The Write Post SubPanel is used to write new posts and edit existing ones. The following describes the features of this SubPanel.

Drafts
If you have any drafts started, they will be listed at the top of the page (so you have no excuse to forget about them!). Clicking on the title of a draft will load the post for further editing.

Basic Post Editing
WordPress has two post editing modes, basic and advanced. Typically, this basic mode is the default for writing new posts, but that can be changed with the When starting a post option in the Administration > Options > Writing SubPanel.

Title
Fairly Self explanatory. Enter the Title of your post here. It can contain most any character you can think of.

Categories
Categories are used to organize your posts. You'll likely want to creat several, descriptive categories for your (and your readers') covenience. To make a post a member of a category, simply click in a checkbox beside the desired category. Can a post belong to more than one category? Absolutely! Click as many as you deem appropriate.

Quicktags
Use quicktags to help you quickly and easily format some text in your post. Simply click-drag to hilight the text you want to format, and click the str button to make that text bold (str for strong). Check the end of this section for a detailed explanation of the Quicktags and their functions. (NOTE: Quicktags are disabled in Safari browser on MacOS X due to compatibility issues, at least as of WP 1.5.2.)

Post
This big empty box is where you'll type in the actual text of your post and use the quicktags.

Trackback a URI
A list of URIs to which you want to send a trackback from this post. Trackbacks let other blogs know you've referenced one of their articles. A URI is a fancy name for the location of a website like http://codex.wordpress.org/. Enter multiple URIs by separating them with spaces.

Save as Draft
A draft is an incomplete post. Maybe you've written up some information, but are not yet ready to unleash it to the world at large. Use this button to save what you have written but prevent the post from being displayed. WordPress reminds you on the Administration > Dashboard Panel and on this Write Post page when you have drafts to complete.

Save as Private
Private posts are completed posts that are never intended for public consumption. Only you (and anyone with direct MySQL database access) will be able to read the post.

Publish
Makes the post visible on your Blog. Use this button once you've typed in your story, and you are satisfied that everything is as you want it.

Advanced Editing
This button allows you to change a few advanced options for your post. See below.

WordPress Bookmarklet
The Press It bookmarklet is a convenient link you can put in your browser's bookmark list. When you click that bookmark while browsing a website, you'll open a new browser window with which you can creat a new post about the website you were viewing.

Quicktags
b - <strong></strong> HTML tag for strong emphasis of text (i.e. bold).
i - <em></em> HTML tag for emphasis of text (i.e. italicize).
b-quote - <blockquote></blockquote> HTML tag to distinguish quoted or cited text.
del - <del></del> HTML tag to label text considered deleted from a post. Most browsers display as striked through text. (Assigns datetime attribute with offset from GMT (UTC))
link - <a href="http://example.com"></a> HTML tag to create a hyperlink.
ins - <ins></ins> HTML tag to label text considered inserted into a post. Most browsers display as underlined text. (Assigns datetime attribute with offset from GMT (UTC))
ul - <ul></ul> HTML tag will insert an unordered list, or wrap the selected text in same. An unordered list will typically be a bulleted list of items.
ol - <ol></ol> HTML tag will insert a numbered list, or wrap the selected text in same. Each item in an ordered list are typically numbered.
li - <li></li> HTML tag will insert or make the selected text a list item. Used in conjunction with the ul or ol tag.
code - <code></code> HTML tag for preformatted styling of text. Generally sets text in a monospaced font, such as Courier.
more - <!--more--> WordPress tag that breaks a post into "teaser" and content sections. Type a few paragraphs, insert this tag, then compose the rest of your post. On your blog's home page you'll see only those first paragraphs with a hyperlink ((more...)), which when followed displays the rest of the post's content.
page - <!--nextpage--> WordPress tag similar to the more tag, except it can be used any number of times in a post, and each insert will "break" and paginate the post at that location. Hyperlinks to the paginated sections of the post are then generated in combination with the wp_link_pages() or link_pages() template tag.
lookup - Opens a JavaScript dialogue box that prompts for a word to search for through the online dictionary at answers.com. You can use this to check spelling on individual words.

Close Tags - Closes any open HTML tags left open--but pay attention to the closing tags. WordPress is not a mind reader (!), so make sure the tags enclose what you want, and in the proper way.

Workflow Note - With Quicktag buttons that insert HTML tags, you can for example click i to insert the opening <em> tag, type the text to be enclosed, and click /i or Close Tags to insert the closing tag. However, you can eliminate the need for this 'close' step by changing your workflow a bit: type your text, select the portion to be emphasized (that is, italicized), then click i and your highlighted text will be wrapped in the opening and closing tags.

The Quicktag buttons also have the accesskey JavaScript attribute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_keys) set, so you may be able to use a keyboard equivalent (e.g., Alt-b for bold) to "press" the button, depending on your browser.