” but we really try to not have any posts in that category if we can help it. You can have multiple categories, too, so if you are writing some impressions about a game, you can select both the “Games” and “Impressions” categories, for example.
Your Profile
Before making a post, make sure to fill out your profile just a bit, as some of that info will go at the bottom of the post automatically. The three things you will need are Website, AIM, and Biographical Info. You can list a website of your choosing in the Website box (dur), but AIM will actually be your Twitter handle. The Biographical Info will also show up at the bottom of your post, so put a couple of lines about yourself there. The box will accept HTML if you want to link to anything from it.