Some tips for new users
It’s been a busy week here at OD, and I want to first say welcome to all the new people who have either joined or come back and reclaimed their diaries. It’s great to have you joining us!
Thanks also to everybody who made suggestions for the next features to add to OD on my last entry, it was great to have so much helpful feedback. We are evaluating all of those suggestions and will be figuring out how to fit them into the schedule of updates that are coming for the site.
I thought it would be good to give some pointers and info that people are asking about (or even if they are not):
- Adding images to entries – please note that only members who have subscriptions can add images to their entries. If you have a subscription, you will see an Add Media and an Add Featured Image button on your entry editor. Open Diary now accepts and stores uploaded images for you (something we weren’t able to do in our previous version).
- Backdating entries – in the new OD, it is easy to backdate (or forward date) entries. When you are editing your entry, there is a dropdown for options – if you open that, that is where entry privacy is, but you can also set the Publish date. If you make this date a date in the past, the entry will be inserted into your diary at the appropriate place.
- Scheduling entries – using the same method as above, but setting the date to a date and time in the future, allows you to schedule an entry to be published. If you do this, the entry will not publish and appear until the date and time you set (for example, if you have a special entry that you want to post next Christmas).
- Expiring entries – I was never a fan of Snapchat because people create all this awesome stuff there, and then it disappears (how stupid!). On the new OD, we did something similar but different. In the same entry options space, you can choose to Expire an entry in a day or a week. What this means is that your entry will vanish when that time is up – but different from Snapchat, your entry will still be saved, it will just be changed automatically to Private. So if you have something you want to say, but you don’t want it to be forever visible in your diary, this is for you!
- Adding YouTube and other media – if want to embed a YouTube video, it’s really easy in the new site. All you have to do is paste the URL into your entry, and make sure you hit Enter or Return after you paste it to start a new line. When you save your entry, the system will automatically change the URL link into a YouTube player. This same method also works for tons of other kinds of media, like Flickr pictures, tweets, Instagrams, etc. – just paste the link into the entry to show them.
- Saving drafts – this is something that was highly requested on old OD. On this new system, just click the Save as Draft box next to the Publish button, and you can save your entry as a draft (that nobody else can see) so you can come back to it later.
That’s enough for now I think – remember there is also an Open Diary Help diary! You can find it by clicking on Help on the main menu.
If you have any questions about how to use the site that you can’t find an answer to – our Support team is always available through the link at the bottom of every page, just click to get in touch with them. Thanks everybody!
Thanks DM😀
@offmychest you’re welcome!
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Thank you for this
@candyliciousmagic you’re welcome!
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Thank you!
@jillybean you’re welcome!
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So exciting! Do you want to know what my all time favorite new feature is? Ease of posting photos. So easy to share a photo and the fact that Open Diary stores them for us, and we no longer have to use Photobucket, is the best! I’ve had friends who have always wanted to share photos but found it too complex to do so. Now they will be able to share photos easily! I also am thrilled about the Featured Image option. I use it all the time. I LOVE the new Open Diary!
@wildrose_2 thanks SO much! We worked really hard on making sure photos is easy, I think that’s really important!
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Some very cool stuff, thanks!
@bonnierose you’re welcome!
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How about sizing of type and changing fonts?
@lasergirl we’re actually working on that, you should see that added soon.
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I’m pretty excited about the pictures. Just curious, what are the storage capabilities? Should I upload smaller versions, or will they automatically save as a smaller version of my raw file?
@asilliamagdalene they will automatically save as a smaller version – you shouldn’t run into any limits on what you can store. There is an 8 meg limit on each individual file.
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I have found it to be very easy to go to PB and just copy the url and paste it into the text box and it appears. Hurray!
@lasergirl really?? I didn’t even know that worked 🙂
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Good work. Thank you for the update. Sounds good!
@agenieinabottle thanks!
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thanks!
@sugar2001 you’re welcome!
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Thanks for the tips!
Now I have a question for you seeing that you commented on my vlog. What should I talk about next?
@gilraent_1 what kinds of subjects do you like to talk about? What about aspirations for yourself or for people you know? How about gratitudes? What about favorite books/movies/etc.?
