How to indicate to readers that changes have been made to earlier posts

  • I’m putting up a blog to contain artworks that i’ve been doing for a while. i was able to put up my recent work immediately but there’s a backlog that i’ll be puttin online slowly. What i have been doing is making posts by the date that i’ve finished the work. So all my new posts currently do not even show up on the front page as i’m back dating them. And people visiting the site will think that it has not been updated :(

    Is there a way I can tell my readers that i’ve added a new post? Is there some way i can have a page with “What’s new””

    many tks,
    Ujwala

  • I have a similar situation going. I’m mounting articles I wrote over the course of the last 2 years. Naturally they are all assigned the date that I publish them on WordPress. So I’m wondering if I shouldn’t create a page that operates like an index with the name of the article and the orginal date of the completion of the work. In addition I’m thinking I could also create special section or another page called “What’s New”.

  • i’m actually backdating the posts because i want there be a flow to show progress [or lack of it :P]

    i did see a blog by ptv with an index page here i have a feeling it has been handcoded and that would be difficult to maintain.

    i’m thinking aloud now it would be nice for a little blurb with “Site Updated” which would contain a link to the most recent post.

    I hope that there is a solution as i have visions of the few who are visiting me running away as everytime the feed tells them the site is updated and they visit they find the same old front page.

  • How about adding a post dated now that says:

    “This blog is being updated with older artworks on a regular basis, added under the date they were finished – don’t forget to check the archives”

    That post will sit at the top until you’re finished (adjust the date to keep it fresh if needs be).

    Hope that helps,

  • mutube, tks for the suggestion. i’m going to use it :P but i’m still hoping for a better solution as they will still have to dig to find out which one is new. thinking aloud – or i could add a date and a link i guess. will try this out for now.

  • Just finished trying it out but the post dated post wont show up. :( tks anyway mutube.

  • Depending on how you want your site to look you could try a few things:

    1) Have a “What’s New” page with links to updated entries
    2) Use the “recent comments” sidebar widget and add a comment to your updated entry saying something like “this entry has been updated mm/dd/yr” They can click on the comment for a quick link to the update.
    3) Use a “text box” widget for highlighting updates. You can add an “a href” html tag to put a link to your updated post. If you’re not used to coding links by hand, you can create the link in your post editor, click on the html button and copy and paste the coding to the text box widget. I just added links in mine and it works.

    I hope one of these suggestions might be useful. I’d probably try one of them if I didn’t want to keep creating posts that were just update notifications.

  • You might even want to use your page system for the artwork and your posts as “Ohh, look what I changed” posts.

  • Or…

    Use the date/time allocated as the “date added” and include a line of text/header which says “Completed on” with the actual creation date?

  • I think a text widget that you update with the best stuff (highlighted posts) would probably be the best bet.

  • When I read the entries above particularly matt’s entry I think the “text widget” idea may work for me. But I’m green (just 2 weeks into blogging and only 3 years into computers – self taught) and I don’t clearly understand how to access/manipulate/use the text widget. I dragged and dropped it into my sidebar figuring that evetually if I kept watching the forums I’d find a use for it.

  • thanks all for looking in and your suggestions. I think the text box seems like the best option for me. tks again.

  • i thought that i’d put in another post. i’m having computer problems and probably lost it in the process. I’m not being able to bold or color my text in the text widget. i want that box to stand out from the others and the from the posts too. any suggestions? and thanks again for your advice so far.

  • @Timethief, to use the text widget, you do drag it into your sidebar, but you then have to click the little icon with a blue bar at the top for the text widget and a pop up will allow you to enter text.

    HTML is also supported, I use my text widget to include an <IMG> tag pointing to a little image I uploaded to my blog, so I can add a bit more customisation to it :)

    @Ujwala, I haven’t tried the bold tag myself, but seeing as <IMG> works, I would have thought <B></B> would work also. Not sure why it isn’t!

    -Ryan

  • ryanconway, i too have added an image in my sidebar but am unable to add the <b></b> bit of code. maybe i’m doing something wrong but each time i put it and publish it doesnt show up and when i open the text to edit it again the code has disappeared.

  • ujwala, try using the <strong> tag instead. Strnage that the bold tag doesn’t work. It has in the past. Is it being stripped or just not showing up as bold. Maybe an example of where you have tried to use it would help. (Please leave it on your site so we can see it please.)

  • tks drmike. tried the strong tag in the header as well as the text and included a <b> and </b> for good measure. all of them disappeared. thought i’d replicate and take picts but now i’m unable to edit the text box.

  • Please note your link for your name is messed up. You can only put one blog link in there, not all of them.

    If it’s a header you’re talking about, I’m betting the CSS for the theme is overriding it. Once I can get a link to your blog and see what you’re talking about, I’ll let you know.

  • OK, I’m sitting here looking at your blog. If you’ll note that the titles of your posts are wrapped with a <h2> tag. If you pull up your CSS file, you’ll note that this is getting a font-weight declared as normal which is why they seem to be rather weak.

    I know others have put bold and strong tags in their headers before. Not sure why it’s being stripped out now. I don’t see any of these tags in your page. Was there an article where you have tried them?

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