The first step in creating Podcasts for your blog page is to author the audio or video multimedia file you intend to use. A variety of audio and video Podcast creation tools are available, including GarageBand, Podcast Factory, AudioExpress and others. Once you have authored your multimedia file, you turn it into a Podcast by clicking the "Add Podcast..." button. When the Podcast pane opens, drag your media file on top of the Podcast dropbox (found under the "Podcast" tab). When you publish your website, RapidWeaver will automatically export the file to your website as a Podcast.

Blog - Podcast: Podcast Dropbox

RapidWeaver directly supports MP3, MPG, MOV, MP4 (including M4V and M4A variants) and PDF file types for Podcasting. You can add any one of these file types to your Podcast simply by dropping the desired multimedia file onto the Podcast dropbox. However, you may also link to external multimedia files to create your Podcast rather than using the Podcast dropbox by using the "Override default Podcast settings" option found under the Custome RSS Tags tab.

NOTE: Podcasting is merely a specialized implementation of the RSS tag in your blog entry that points to the multimedia file you are syndicating. While MP3 audio files are most commonly used, you may attach other types of files to your Blog including images, movies , documents and more. However, only one multimedia file may be added as a Podcast per Blog entry.

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The top section of the General tab contains the archiving options for your blog, in which you can customize the archiving behavior, if used. By default, archiving is active. Disabling it will cause RapidWeaver to keep all of your blog's posts on the same page, growing longer with each blog entry you add. If enabled, archiving will move all your old posts to separate pages, keeping only the current week's or month's posts on the main page, as selected in the "Archive by" popup menu. You can also set the minimum number of posts that must appear on the main blog page before older posts are archived, and whether or not to show gaps in your archived posts.

Blog - Setup: General Tab

The middle section of the General tab allows you to enable Permalinks in your blog and to set the Permalink's link title. If you use summaries in your blog entries, you may choose whether the Permalink points to the summary rather than the blog entry itself by clicking the "Include Summary" checkbox. When published, the Permalink will point to the summary, which will include a Read more... link to the full blog entry. You may also change the Read more... link's wording by typing a word or phrase of your own choosing. This will become the system-wide link phrase when used in summaries in your blog.

The bottom portion of the General tab allows you to enable Comments in your blog entries, allowing visitors to post feedback for your blog posts. To enable blog comments, you must first sign up with Haloscan, a free comment-tracking service for bloggers. Once you have an account, enter your Haloscan username into the "Username" field and enable comment feeds by clicking the "Enable" checkbox. If you want to change the name of the comment feed's RSS link that appears in the sidebar, type it into the "RSS Link" field. Once commenting is enabled, you will see "Comments (0) | Trackback (0)" appear under each entry in your blog. As comments and trackbacks are added, the values in the parentheses will increment. By default a link labeled "Comments Feed" will appear in the sidebar of your blog page. Visitors who click this link will be taken to your user account page on Haloscan, showing all of your visitors comments. You can prevent the link from appearing in your sidebar by removing the text from the "RSS Link" field on the "General" tab.

NOTE: You can manage your comments and the look of the pop-up-window by logging into the members area on Haloscan. Instructions on how to integrate commenting with Haloscan can be found here.

As blogs have come into widespread use across the Internet, blog referral and tracking services have come into being. Companies like Technorati, Postami, BlogPulse and Google follow blogs and keep track of what's important in the blogosphere — which bloggers are commanding attention, what ideas are rising in prominence, and the speed at which these conversations are taking place.

Blog - Setup: Ping Tab

You can configure your blog to ping these blog directory services every time your blog page is updated. To add a service to ping, click the (+) button, type the name of the service and the URL to its "ping" page (the page on the service that accepts pings) and click the "Ping the following blog directories" box. You can also send a ping immediately to any newly-added service by selecting its entry in the list and clicking the "Ping Now" button.