oh I should probably get more used to putting explicit cuts in things

[pnictogen_wing]

Cohost automatically hid the bottom of long posts so I got used to just...letting that be my visible limit. Now I fear I'm hitting people with walls of text. Ecch. ~Chara

Comments

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I don't think that Dreamwidth cuts or hides posts automatically.

When you go to make a post, look on its top menu bar, slightly right of center. The icon has black lines with a wiggly line under it.

You can also just go in the HTML view and type at the beginning:
(cut)

and at the end:
(/cut)

Replace the parentheses with angle brackets to activate the code:
< >

Generally people cut after the first paragraph or few of text, or after the first picture in a set. If it's short, or the pictures are tiny like icons, you don't necessarily need the cut.

Here's where lurking can really help you. Look at a community such as newcomers or use the Latest Things page to see how people are using cuts. You'll get the hang of what is customary here. And if not, well, you won't be the only person not cutting things. Some folks just don't use that feature.

Re: Yes ...

[pnictogen_wing]

thanks for the advice again. I should consult the style guide here instead of winging it. I assume there's some documentation of allowable tags ~Chara

Re: Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Official:
What HTML tags can I use on Dreamwidth?

Fan:
GUIDE TO DREAMWIDTH HTML/CSS

See also the Dreamwidth Code section in this post.

Note that you can test a lot of things in the post builder without actually posting them. It lets you toggle between Rich Text and HTML modes. So not only can you use it to check your code -- if it's broken you should see that in Rich Text -- it also lets you use menu buttons to automate code and then see what code they wrote. Be aware that some times of mistakes will "eat" your text completely, deleting it; while others will only make parts invisible in Rich Text but you can find and fix them in HTML view. So if you're writing something complicated, it's a good idea to copy and save it in a word processor. The post builder does have an Undo function but it's not always enough.

The style editor is riskier and doesn't seem to have an undo button. It glitched on me while I was trying to set up a community and changed my personal blog instead. O_O And there's no undo. Fortunately it unlocked a few hours later, but that was still nerve-wracking. If you're editing your style, again, make copies somehow -- save pages of your blog to Wayback or another archive so you can see how it looked, and write down the style you are using, order of modules, etc.