Customizing the Footer

Introduction

These instructions will show you how to customize the footer of your web page and turn it into usable space.  The customizations that will be shown are:

·         Removing the "Powered by Movable Type" picture

·         Adding a personal message

·         Removing the Creative Commons license line of text

·         Adding links to the footer

These customizations will take about 10-20 minutes to complete, depending on how much you would like to add.

To get started, log in to the Penn State Blogs website, http://blogs.psu.edu, and navigate to the dashboard of the blog you would like to edit.

Removing the "Powered by Movable Type" Picture

1.  Place the pointer over the "Design" tab and click the "Templates" link on the drop-down menu.

This will take you to the Blog Templates page.

2.  Scroll down to the "Template Modules" section and click on the "Footer" link.

       You will now be taken to the template editor page for the footer code.

3.  Locate the line that looks like this, 

<$mt:Include widget="Powered By (Footer)"$>.

4.  Delete the entire line. 

5.  Click "Save" below the edit window and then the publish website button atop

You have now successfully deleted the "Powered by Movable Type" picture from your footer!

Removing the "MT" Picture Screencast

Adding a Personal Message

1.  Place the pointer over the "Design" tab and click the "Templates" link on the drop-

       down menu.

This will take you to the Blog Templates page.

2.  Scroll down to the "Template Modules" section and click on the "Footer" link.

You will now be taken to the template editor page for the footer code.

3.  Locate the line that looks like this,

<$mt:Include widget="Footer Links"$>.

4.  Place your cursor at the end of the line and press enter to create a new line for code. 

5.  Copy and paste the following lines of code onto the blank line you just made.

                       <br></br> 

                       <p>Place your personal message here.</p> 

You can change the text to say whichever you wish.

Note:  To add more lines, simply add lines of text inside the <p></p> operators.  Adding
              <br></br> will add another blank line between lines of text.

6.    Click "Save" below the edit window and then the publish website button atop

         the page, to the right of the "Tools" tab. 

You have now successfully added a personal message to your footer!

Adding a Personal Message Screencast

Removing the "Creative Commons license" line

Caution:  Only remove this line if you would not like to have the licensing line displayed

                   on your page.  This will not change your page to a non-Creative Commons

                   licensed page.

1.  Place the pointer over the "Design" tab and click the "Templates" link on the drop-down menu.

This will take you to the Blog Templates page.

2.  Scroll down to the "Template Modules" section and click on the "Footer" link.

        You will now be taken to the template editor page for the footer code.

3.  Locate the two lines that look like this:

 <mt:BlogIfCCLicense>

 </mt:BlogIfCCLicense>

4.  Select all the lines starting at <mt:BlogIfCCLicense> to the end of

        <mt:BlogIfCCLicense> and delete everything.

5.  Click "Save" below the edit window and then the publish website button atop

        the page, to the right of the "Tools" tab.

You have now successfully removed the Creative Commons licensing line from your footer!

Removing the "CCL" Line Screencast

Adding Links to the Footer

1.  Place the pointer over the "Design" tab and click the "Widgets" link on the drop-down menu.

This will take you to the Widgets page.

2.  Scroll down to the "Widget Templates" section and click on the "Footer Links" link.

You will now be taken to the template editor page for the footer links widget code.

3.  Locate the 5th line, it looks like this,

<li><a href="<$mt:Link template="Main Index"$>">Home</a></li>,

       and place your cursor at the line.  Press enter to create a new line for code.

4.  Copy and paste the following line of code onto the blank line you just made.

<li>&nbsp;||&nbsp;<a href="Type URL here">Link Name</a></li>

You can change the text to say whichever you wish.  You may replace || with any spacing character you wish, i.e ::, --, etc.

5.  Click "Save" below the edit window and then click the publish website button atop the page, to the right of the "Tools" tab.

          You have now successfully added links to your footer!

Adding Footer Links Screencast