[tutorial] LJ tips
I've been meaning to do this for a while, since I like using every service I use regularly to its full potential. Almost everything in this list can be found in the Livejournal FAQs, which is a remarkable source of information. I highly recommend looking through it.
This guide does not cover things like custom groups, journal layout customization, how to turn off or on the hover/navigation menu, or anything of that sort.
A List of Tips, Tricks, and Facts that May Help to Maximize Your Enjoyment and Minimize Your Frustration on Livejournal.
Journals and Comments
Settings and Preferences
This entry will be worked on and added to periodically. If you have anything you would like to know how to do, or if you think there's something I should put on here, please let me know.
This guide does not cover things like custom groups, journal layout customization, how to turn off or on the hover/navigation menu, or anything of that sort.
A List of Tips, Tricks, and Facts that May Help to Maximize Your Enjoyment and Minimize Your Frustration on Livejournal.
Journals and Comments
- Separating your friends and communities without using filters
- Let's face it, sometimes communities can hog up your entire friends list with stuff that you don't really care about, causing you to skim and miss posts by your friends that you may have otherwise wanted to read. While it's possible to separate your friends and communities with custom friend groups, managing your friends list that way is time consuming and tedious.
Besides, Livejournal does it automatically for you.
Livejournal has built in filters to separate the various types of journals you have on your friends list. Simply attach them to the end of your journal url, and they will appear.
Communities:
http://user.livejournal.com/friends/?show=C
Personal Journals:
http://user.livejournal.com/friends/?show=P
Syndicated Journals:
http://user.livejournal.com/friends/?show=Y
News:
http://user.livejournal.com/friends/?show=N
These can be combined to show multiple types of journals.
To see both Syndicated and Community journals at the same time:
http://user.livejournal.com/friends/?show=YC
Simply replace user in the url with your own username.
FAQ page
- Let's face it, sometimes communities can hog up your entire friends list with stuff that you don't really care about, causing you to skim and miss posts by your friends that you may have otherwise wanted to read. While it's possible to separate your friends and communities with custom friend groups, managing your friends list that way is time consuming and tedious.
- Viewing comments in chronological order
- Most useful for keeping track of kinkmemes and other posts that span multiple pages, this trick allow you to view comments in the order they were posted, with the earliest made comments first and the latest ones last. Comments are not nested, which means you won't be able to easily see which comment is a response to which, but the Parent and Link links can help you see the nested comment tree.
To enable this viewing mode, simple append ?view=flat to the end of the entry url. For example:
Nested view:
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html
Chronological Order:
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html?view=flat
It should be noted that nothing should follow the entry url. If you see something such as:
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html#cutid1
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html?thread=11111#t11111
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html?nc=31
None of the above links would work with ?view=flat. You must strip off the excess before adding ?view=flat.
FAQ entry
- Most useful for keeping track of kinkmemes and other posts that span multiple pages, this trick allow you to view comments in the order they were posted, with the earliest made comments first and the latest ones last. Comments are not nested, which means you won't be able to easily see which comment is a response to which, but the Parent and Link links can help you see the nested comment tree.
- Adding comment counts to entry URLs.
- By turning the "NCTalkLinks" setting on, you will add &nc=xx (In which xx equals the number of comments on that entry) to all entry URLs. What this does is allow one to be able to tell when new comments are available at a glance, provided that the regular unvisited link and visited links are different.
For example, if you click on an entry that has 15 comments, the entry URL will read:
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html?nc=15
After clicking on the entry, the comments section may be rendered as this:
15 Comments (Visited Link) | Add a comment (Unvisited Link)
(Please note that appearances may vary, depending on your layout)
Two hours later, 8 more comments have been added, bringing up the total to 23. The entry URL will now read:
http://user.livejournal.com/333.html?nc=23
And the comments section will now look like this:
23 Comments (Unvisited Link) | Add a comment (Unvisited Link)
(Please note that appearances may vary, depending on your layout)
As long as there is a visible difference between visited and unvisited links in the layout, this feature can be a useful way to know when a comment has been added at a glance.
FAQ entry
- By turning the "NCTalkLinks" setting on, you will add &nc=xx (In which xx equals the number of comments on that entry) to all entry URLs. What this does is allow one to be able to tell when new comments are available at a glance, provided that the regular unvisited link and visited links are different.
- Multiple Tag Browsing
- To view entries that are tagged as either one OR more tags, simply add the tags onto the journal URL like so:
http://user.livejournal.com/tag/tag1,tag2
To view entries that are tagged with one AND more tags, simply add the tags onto the journal URL like so:
http://user.livejournal.com/tag/tag1,tag2?mode=and
You can also use:
http://user.livejournal.com?tag=tag1,tag2&mode=and
Note the latter two examples are for entries that are tagged with all the tags listed (For example, entries that are tagged life AND music), whereas the first example lists entries that are tagged with either of the tags listed (For example, entries that are tagged with life OR music)
FAQ page
- To view entries that are tagged as either one OR more tags, simply add the tags onto the journal URL like so:
Settings and Preferences
- While most people are familiar with the settings page, there is an alternative version that allows you to change settings by how they're tagged. Depending on your preferences, this may or may not be more intuitive to use.
Alternate Settings Page.
This entry will be worked on and added to periodically. If you have anything you would like to know how to do, or if you think there's something I should put on here, please let me know.