In-Depth Look at Posting a Xombyte:

This is very important so I will take care in describing everything in as much detail as I can.

When you click on the Post a Xombyte link you are presented with several fields. I want to begin by talking about them.

Title – Something compelling that will make people want to read what you have to write. This is important because many places on Xomba Xombytes are listed only by title so you need to make sure it really catches the reader attention.

Category – Choose the one category that best fits the main topic of your post. This is also important because it will place it with similar Xombytes and make it easier to find. here is the complete category listing.

Tags – Key words and terms that will help people find your Xombytes outside of the category structure. These help the Similar link module do it’s job and find posts that are similar to yours. It also allows for the Xombyte to show up when people search by specific tags. These need to have a comma between each tag but you do not need to put spaces in it.

Body – What you have to say goes here.

Add Image - The small photo with a plus sign is where you can upload a photo to add to your Xombyte. Clicking on the link will open a new window which is where you will upload the file. The new window will show any photos you have already uploaded or allow you to look through all the images that have been uploaded to the site. Next to the pull-down menu is an "upload" button. On the right hand side is a cancel option.

Upload
When you click on the Upload button the window changes to the upload interface. This interface has several fields in it.

Title - The name you want to associate with your image.

Image - Clicking the Browse button will open your local system file directory. Find the image you want to upload and click "open." This will save the file location in the Image field.

Body - Any text you want to associate with this specific image. A short description would be best.

Now below that you can click Preview to check what the image will look like. If it looks fine then click the "submit" button.

When you click the "submit" button you will again be shown a new screen. The Image Assist screen is extremely important as well. Again you are presented with several fields.

Title - An optional title field is given here for you to change what you chose before.

Description - This is the text from the previous page and gives you a chance to edit it again if you wish to do so.

Now the other fields are new. What are these all about?

Size - This allows you to decide what the size of the image will be when it is displayed in the Xombyte, you have three options

• Thumbnail - This is a small representation of the image. It's good to use this is the image is quite large so that it does not interfere with the actual text of the Xombyte. It is 100 pixels by 100 pixels.
• preview - This is a slightly larger option that you can use if the standard thumbnail size is too small. This is 340 pixels by 340 pixels and will take up a lot of prime real estate in the Xombyte.
• other - This lets you specify what size you would like the image to be shown as. This is extremely useful when the image in question is not square. You can then change the image size so that the representation is not stretched horizontally or vertically. You can input the width first and then the height of the image for proper viewing.

On the right is the Alignment option. This decides what side of the Xombyte to place the image so the text wraps on the other side.

• left - This will place the image up against the left edge of the Xombyte. The text will wrap around the right side of the image.
• right - This will place the image up against the right edge of the Xombyte. The text will then wrap around the left side of the image.

The next option is Link. This allows you to make an HTML hyperlink so that people can click on the image and be sent someplace else.

• not a link - The image is not clickable and is just a static image.
• Link to Image Page - This will, when clicked, take the readers to the image page itself. This will allow the users to click and see the picture in its full glory.
• open in a popup window - This option is great because the picture is clickable to view the full size image but it does not take the readers away from your Xombyte. Instead it will open another window specifically for the image to be displayed in while your Xombyte will remain open in the background.
• Go to URL - This is useful when you want the image to be a representation of another webpage or Xombyte. When you choose this another options shows up and starts with http:// allowing you to type in or copy and paste the webpage address into the box. When the reader clicks on the image this webpage address will open for them.

Insert mode: This gives you two different options for the actual code that the Image Assist will put into your Xombyte. If you're not sure about the image display and you know something about HTML you can change this from Filter Tag to HTML Code and then you can easily edit the HTML code. If you know the image is setup right you can leave this on Filter Tag.

When you have set all the options you can click on "Insert" on the lower left and it will inject the code directly into your Xombyte. Then you can write your text or copy and paste it from a text editor and click preview to see how it all looks.

Utilizing images properly can really add to the look of your article. With proper images and linking you can drive more readers to your Xombytes and give it a more professional look and feel. Writing a Travel article? Why not find a photo and add it to the Xombyte.

Photos are also subject to copyright so you must be certain you have the right to use the photo before you post it. This is vitally important because the author may complain about unauthorized use and then Xomba will be required to remove it from the site.

Now below the body and the add image link there is some information on formatting.

So let's talk about BBCode tags. These are built in tags that allow you to change the look of the Xombyte text itself. The tags themselves are easy to use. If you want something to be bold simply put a [b] before the text and a [/b] after it. Yes! It's THAT simple!

What else can we do with BBCode Tags?

Well you can italicize with the [i] and [/i] tags. So when you write the xombyte it will look like [i]italicized[/i] but it will display like italicized.

All of the tags work similarly. You must open and close each tag when you use it or it will adversely affect other parts of the Xombyte and perhaps leak over into the rest of Xomba displayed below the Xombyte.

Want something to be underlined then use the [u] and [/u] tags.
Need to demonstrate or correct something, then use the strikethrough tag with [s] and [/s].
But what if you want colored text? Yep you guessed it a [color=red] before the word and a [/color] after the word will highlight the words between the text in that color. You can use the basic colors of the spectrum (red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, black, white) or if you're more web savvy you can use the hexadecimal codes for more color options, which would look like this [color="#FF0000"] to display red.

But what if you want BIG words? Well you can use the [size=30] and [/size] tags. By changing the number in the tag you can make some text larger or smaller. It's based on the same font sizes as you find in Word and other word processors so you should be able to find out what size text you want. Normal text is usually 10 or 12.

Want to change the type of the text then you can use the [font=Arial]type of the text[/font] to make it change the font. Note that the readers must have the font installed for this to work or it will revert to the default font.

Need to make a hyperlink to another Xombyte or webpage? You can do that with BBCode also!
For email use [email]poisedguru@xomba.com[/email] and it will show PoisedGuru@Xomba.com.
For a website [url=http://xomba.com/]XOMBA[/url] and it displays XOMBA
If you want the user to see the web address that's possible too [url]http://xomba.com/[/url] and it will show up like this http://xomba.com/

BBCode Tags are a powerful way to customize the look of the Xombyte. As such there are too many options to go through them all. For more information you can check out the formatting guide.

The final options on the page before the Preview and Submit buttons are the Meta-tags area. It has three options.

• Description - Here you can give an alternate description of your Xombyte instead of showing the beginning of the text itself.
• Add image - Just like above you can add an image to be displayed here.
• Keywords - These are used for Search Engine Optimization at times. This will add a hidden tag to your Xombyte page with whatever you put in here. It is also a comma separated list just like the Xombyte tags. These will be used by outside websites and search engines.

Finally we've come to the end of the Post a Xombyte. When you've got something done click on Preview to see how it looks. It you like the way it looks then click Submit and let the world know it's there!