Thank you for installing SpeedBlog. This guide will walk you through setting up SpeedBlog the first time after you have installed the module. Please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the new interfaces that SpeedBlog introduces.

The SpeedBlog package consists of multiple modules that give you a flexible blogging platform. Lets proceed to setup SpeedBlog after you’ve installed the module. you need to be logged in with at least Admin access to proceed.

Create a new Page

Create a new Page where you can setup and test SpeedBlog.

Add SpeedBlog to the page

Find out the layout of your skin and choose a wide with container.

Add SpeedBlog module from the Add New Module dropdown to the wide width container. You can switch the placement around later, this is just to get started.

Remember not to name the module title yet. When you add SpeedBlog module to the page, three new controls are added, if you specify a Title, all three of them get the same name which makes it difficult to identify which is which. Please leave the Title blank for now.

Follow the Auto Guidance Wizard

As soon as you drop SpeedBlog module on a page, the Auto guidance wizard would start up and walk you through the next two screens.

On the first screen, SpeedBlog needs to know if it has chosen the settings correctly for you. Verify that the extension (or lack thereof ) is correct. If your website uses an extension (or not), if you use a friendly URL provider, this is the time to let SpeedBlog know.

While we’re at this screen, you can also familiarize yourself with on-context help. Anytime you hover over the Help icon, you can see a quick summary of what the setting does. Almost everywhere in SpeedBlog, help is available in a similar manner.

Please note, you are only seeing the bare minimum settings needed to get started. Once you are done with auto-guidance, you can visit these and the larger subset of settings by visiting SpeedBlog Portal Settings.

Verify these settings and click Save.

Since this is the first time you’ve added SpeedBlog module to your portal, you need to create at least one Blog. The Create New Blog page shows up in the second screen with just the bare minimum input necessary to create a new Blog.

Enter the Title and Description for your Blog and Click the Create new Blog button. Please do note that this also where you can set the DNN Page on which your Blog will show up. Since you can have multiple Blogs in a single portal, SpeedBlog needs to know which Blogs show up where. you can also have multiple Blogs show up on a single SpeedBlog page. Any time you move your Blog around, you just have to change this setting and everything else will be redirected. Please not, as long as there is a SpeedBlog PostView module in place, URLs will be either 302 or 301 redirected and you will not lose any search traffic.

Once you have created a new Blog, three SpeedBlog  controls will show up in the main screen; SpeedBlog.Admin, SpeedBlog.PostViewer and SpeedBlog.Comments

SpeedBlog interface is a little different than other DNN modules you’ve known so far. Every control has a different layout depending on who is logged on. Admins see a different view than general viewers. In the screenshot above, the Admin control is showing a Getting started guide and a few buttons. The PostViewer and the comment viewer controls are visible because an admin is logged in. They do not show anything in them because a post is not being displayed. If a general user were to be seeing this page, these two controls will hide themselves.

Once you’re done creating at least one Blog, the auto-guidance will not bother you again and you can get busy with either Importing from DNN Blog, creating and managing categories or just adding a new Post.

The Admin page is also where the summary view control shows summary posts.

Create a new Post

Create a new post by clicking on the new Post button.

Create your first post, specify a title and save.

On a side note, you can drag any of the pop ups by holding by the gray/Black title bar on top.

Once you’ve created a new post, the Admin module will create one summary view inside itself which will roughly look like the screenshot above.

Go ahead, click on Edit and you would see the built-in SpeedBlog editor

SpeedBlog treats summary and description separately so you have to type your summary, save it then hit “Edit Content” on the top right, type some content and save it.

Please note that you do not need to provide an image inside Summary. Even if you do, it will be removed. Any or all of the images that you provide in the content view are selectable as summary thumbnails. To change which image best represents your post, or for other settings, Click on “Post Options.”

Please also note that for a post to go live, at a later date, you can set the publish date in the future and mark it as published. A public post is visible to everybody. A non-public post is visible only to users who belong to the SpeedBlog_Friends role.