Five Minute Overview for End Users

User Accounts

Your username and passphrase allow you to access the Bridge, and are the only information you must provide to register.

There are, however, optional profile fields you may fill out if you feel so inclined.

Airship will reject extremely weak passwords. A password manager, such as KeePassX (which will also generate strong passwords for you), is strongly recommended.

Authors

Although you can login with your username and password, most public interactions (blog posts, comments) will be done through an author profile (think "pen name").

After you login, click Authors then Create a New Author Profile. Here you can create your public persona, write any biographical information you consider important, etc.

You can have as many Authors as you'd like, and each Author can be shared amongst your friends, coworkers, or colleagues (depending on the purpose of your Airship).

Blogs

The blogging platform we provide, Hull, is both simple and powerful. But our access controls are stronger. (Check with your Captain that you have permission to access these features or they will not appear on your menu.)

Categories

The main structure of blog posts is the category. Categories are like folders on your computer: Where a folder on your computer can contain files as well as other folders, a category can contain other categories in addition to blog posts.

Each blog post can be assigned to exactly one category, or none at all.

When browsing the Hull, any blog posts in the current category, or its children, will be included in the listing.

Series

A series allows you to give freeform structure to the way your blog posts are laid out. Series can contain either blog posts or other series.

For example, if you wanted to use Airship as a platform for publishing your own e-book series, you might adopt a structure like this:

• Book 1: The Chronicles of Exampletown * Preface: A blog post Act 1:* Welcome to Exampletown Chapter 1*: Foo at the Bar * Page 1: A blog post * Page 2: Another blog post Chapter 2*: Bar Baz * Page 3: Yet another blog post * Interlude Blog Post Chapter 3*: The Example Intensifies Act 2:* Et Cetera
• Book 2: The Demonstration
• A Short Essay about a Minor Character
• Book 3: The "I Reckon"ing

The end goal is to allow creative flexibility with how blog posts are structured.

Each blog post can be assigned to many series, simultaneously. You can freely reorder them in the Bridge.

Tags

Tags should be familiar to anyone who has used a blogging platform or social media before. They represent specific topics that either don't belong in their own category or are split across many appropriate categories.

Each blog post can have many tags.

Blog Posts

Unlike many platforms, we don't lock you into one way of doing things. Presently, you can format your blog posts in:

• Markdown
• ReStructuredText
• Raw HTML
• Rich Text (WYSIWYG editor for HTML)

Type in your blog post in the textbox, then press the "Preview" tab beneath it to see how it renders. If you're satisfied, you can press Publish or Save Draft below (without having to go back to the Edit tab).