Now that you've built a site you are sure to have questions. Let's address them and then turn to some tips I have.
- Questions:
- Isn't this fun!?!?!?!
- What are "unique visitors"?
- How do you put a calendar on your site?
- Tips:
- Backup: There are two ways to back up a site:
- Copy: You can create a copy of the site by pushing a couple of buttons and then choosing which copy to present to the public. This is recommended by Weebly, but it resides on their servers, so isn't as secure as having it in your hands.
- Zip file: This downloads to your computer, which is more secure as you know it doesn't reside on the same server on which the site is hosted. However, it isn't easy to use it to recreate your site, although Weebly says they can do it.
- Glitches:
- Eternal circle: When you do something that causes a significant change to your page, like go to another page with lots of pictures or text, you'll get a "Loading" circle in the middle of the page. And, sometimes it doesn't go away, regardless of what you do, although it is obvious that the page has been loaded. In these cases you can either continue to work and ignore the graphic, or get out of editing by clicking the back-arrow beside Weebly's W, and then get back into the editor.
- Moving pages: Sometimes when moving pages you'll get them seemingly stuck, meaning that you can't move them again. In those cases you have to get out of the editor by clicking the back-arrow beside Weebly's W, and then get back into the editor. And, when you get back in you'll usually find that the pages are at the very bottom of the list and weren't actually moved. But, sometimes you'll find that you can't move the pages at all, regardless of how many times you get out and back in. In these cases it is time to contact Weebly. I was told "It happens sometimes.)
- Formatting text: I like to create a nav bar at the top of each page and have each line be a link to other related pages, and the line for the page you are on being in bold red. But, frequently when I try to make a line red/bold I find that lots of other text is changed instead. So, I've started hitting the "Tx" button to remove the formatting when I want to remove a link or change things. And, even then sometimes it changes the wrong text. In those cases hit the back arrow to the right of the Tx, then remove the link, and then apply the red/bold.
- Aligning pictures: I need to put several pictures in against each other to recreate a table from another document. But, sometimes they go in as the wrong size - or at least display as the wrong size. What I've learned to do is to determine the width of one that is displaying correctly by editing it and looking in the upper right corner of the screen. Then I edit the one that is the wrong size and make it bigger and then re-adjust to the right size.
- Picture Sizing: And, when using the blue "handle" on the bottom of pictures to resize them, frequently the handle won't even show. Sometimes it will appear if you go work on something else and come back, but usually I have to get out of the editor by clicking the back-arrow beside Weebly's W, and then get back into the editor. And then the blue handle magically appears.
- Backup: There are two ways to back up a site:
Enough of glitches. Now let's talk about some fine tuning. We'll incorporate these ideas into the homework for this week, so heads up.
- Links: You can create a link to another web site, one of your pages on your web site, one of your store pages, a file to download, or even to an email address - although it is easy to see the email address so be careful. Do so by highlighting the text, clicking the "chain link" icon, selecting the type of link you want, and filling in the details. (Show them how by placing navigation on Lesson 3.)
- Buttons: You can do exactly the same thing as creating a link by inserting a button.
- Spacers & Dividers: Good for creating a break between pictures, text, etc. Spacers are a fixed size of blank space, while a divider creates a thin gray line of adjustable width and space above/below.
- Contact form: There's no need to have a Contact page as the contact form can easily be put on the Home page - or any page for that matter. However, if you are looking for feedback or are trying to sell things then you may want to make it dead simple to provide contact you, and that is best done with a Contact page that shows in the navigation bar.
Homework: (Due Wednesday Jan 27th, 2016)
- Incorporate all of the options above (links, buttons, spacers, and dividers) into your web site.
- Do something with the contact form such as adding a contact form to one of your pages.
- Jazz up your text by using some of the formatting options, like bold, italics, underlining, larger/smaller font, different colored font, etc.
- Publish your site, and email me a link to it