3 posts tagged “embed”
Since everyone's freaking out about spoilers lately (apparently there's a new wizard movie or something?), I thought this would be a good time to give y'all some tips on how to post them in such a way that will prevent your neighbors from killing you.
The answer, my friends, is to use Vox's embed functionality. It's not just for widgets and quiz results! When used correctly, you can put pretty much anything in to an embed, including HTML that meets your specific needs. In this case, some black text on a black background that will only show up if someone highlights it.
Now, I know what you're saying... You can just set your text color in your post to match your background and call it good, right? Not so. The background of your theme may be white, so you'll set your text color to white, but if your friend's theme has a black background, then his text will all be white already, and when he sees your post in his neighborhood, BAM. Spoiled. De-friended. Ostracized.
Using an embed will guarantee that the background color and text color you want will remain consistent, regardless of where they're being viewed on Vox. Keep in mind, though, that pretty much all bets are off when the content gets out to RSS readers, because there's no telling how much of the formatting they'll respect.
Anyway, how to code your embed:
<div style="background:black; overflow:scroll; width:500px; height:500px">
<font style="color:black">
Spoilers, insults, other stuff you don't want to be readily visible without some kind of a warning
</font>
</div>
That div tag sets you up with a black background, scrollbars in case the content is too long, and the maximum size for a Vox embed. Bonus points if you title the embed with something indicating what it actually is.
If you did it right, here's what you end up with:
I um... haven't read the book.
Vox already makes it easy to add photos and videos to liven up your posts, but what about adding a song too? By using the new embed feature, you can add a song to a post or put a song widget in your sidebar to create a theme song for your blog.
One service we've found pretty easy to use is Sonific's SongSpot. Just sign up, search for songs, and then click to create a free music widget that will stream the song of your choice from their catalog. They're still in beta and are adding to their catalog every day, so you're not going to find top 40 songs in their selections just yet. They do have music from some popular artists like Barenaked Ladies, but we're most impressed with all the genres of music that they have available.
Looking through all their genres made me think about adding some theme music for your posts.
- If you're writing about a bellydancing class you tried out last week, you could insert this song:
- Want a soundtrack to the birds theme you chose for your blog? Add some nature sounds to your sidebar:
- Or add a lovely version of "Twinke Twinkle Little Star" to a post about the new baby in your family:
What other kinds of music widgets have you used on Vox?
-- Krissy
As we've mentioned before, there is a way to opt in to test new Vox features before they are released. Your testing and feedback help us make tweaks and changes before we roll out the features to the entire Vox community.
One of the latest features we're beta testing is the ability to embed code in your posts. Embedding lets you put all sorts of neat things into your posts, like polls, charts, slide shows and much more.
Currently you can only test the embed feature in posts -- you cannot embed media into your sidebars. We've already gotten feedback that you really want to be able to embed code into your sidebars, and we're looking forward to this ability too! But please be patient, it's going to be a little while longer before we roll out that capability.
You have to become a beta tester in order to see the embed button in the Compose page. To participate in beta testing new features, click Account and go to the Your Account page. You'll see Vox Beta along with the statement "Yes, I would like to test new features." next to a checkbox. Just check the box and click the Save to become one of our testers. Be sure to leave your feedback by following the "Beta Feedback" link in the control strip! We're also currently beta testing the new control strip, which you can preview before we roll out the final version to everyone next week.
For more information, read the full instructions about opting in to Beta testing new Vox features and also about Embedding Media in a Post.
How will you use the new embed feature?- Krissy
