Tumblr: idgi

Study of Running

Tumblr: idgi

Wednesday, August 15, 2012 at 22:05:00

Just got a Tumblr. Does anyone on the flist understand Tumblr? There is so much I don't get that isn't covered in the help and I can't find any good newbie guides that answer the obvious questions instead of regurgitating the site help pages.

Like how do you reblog a reblog so you are actually reblogging the person's response and not just the original post? Is there a way to browse a tag that has a hyphen in it? Why is it that when I upload something high-res, you can click on the thumbnail and it pops up a version scaled to your screen (clearly down and not up), but if you right-click on that and select "view image" you get the 400px thumbnail? How do I make it simple to get the full image without uploading it somewhere else and just linking? Is there a free layout that actually shows all of the things, like all the tags and an obvious "next page" button and the date of the post and the like and reblog buttons and a direct link to the post? I can fix an ugly layout that works, but I can't do anything with a pretty layout that cuts half the information and features.

I don't expect someone to answer all that. I just can't even find where to ask questions aside from abusing their support email and if you learned how to use Tumblr, how did you do that?

Other sites make sense. :(

tags:other

Comments

Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 11:10:21 (UTC)

blue_aeon

I have one and yeah, the help pages aren't very useful.

The reason why the image is scaled down when you click on it is because Tumblr uses Lightbox (or something similar) which is set to automatically scale the images so that they fit in your window (it also allows you to use the arrow keys to go through all the images in a photo-set). Some layouts do add a link icon on an image when you rollover so that you have a direct link, like the Effector theme (which I use).

As for everything else, these links explain the whole system better than I can:

http://www.guidingtech.com/6378/get-started-with-blogging-on-tumblr/

http://sunshine-hippie.livejournal.com/129143.html - Tumblr 101

http://vickyblueeyez.livejournal.com/136006.html - in-depth explanation of reblogging.

http://tumblring.net/ - full of tips, tricks and tutorials.

Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 00:38:43 (UTC)

studyofrunning

Thanks for the links! That last one looks like it has an article for everything.

I'll look at that theme. Maybe with the help of Tumblring, I'll be able to add anything that's missing.

What I don't get about the image scaling it that it's obviously scaling down from the full size, not up from the thumbnail. So when I right-click on it, it should be impossible for the options there to save or view only the thumbnail. But that's still what happens.

Saturday, August 18, 2012 at 15:54:12 (UTC)

blue_aeon

You're welcome! I think the only thing missing from Tumblring is a tutorial on adding a shortlink to posts, but that might turn up at some point. I've hacked the infinity icon in Effector to turn it from 'permalink' to 'reblog' but, for me, that's the only thing missing from the original theme so far.

I've just taken a look at the image sizes on one of my posts, and it turns out that Tumblr automatically creates a separate, smaller version of an image to use as the thumbnail (i.e.: images that are 500px wide become 250px wide as thumbnails). The lightbox images, however, are full-size and scaled down with javascript. Given how much RAM Tumblr causes Firefox to use, I'm glad they do it this way.

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