I, Me, Myself

First published: 2009-03-04 04:36:34

This is the English version of Plurk 之非官方新手入門手冊.

06/07 Update: Plurk stand-alone app........【Part 9】

◎ My plurk ID: weedyc. Click here, sign up and you'll automatically become my plurk bud. (LOL)

You should feel not used to Plurk at the beginning for its horizontal layout. However, once you got over it, Plurk could be your msn/blog/newspaper/twitter/forum/Yahoo Answers...quite handy.

As a result, I decided to write an introductory manual. If you are new to plurk, this is definitely what you need. (Of course, this manual will be updated if there is any new feature releases.)

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Part 1: Basic Plurk Codes

Bold: **plurk**
Italics: *plurk*
Underline: __plurk__
Text link: link (text) (Notice: there should be a blank after the link)
Link to a user : @plurk (Notice: no blank after @)

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Part 2: Karma

You log in, plurk, therefore you get karma. So...
as long as you continue to plurk, you get more karma...(God bless you. LOL)

Rules about karma:
1. Plurk Karma is updated every 4 hours: 00:00、04:00、08:00、12:00、16:00、20:00.
2. Karma increases very fast during the initial period but slow down over time.
3. over 30 plurks a day/too many friendship rejections/Inactivity for a long period would decrease your karma.
4. Over 10, you can change the title of your personal page. Over 40, you can change your nickname.
5. You can get exclusive emoticons when karma is over 25 and 50.
6. The highest karma is 100. (The A-team considers to freeze karma as it reaches 100 but this idea isn't put into practice.)

Otherwise, want to know how much karma you get/lose everyday?
Add karma_trends as friend and
copy http://plurk.ryanlim.com/graph.php?nick_name[]=weedyc,
change the red ID into yours. Done!

Going on a longer vacation
or don't have time to Plurk?
Check out Karma freeze!
Click "My Account" and you will see Karma vacation mode (freeze karma).
Turn it on and you are free from karma. :P

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Part 3: Plug-ins of Emoticons

Though the original plurk emoticons are really cute, they still cannot be compared with those designed by ourselves. Many famous Taiwanese bloggers/comic drawers create los of cute emoticons, like: Wan-wan, Onion head ...and Tuzki, created by Wang Momo from Beijing. Want to use these on plurk? Sure...Only if you are using Firefox or Opera.
(My suggestion: plurk with Firefox. It loads faster in FF than IE.)

Firefox:
Install GreaseMonkey first and then Plurk Smile (version 3.3.2)

Opera:
First, Download Plurk Smile.
Go to Tool → Preference →Advanced → Content →
JavaScript options → User JavaScript files→...

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Part 4: CSS Themes

Feel bored with few color choices for plurk personal page?
Don't worry. Plurk lets people customize CSS style.
Here quickly introduce some themes:
(one-click install. You can easily revert back to your old design if not loving it.)

Cartoons:
Hello Kitty, four-leaved clover, Winnie the Pooh 1, Winnie the Pooh 2,
blue sky, Powerpuff Girls, Super Mario Bros, Totoro...

Camouflage:
Excel, PuTTy, PhotoShop (basic), PhotoShop (advanced),
Outlook, Flash, Bugzilla, NetBeans...

You may have heard a lot of sites
that have numerous gorgeous CSS themes.
The following are some:

Plurk Themes
PlurkTemplates
Plurk Theme Sate Bab
The Plurk Themes Pool
Plurk K! | Kustomized CSS Theme
Plurk Customized Theme Emporium
Plurk Layouts, Plurk Themes, Plurk Designs

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Part 5: CSS Customization

Dislike those themes designed by others?
You can edit CSS on blog and, of course, plurk as well.
The main CSS codes are:

body, html: Whole background
#top_bar .content a: Links in left side of top bar (my profile...)
#top_login a: Links in right side of top bar (Find/invite friends...)
#timeline_holder: Date line
.plurk_cnt: All plurks
#updater: Updates or new responses
#plurk-dashboard
#more_options: Private plurks, languages & options
#dash-profile
#dash-stats
#dash-friends
#dash-fans

More details: Styling Plurk


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Part 6: Basic Add-ons for Blog, HTML Editing

A big part of plurkers are also bloggers.
You too?
Then you may want to add plurk to the sidebar of your blog.
Is that possible? Definitely.

Click "edit" (beside "My Profile") → widget,
find Blog/Website (HTML), copy the codes, and paste them to the sidebar.

Of course you can customize the widget.

For people using WordPress, you have your own add-ons!

Get Your Plurk：
1. WordPress users only.
2. Show date & time for each plurk or not.
3. Widget support.
4. Customize CSS file.

The two ways above are to display your own plurks,
which means that you take plurk as a tool to document all your thoughts.
Adding plurk to the sidebar of your blog is for your readers to know you more.