@thediarymaster Those are great ideas 🙂 I like to talk about anything that I have experience with. Actually, I’ll talk about anything because I just talk a lot lol
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When you put it that way, the expiring entry thing sounds very cool.
@startingover_1 I’m glad you think so!
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calendar view!
@thelastdruid we are working on that!
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Thank you for the points and the help in getting my diary set up.
I love Open Diary!
It is good to be home again!
@unscathedcorpse it’s good to have you back!
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I would have mentioned this in your previous entry, but I’ve only just discovered it’s a thing. Is there any chance of adding a way to make all notes on a particular entry private? I don’t want to set that permanently, but there will be entries where, for whatever reason, I need the option
@williamthebloody there’s not a way to do that now, but it’s a good idea – we will look into the possibility of doing that.
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Can I turn off the email notifications? I can live with them but would rather not have them. Thanks…always.
@womaninthemoon I think you can turn them off in your Profile – there’s a section for notifications somewhere. I know I turned almost all of mine off (except for new notes, lol).
@womaninthemoon yes, you can turn them off if you go to Profile in the main menu, and then click Settings and then Email Notifications.
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Thanks for all this……and for all the rest!
I love being back here….even when I’m not here, I love knowing it’s here. (Hope that makes sense) 😉
@marieelena that totally makes sense, thanks!
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What’s the trick for getting OD to work on Safari?
@almostmrsbolen I use it on Safari all the time, works fine for me. Could you please contact Support through the link at the bottom of the page and let them know what problem you are having in Safari? They can investigate and help you out. Thanks!
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Oh my God I am so glad to be back ! Thank you so much for reaching out to me ! I will start writing as of later today. Thank you for bringing the site back! I have really missed it !
@zie you’re welcome, I’m very glad you’re back!
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So I spent a few days this week copying four years worth of entries from PB to OD so my diary here would be complete. I think that there are a lot of things about the way this site is currently working that made the job much easier. For one thing I had almost no lag from OD, so I could get the entries posted almost as fast as I could copy and paste. I had no trouble using the calendar feature to back-date the entries to the appropriate date and I was pleased to discover I could even replicate my original posting times(although I stopped doing this after awhile to save time and make the process easier). The set font style here meant that I did not have to fiddle at all with those entries: I could copy and paste them directly in and the font size and style automatically adjusted itself. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised to discover my photos transferred directly in without me having to fiddle with the URL sources at all: I literally just copied and pasted everything over and it appeared perfectly in the new entry. I remember the days when adding a photo to OD required some knowledge of HTML tags, so this was amazing to me.
Last night I even wrote a short entry and added a photo from my my phone with no problems at all. Fantastic!
So thanks again for all the hard work you’re doing. I feel that my subscription money is being well-spent and I love having OD back.
@alika that is so awesome to hear! Thanks very much for the compliments (which I will share with our team) – it’s always great to hear that our members are having a good experience 🙂
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So happy you’re back! Are you the same DiaryMaster from years ago?
@washington yes!
@thediarymaster
Yay! I’m still trying to figure out this new format. This will be fun, again, and no doubt therapeutic.
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I spent years trying to figure out if you had a diary and which one you were LOL thank you so much for bringing this back
@kaliko you’re welcome!
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Hey… I have an idea. I would love to be able to like other people post or notes sorta stealing FB ideas
@kaliko there was s a Like on the entries – it is the heart symbol in the lower left.
but I can’t like a note someone left
@kaliko no you’re right not yet – but maybe in the future.
@thediarymaster thanks for listening to me 🙂
maybe one day but until then this place rocks!!
@kaliko thanks!
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Thanks for the tips! So happy to be back and finding old friends here!
It seems that, in order for a Flickr photo to be shared via URL, the photo must be public. Otherwise, it just gives a text link to click. The embed option provided by Flickr, which I know works for private photos, does not seem to be an option here. I know there’s a size limit on the photos we upload here, but is there a limit on how many photos we can upload or how much storage we can use? I don’t think I share enough photos for that to be an issue, but better safe than sorry. 😀
@countrychickadee yes you are correct about Flickr, our site can’t “see” them unless they are public. There is no limit on how many pictures you can upload for your entries, no.
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