Newcomers to Dreamwidth

Some more Dreamwidth tips.

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 09:04:23 GMT

Posted by: teres

Here I am again with some more Dreamwidth tips!
( More technical tips this time. )

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Looking for introductions to decorative CSS on Dreamwidth?

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 01:03:23 GMT

Posted by: malymin

I really like looking at the "codes" made for playlists and roleplay blogs like the ones on criscodes. But I don't have a good baseline for how CSS and HTML can be effectively used inside of posts on Dreamwidth. Cohost, obviously, was infamously permissive with what you could do with CSS; most "modern style" social media, meanwhile, doesn't even really let you insert tables or div elements to format, limiting in-post html/css to just some very bare bones text formatting at most.

Are there any tutorials or guides for how to learn to develop your own aesthetic playlist/muselist/ac tracker/muse inbox/etc "codes" from scratch? I'd really love to brush up on my fanciest css without necessarily editing my blog theme every time to do it.

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Dreamwidth tips and observations.

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 05:51:45 GMT

Posted by: teres

Given that I've made some observations and tips on my own journals over time, I thought it was time to share them a bit wider, so here goes:
( Read more... )

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Helpful Tips for Former Cohost Users (like myself)

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 17:33:07 GMT

Posted by: onlyknownothing

1.) Markdown Posting

If you miss being able to post via Markdown instead of HTML, the beta features page has an option to opt into the "New Create Entries Page." This allows for creating posts using Markdown, much as the comment function has a Markdown option. Just as with cohost, HTML input into the post will overrule/overwrite the Markdown you're using (if you want to get silly with it).

2.) HTML and CSS Stuff

If you instead want to jump feet-first into the brave new world of all-HTML posts, I recommend w3schools as a reference and primer. They have really good walkthroughs of current-gen HTML5, as well as CSS (and even JavaScript, though that doesn't apply here). I refer to them regularly when Markdown is insufficient and I can't remember what the various style options for an HTML element are.

3.) Your "Dashboard" is Public

I haven't seen any evidence of this being misused here, but it's an old carryover from the LiveJournal days and people coming from cohost tend to be surprised by it. Everyone can see what shows up on your Reading page, unless the original creator of the post has restricted that entry. Not only is it an open HTML link, but it's literally a link on your main page for anybody to click on. If you wouldn't want someone else seeing that you're following something, you might want to use a separate feed-reader and just subscribe to the feed there (which you can also do for actual public dreamwidth journals, as they have an RSS and Atom link on each front page).

4.) You Can Customize Your Journal

Another carryover from the LiveJournal days, but also something which used to be a big deal on Tumblr and wasn't possible on cohost. If you're into the CSS crimes stuff, or just want something which reflects your personality/interests, you can customize your journal's CSS to give it a unique look. You could easily get very in-depth with this if you wanted. Or heck, just make it look (mostly) like cohost did if you'd like - you could pull the CSS off cohost itself as long as it's up, or use their rehosting tool (once it's live). I actually specifically incorporated the "cohost font" of Atkinson Hyperlegible onto my page because I like how easy it is on the eyes.

5.) Tags Don't Work Like Cohost

Yes, you can tag your posts - but unlike cohost and Tumblr, they aren't global. You can't click on a tag and see other people who have used it, unless it's a tag in a community (and even then, those community tags only apply to that particular community). There's no "I enjoy seeing the art people make, so I follow the 'artists on dreamwidth' tag." Interests are the closest equivalent; instead of each post being tagged individually, people list their overall interests and you can either search them or browse through them to find people who've said they like that thing. That said, there's nothing requiring people to post about the things they're interested in.

6.) It Takes a Bit More Work to Connect

This is a very early "web 2.0" system. As in, "web 2.0" was coined in 1999 per the Wikipedia article I just linked and the code for LiveJournal (on which dreamwidth is based) started being written that same year. There's been 25 years of intervening development since then designed to make the "social" part of social media more seamless, and this place doesn't really have any of that. That means you have to do more of the legwork yourself. You can't engage with posts or users without actually engaging with them - there's no reblogging/rechosting, no "likes," nothing on any post except perhaps a comment box. So you're going to have to search, reach out, or maybe just DIY it. There are communities such as this one and addme which make it possible to find other people, and ysabetwordsmith's followfriday is a community meant for recommending other communities. You can also create your own! It looks like someone's already made eggbug_writes as a community for former cohost writers and writing-prompt-makers, and there's nothing that says you can't create some other central meeting-place communities for people to regather and find one-another again.

7.) Protect Yourself

You can turn off or limit Private Messages in your Account Settings under the Privacy tab, which is also how you can turn off anonymous comments and IP logging (which is on by default). You can also ban users directly from commenting on your own journal page there too. I encourage you to liberally take the actions you need to make it hard for other people to make your life more unpleasant. If anybody is actively violating the Terms of Service (section XI - Member Conduct), you can also report them... but there is no sitewide blocking or muting like there was on cohost, so keep that in mind and take proactive steps to make sure you aren't giving access you don't want to people you don't want having access to you. This place is generally more insular due to its old design functions - it takes work to search out others, which limits discoverability of people you want to know and people you don't in equal measure - but it's still possible for you to show up in the Latest Things global feed (which is a true global feed), so please take steps to take care of yourself in advance if someone barging in and being an awful human on your page will be worse than a "sigh, delete, ban" response for you.

I haven't seen anything of the sort happen, but that doesn't mean it can't. I never saw any of the cohost-related issues first-hand either.

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Guest Lecture - On Fiction Organisation

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 19:53:08 GMT

Posted by: amiserablepileofwords

Hi, I'm Miz.

You might remember me from such sites as Cohost, or uh... Cohost (RIP 😿), and I've been invited here today to talk to you about... Organizing Your Dreamwidth Serial Fiction¹, Because Tags Aren't Enough And They're Displayed In The Wrong Order To Boot.

If you ever read any of Cohost Writers' Salon most prolific writer Caffeinated Otter²'s longer works, you might remember the beautiful little navigation header and footer boxes that contained useful links related to that story.

When I started to repost my archive on here, I decided to do the old "copy the homework, but change it a bit", and created my own, slightly uglier looking version.

Below you will find the bit of html/css³ that makes it look⁴ like my header in the post above.

<div style="border-radius: 50%/10%; border: 2px solid; display: flex; align-items: center; flex-direction: column; font-size: 90%;">
<center>SERIES TITLE GOES HERE</center>
<div style="width: 90%; display: flex; justify-content: space-around;">
<span><a href="BEGINNING LINK GOES HERE" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" tabindex="0">beginning</a></span>
<span><a href="PREVIOUS LINK GOES HERE" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" tabindex="0">previous</a></span>
<span><a href="NEXT LINK GOES HERE" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" tabindex="0">next</a></span>
</div>
</div>

Going back and forth fixing up next/previous links each time you add a new chapter is some degree of More Hoops™, but I do think it makes things nicer and easier for your readers, and they're who we're doing this for, right?

Anyway, I hope this'll be of some use to you.
^{^{^{maybe read my stories, please and thank you}}}

^1: Or other things you want to help people track on here in a sequential order
^2: Who is also on here with recent work
^3: Which you can post straight into the markdown editor as well, with no problems
^4: I would really suggest fiddling with it further so it's less... wonky

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