Reflect Tips

UCL has provided materials to help you use their software. The Basics of Reflect can be helpful in figuring out how to use the various elements.

The following are some tips that might help you make the best use of the software if you have never used anything like this before.

What is a blog, and how is it different from a website?

The term Blog refers to “web log” and was created as an alternative to having to design a website with static pages. The idea was to be able to take advantage of the interactive elements of the web and to be able to make time related posts (as in a log). These were not static, and as you made a post, it appeared in chronological order.  This is why you have the option to make a post or a page. Posts are dynamic, meaning they appear on your site but not as a static page.  Pages remain in the same place and create the structure of your blog, just like a website.

Editing

“Visual and Text” options. When you create a new post or page, you will see ‘Visual’ and ‘Text’ in the editor (top right). The default view is ‘Visual’. This is also known as a WYSIWYG view (What You See Is What You Get) which means what you type is more or less what you will see when the page is published. This is the same as word processing software like MS Word or Google Docs. You can also use the options to format the content of the page and add in links and media.  The ‘Text’ option is useful when you want to manipulate content, by adding in interactive elements or you may want more control over how things are positioned. If you click on the ‘Text’ view, then you have entered the HTML (HyperText Mark-UP Language) editor. You will see whatever content has already been added in its HTML form, and if you know how to do it, you can manually move or add elements.

How do you use HTML?

HTML often gets referred to as ‘coding’ but it really is more like formatting. Each element has an ‘on’ / and ‘off’ / and was the primary tool used to create web pages in the dark days of the web. The introduction of visual based icons and word processors meant you didn’t have to know how to write HTML anymore. It is worth knowing some of the basics of HTML, so if there are any problems, you can have a look in the ‘text’ view and make the relevant changes.

HTML Tutorial