Here is one possible situation on plurk:
You throw a question that stirs up a brisk discussion
and you want to transform the plurk into an article on blog.
How? Use Plurk2 (Plurk Plug).

There is a "plurk page" at the bottom right corner of each plurk.
It looks like: http://www.plurk.com/p/i4ufv.
copy the plurk URL, go to Plurk2 and get JavaScript code.
Paste the code while you post an article.
I've tested it. Pretty cool, huh?
Many styles are available,
including Hana Style, ph2 style, Plurk Blue style...etc.
Here is a post from the original programmer:
Plurk.tw, to plurk on blog or plurk to blog?

A plurker asks if someone sets his timeline viewable for friends only,
will his plurks be viewable after Plurk2 JavaScript encoding?
After my testing, the answer is NO.
you cannot make it a normal post with Plurk2.
The content would be a bunch of unreadable characters.
How about private plurks of open timeline? Still no.

Are you a WordPress user? If so, congratulations!
You can use Wordplurk to share your articles by directly plurking it out.

Wordplurk Install:
1. Download the WordPlurk zip file.
2. Unzip and upload the file and folders to your WordPress plugins folder.
3. Activate the plugin in your Admin section.
4. Set your username and password in your Admin section.
5. Next time you post to your blog it will update to Plurk automatically for you.

If you take each plurk page as an article,
you may want to track someone's plurks by subscribing to RSS feeds.
It's very easy: add ".xml" after his plurk url.
Again, take my plurk as an example:
http://www.plurk.com/weedyc.xml is my plurk rss feed. :)

More details:
"Get Your Plurk" Plugin for WordPress
WordPlurk a WordPress plugin for Plurk

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Part 7: Plurk to other websites

If you have a blog (MySpace, Blogger...),
use micro-blog (twitter, plurk...),
instant messaging (AOL, MSN...),
or social bookmarks (Digg, del.icio.us...),
you probably think:
"Can something send each of your plurks to all of your social networks?"
If fact, Plurk itself could help you to update status
on facebook, twitter, Friendster, Multiply.
Otherwise, you can also plurk through MSN or a mobile phone.
Simply click "My Account" and follow the instructions.

Want more options?
There are always multi-platform updaters/services to choose!

HelloTxt:
1. Read and reply messages from other networks.
2. Support mobile, sms, email updates

Ping.fm:
1. Support over 40 social networking sites
2. Unable to read and reply messages from other networks.

Mechanical Plurk:
1. Only for twitter to plurk (in other words: easier and simpler)
2. Use @id to reply on twitter, it'll reply to the user on plurk automatically. (if he uses MP as well)

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Part 8: Thumbnails, Shortened Text or Url

Basically, links of photos or videos (ex: youtube...)
would be showed by thumbnails automatically after posting on plurk.
You click them and they'll pop out plurk windows.

What if you don't have space to upload photos?
What if the words you want to say are over 140
and you don't want to separate them into several plurks?
You can use Twitdom or ppt.cc (a Taiwanese website).

March 12, Plurk released a new feature "Plurk Paste",
which allows not only over 140 words input and code,
including c, c++, java, JS, HTML, MySQL, XML...etc.
but also setting the message to private.

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Part 9: Other Plug-ins and Info.

Wow, finally it is part 9...the previous 8 parts are basic
and "the more former, the more common."

Besides A-team, there are many hidden great programmers on plurk.
As a consequence, They create many plug-ins by their own....

◎ GreaseMonkey plug-ins for Firefox

Plurk Rich Edit:
Being Lazy to memorize basic plurk codes?
Plurk Rich Edit, like the toolbar of WORD,
lets you to make words bold, Italics, underline or links by one click.

Plurk Calendar:
Thank rein a lot for his writing this save-my-fingers-from-endless-scrolling program!!!

Plurk Time Jumper:
This Script fixed from YungSang's "Plurk Time Machine".
Add a SelectDate button to input date.

Plurk Productivity:
It locks your timeline temporarily and you can set the time limit as you want.
After locking it up, the efficiency...will be raised theoretically.

Plurker 2_blank:
If you like to click the right button to open a plurker's page in a new window, you have to try this!

◎ General Plug-ins and Sites

Poll/Survey Generator:
Enter Poll Question and 3 options. Done!
Run your own polls at once!

PushLURK:
Reading something you want to share? Push PushLURK to share it on plurk easily.

Plurk Head View Tool:
Enter your Plurk ID.
You'll not only see all used ID photos but be able to select one friend to see his/hers.

Plurk stand-alone app for Mac:
Use plurk as an software.


Finally, I want to share an info: Plurk Collaborative Translation Project
"The goal is to have a full translated user interface
for every language our users speak." Quoted from PCTP.
I am a Chinese (traditional) translator from Taiwan in this project.
Anyone is highly welcome to join us! :)

 
The English version is a little bit shroter then Chinese one
because part of the content is for Chinese readers only.
If you want to know the full content,
the only way is to learn Chinese. (LOL)