Is There A Need For Layout Templates?
I am not tech-savvy and I have zero sense of design. Period.
Yesterday in Steemitchat @repholder confirmed what I already suspected:
you need to fix your content layout
Uh, yeah, tell me something I don't know.
I have good content to contribute, though, I really do. But I am a lawyer, and lawyers are structured and boring. If you don't believe me, here is an excerpt from the NY Appellate Court rules:
Papers prepared by a word-processing system shall be printed in either a serifed, proportionally spaced typeface, such as Times New Roman, or a serifed monospaced typeface, such as Courier. Narrow or condensed typefaces and condensed font spacing shall not be used. Except in headings, words shall not be in bold type or type consisting of all capital letters.
Sexy, right? There are no fancy fonts, colored text, or images; hell, we don't even go beyond the default circle in our bullet point lists. So hopefully you can imagine how intimidating it is not only to create something aesthetically pleasing, but to do it using markdown or html. Many of you will laugh, but it took me hours just to figure out how to bold text and center an image. My struggle is real, people!
Potential Solution:
What if there was a site with user-created content templates for use on Steemit? If something of this nature already exists, feel free to share it in the comments. If not, I think templates would certainly make Steemit more accessible to the masses, both in terms of saving time and making up for lack of skill.
Then again, is it in Steemit's best interest to make it "easier"? On Tumblr or Instagram, for example, anyone can feel like professional blogger or photographer, which as we all know isn't necessarily a good thing.
Personally, I don't know the answer. Any developers out there willing to take on the challenge?
I doubt it would be easy for new people to use html layouts but here's a few tips I gave people for their content (it made a world of difference especially in $ terms).
Thank you for the tips! I think they will help the vast majority of people. Below is my reaction to each--it might help you understand the level of skill you are dealing with:
Still, all very, very helpful suggestions!
I'm not sure if you've seen the Markdown Manual which is a good beginner resource. There are also many guides steemit users have posted by googling Steemit Markdown Guide. Just so you know they are there.
Answers to direct questions:
Question 1. The website aminstitute.com/headline/ lets you put in the headline for your post (and set the best fitting industry) for what they term Emotional Marketing Value. Think of this as how catchy is your headline relative to your desired audience.
Question 3. Think of the # as a shorthand for the h1. Without getting in to much detail:
'# This is an h1 heading
is the same as
<'h1>This is an h1 heading<'/h1>
[note that the ' marks are only there so you can see this. You wont actually put those in]
Question 4. I use the <'br> before or after an image to get a blank line. <'br><'br> will get you two blank lines
[note that the ' marks are only there so you can see this. You wont actually put those in, just br beween the open and close brackets]
Question 5. The images automatically scale depending on the screen, so the 800x600 at least ensure that you maintain quality on a normal size computer screen.
Question 6. That's the line. Specifically the <'center> and <'/center> tags. Anything inside of those will be centered on the screen.
Question 7. I agree with repholder. I try to go usually 2-3 paragraphs max without a picture separating things up. The faux pas concerns are definitely valid. I'd recommend using photos that have a 'free to use or share, even commercially' license. When your on the google image page, click the gear in the top right and then click advanced search. If you scroll down a bit you will see a line for usage rights, which you can then set appropriately.
I'm sure there are others way more knowledgeable, but feel free to direct message me in steem.chat if you have issues. I'm happy to try and help.
Thank you for taking the time to share this information! These two comments are my new guidebook :)
Happy to help. It's a bit daunting at first so don't worry. You'll get small thing after small thing down and be comfortable pretty quick.
I would like to see as well. I am learning markdown alright, but some of the stuff I see people put up looks very professional. Like having several pictured grouped (and different sizes!). I wonder if they were just turning a few photos into a single photo for the visual? I would like to see more options also