Automatically Create Blog When User Joins.

I have over 133 test users for the site I am attempting to build.  Just about every one of them was confused about creating a blog before adding blog posts.  Most thought the description field was the place to write the blog post.  If I have this many users confused about this, then it has to be all over the net for any site built with Dolphin.  Most people are use to joining a site that allows blogging and having their blog automatically ready to go.  If I could create the user's blog when they create their profile, it would make things easier.

 One thing I need to do is to change the message from grey to red.  Grey text is a poor choice for messages; grey means inactive on menu structures.  Alert messages should be bright; and red is an attention getter.  If nothing else, tell me where I can change the message for you need to create a blog.. 

blogs css..

modules/boonex/blogs/templates/base/css

there are two files there. did you change anything in here?

also you can do a lot here to change the look of things or add/remove features.. this is the blogpost_unit.html

<div class="blog_unit">

__post_vote__

__post_uthumb__

<div class="unit_info__post_mode__">

__checkbox__

<div class="title">

__post_caption__

</div>

<div class="clear_both"></div>

<div class="fr_small_gray_centered">

__author__

<span class="margined10">

<span>__post_date__</span>

</span>

<span class="margined10">

<span>__comments_count__ <bx_text:_comments /></span>

</span>

<span class="margined10">

<bx_text:_Categories />: __all_categories__

</span>

<bx_text:_Tags />: __post_tags__

</div>

<div class="clear_both"></div>

<div class="blog_text__friend_style__">

__post_picture2__

__post_description__

</div>

<div class="clear_both"></div>

</div>

<div class="clear_both"></div>

</div>

 There are two approaches you can take to change the message color :

 1) If you want to change all those messages site-wide :

     In templates\base\css\common.css

     Find this code snippet and change the color as highlighted in bold

    .MsgBox .msgbox_text {
       text-align:center;
       color:#CCCCCC;
       font-weight:bold;
       font-size:14px;
       padding:10px;
       text-transform:uppercase;
       /* text-shadow: #333 1px 1px 2px; */
   }

2) If you want to change only that specific message :

    In modules\boonex\blogs\classes\BxBlogsModule.php

    Find :

            $sRetHtml = MsgBox($sPleaseCreateBlogC);

    Replace with :

           $sRetHtml = MsgBox('<font color="#660000">'.$sPleaseCreateBlogC.'</font>');

 RE:

 I actually agree with you on this one.  The 'Please create a blog' is a completely useless step.

 Unless I can create more than one blog; then this would make sense.  Is it possible for a user to create more than one blog?  I don't think the system is set up to do that.  Most of the users did not see a need to create a description for their blog either since the blog would not be about any one thing.

How hard would it be to change the system so that when a user clicked on anything that triggers the "Create a Blog" part that it just creates the blog instead of presenting the form?  The description field left blank.  They can always edit the description field later.  All the form does is to stop and allow the user to put in a description, just create the blog and bypass that and allow it to be added later.

Eliminating this step would require structural changes, and compatibility issues, so that's not going to happen. Automating this step,  would add unnecessary records to the database for users that never post a blog, so that's not a good idea either.  I've made a few suggestions in the notes section of this site, that would make this step more sensible, and remove the confusion.  I believe most people here will agree with my suggestions.

http://www.boonex.com/n/please-create-a-blog-huh

Yes, I think the best thing to do is to have the notice in red text and instead of just "create a blog" give a more detailed explanation such as "Before you can start posting bog articles, you need to create a blog.  Type a description for your blog and then hit submit"

 I have posted a Free Mod that allows auto creation of Blog.

Thank you very much, I truly appreciate this.  This will save me a lot of headaches over people who don't understand about creating a blog; that one thing has caused me a lot of support issues on the test site.

I should look at the Ultimate Blog module as well.