Verify every change, however small, in the public view before proceeding.

These controls found on the gray tabs at upper right adjust data that control your account and your site. Depending on your site type and user group you may see some or all of these controls.

 Settings  displays a supplementary task bar with settings for, e.g., general control, public information, contact information, appearance, site-wide graphics and layout.

 Files  displays form(s) for control of supplementary files.

 Members  displays form(s) for member management.

 Reports  displays a tally of readers of your pages.

 Account  displays a supplementary control bar to maintain your account, billing and access data. It is very important to keep this information up to date to assure that your site remains active.

Preview (above the tabs) opens a new window to preview your site as the world sees it.

Table of Contents

Standard navigation menus are built into every Sitemaker layout, but some layouts do not employ all the menus.

Near upper left of the Editing Suite you will find a list of pages and Sitemaker tools.

Sitemaker content types are indicated by a symbol next to each item.

• General purpose pages: Edit these as you did during this lesson. Pages are just that, single pages of information.
• Home page: Designate any page or tool as your home page.
• You can omit pages from your menus and link to them by a standard URL from other pages in the site, or you can add links in the menus to content locally or on other sites. This lets you be creative with special content. NOTE: Once a page or any other content is linked, it may be indexed by search engines and is thus not truly invisible; these are navigation controls, not privacy controls.

Tools vs. Pages

TOOLS: A great variety of content can be managed with Sitemaker tools like the Calendar, Gallery, and Document Lists (article lists). You can use these tools to structure your data more effectively than most people can do by adding long lists of independent pages. The Sitemaker Team recommends that wherever possible you use a tool rather than a page to create and store content.

To add a tool, click the Toolbox icon, choose a tool and Sitemaker will guide you through the respective process. Some tools (e.g., calendar) are limited to a single occurrence within a site; others (e.g., forms) may be repeated.

PAGES: A page in Sitemaker is any page that is not part of a Sitemaker tool. Click the Pages icon and Sitemaker will offer you a list of pages and an Add(+) button. Most pages will use a Simple Page layout such as a Text Page.

Remember

• It is usually preferable to use a Sitemaker tool for structured content (e.g., blog posts, calendar events). They have their own editing and display procedures. Remember, too, that  Help  is available for most pages in the Editing Suite.
• The editing view of a page is only an approximation of the actual pages layout and of the relative position and sizes of the components.

Articles vs Pages

An article has the same layout features as a page, but it is also part of a group of articles organized by date, type (e.g., text, video), topic (e.g., Sports or Fashion) and/or an arbitrary rank. Article Manager aka Journalmaker℠ also has an additional navigational feature, the article list, that can be placed anywhere in the sytem as an entry point for the group. The Article Manager is intended as the navigation structure for a newsletter, newspaper or magazine (e.g., Mill Creek Today or Seattle Press).

More about navigation

Extended navigation controls for each page and tools are available by clicking the Navigation control icon. Sitemaker will present a list of pages and tools; click the one you want to adjust. You can easily re-order the TOC and show/hide selected pages in the Top, Main, and Footer menus.

Finally, if you get lost, just look at the URL at the top of the window in a public view. The URL will contain either the linking name of the page, such as "information.html" OR the name of a tool. You can then find your way to that element by way of the Navigation, Page or Article (if used) lists.

Text

Type/overtype the text as you would in any word processor. You can copy and paste plain text including text that contains HTML tags from another application. Note that formatted text, including some special characters use by word processing applications, do not transfer directly to the Web. You should paste only plain text or properly formatted HTML text into text components. Only experience can reveal all the variations.

Graphics

The following graphic positions are available

• Theme (mast) graphic: if used, appears at top center of every page of your site; if not used, the name of your site will be displayed in large, centered text.
• Background graphic(s): if used, you can upload background (texture) graphics to appear behind many layout elements.
• Component graphic(s): each page of your site may contain one or more topical graphics.
• Graphics should be saved at 72 or 96 pixels per inch depending on the devices most likely to be supported by your readers; JPEG (.JPG) format is recommended for most situations to conserve bandwidth; GIF and PNG graphics are also supported.
• Thumbnail graphics automatically become icons in many situations, and clicking them will display a larger version. If the original is larger than the expanded picture, clicking again will display the full original size.
• Other graphic options are available for advanced editors.

Graphics may be prepared in any graphics application. They can be saved in the following formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG. Other formats (e.g., Microsoft's .BMP) are not intended for the Web, even if they look OK on your own personal system.

To upload a graphic to a component, browse your disk for your graphic, select (open, choose...) it, and then click Send. The page will refresh with your component portrayed in a small thumbnail view. You can add a caption and ALT-text. You can move the component around precisely on the page layout display.

To replace a graphic, just repeat the process. Your old graphic will be erased from the system. You should maintain local copies of your graphics in case you change your mind later.

Links

Click the puzzle piece for the component. Type the address of the page to be linked. Type a label that will be displayed on the page. Optionally, type a second line that describes the site; the presence of this line automatically alters the format of the link. Optionally add a graphic; it will also function as a link, either in combination with the text link or in place of it. Many variations are predefined. Experiment to see the difference.

Jump Links

You can create links within a page and a page index by filling in the Jump Link in the component settings. Once you have labeled all your components, create a jump link index component near the top of the page; readers will be able to move easily about on complex pages if you employ this useful component.

Document/Article Lists

You can use Document Lists (Article Lists) on pages to create subordinate TOCs for selected themes. Some frequently used themes (article lists) are News, Reports, Case Studies, Biographies, etc. Document lists help keep your navigation simple and straightforward. You will greatly simplify both content management and navigation of your site if you use document lists in preference to general purpose pages. This is an advanced topic that is elaborated elsewhere.

Other Components

Sitemaker has several other component types (e.g., video...) that are beyond the range of this introduction. Some require a service upgrade. You'll discover them as you experiment.