Coding and Instructions for Advanced Users of Blogs@PSU

Renaming the Blog Tab

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:52:08 -0500

Removing the Blog Tab

Step 1: Select Design/Templates.
Step 2: Under Template Modules, select Navigation.

Line #3 of text includes the Blog URL information and names the tab.

Step 3: Change the name "Blog" to "Forum", "News", or whatever you would like.
Step 4: Save changes and Publish.

See my example Blog.

Removing the Blog Tab

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:51:05 -0500

Removing the Blog Tab

Step 1: Select Design/Templates.
Step 2: Under Template Modules, select Navigation.
Step 3: Delete line #3 of text , the line that includes the Blog url information.
Step 4: Save changes.
Step 5: Publish.

See my example Blog.

Adding the Banner Heading to Every Page

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:24:49 -0500

In the template for "Header", towards the bottom, there is this snippet of code:

Just remove the surrounding mt:If tags, so instead of those three lines, you just have one:

Republish the site and that should do it.

Changing the Font Styles and Color Background

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:22:04 -0500

This is the basic patter to add to Design/Template/Stylesheet. You can substitute any font style. If the font has more than one word, put single quotations around the style name. Make sure to add a comma and serif or sans serif, so that the program can choose a suitable default font style if yours cannot be read by the browser.

body {
color: #fff;
}

#content {
background-color: black;
font-family: 'Microsoft YaHei',sans-serif;
}

#container-inner {
background-color: black;
font-family: 'Microsoft YaHei', sans-serif;
}

h1#header-name
{
font-family: 'Microsoft YaHei',sans-serif;
}
a
{
font-family: 'Microsoft YaHei', sans-serif;
}

Changing the Color of the Blog Background

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:20:47 -0500

The following code is for a black background:

body {

color: #fff;

}

#content {

background-color: black;

}

#container-inner {

background-color: black;

}

Eliminating the Sidebar and Expanding the Content Container

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:19:53 -0500

Here are the instructions for making the whole blog sidebar-less and make the content take up the entire page as well.

1) Design > Template > Header

replace code (it is at the bottom of the template):

with:

2) Design > Template > Sidebar

Remove all code from this template.

3) Design > Template > Stylesheet

add this:

.alpha-wide {
width:940px !important;
}

That's it.

Recent News

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:40:49 -0500

Please see Erin Long's generous comments about our website!

How to Remove the Blog Tab

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:22:54 -0500

Removing the Blog Tab

Step 1: Select Design/Templates.
Step 2: Under Template Modules, select Navigation.
Step 3: Delete the line of text that includes the Blog url information.
Step 4: Save changes.
Step 5: Publish.

See my example Blog.

Embedding a Powerpoint

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:10:12 -0500

Open a Slideshare Account.
Upload Powerpoint.
Copy embed code.

Username: English 202c
Password: screencast

Hello Maggie and Nick,

I don't like to give people extra work, but I would prefer the embed option rather than linking and downloading. Could you guys do this? I know it's extra work. You can keep the early part about narration and such. Just ask the user to open a free account with Slideshare, upload, ppt, copy the embed code and paste in the html code.

Ethics

View more OpenOffice presentations from English202c.

Embedding Jingcast: Trial Part 4

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:39:14 -0500

Here is the code that I use to embed directly into my pages/blogs. The pieces in magenta are the links to the file that I am embedding (in this example blogs.mov). What your students will have to do is go to work.psu.edu, click "manage pass files (pass explorer) on the left, double click into their www folder, and upload the file their Jing file. Then they put the path to the file below like I have in magenta.

http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab" height="360" width="640">

rtsp://www.personal.psu.edu/elc134/blogs.mov" />

www.personal.psu.edu/elc134/blogs.mov" />

http://www.personal.psu.edu/elc134/blogs.mov" qtsrc="http://www.personal.psu.edu/elc134/blogs.mov" scale="tofit" autoplay="false" controller="true" href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime" height="360" width="640">

Embedding Jingcast: Trial Part 3

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:59:52 -0500

Sometimes, you might make the necessary changes as suggested in Trial Part1, and you find that your video is cropped when you play it. What I have done is go back into the code and reverse the sizes for objects and containers, reversing ,so that the container width is now the original size and the object width is 600 x 500. It worked! The container size and video showed all. Go figure?

Experiments on the same video of just going with the final object 600x 500 and container full size does not work. You have to go through the steps of changing the container width first, leaving the object alone, saving. And then reversing the numbers after the save and saving again. What this tells us about embedding a jing cast is that it requires tinkering and infinite patience, but eventually with ingenuity, it will turn out just the way you want it to turn out.

Best of luck.

Checking Access Account Storage Space

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:18:55 -0500

Make sure to check your Access Account Storage Space. Using up all of your storage space may crash your web space. The only cure when this happens is to rebuild:( Log in to your work space and change your pass space settings to maximize gigabytes.

Embedding Jing Screencast: Trial Part 2

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 09:54:04 -0500

Since Screencast.com has updated their website Saturday morning. The code is easier to work with. For one thing, it ends with showAll code, which eliminates the cropping issue. What I've noticed is that after I make changes to the container size and one other middle point, after saving, the overall code changes in ways I don't understand as a novice.

Original Code:

containerwidth=1279&containerheight=1023&content=http=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/2009-05-29_1125.swf"> #FFFFFF" width="1279" height="1023"type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" flashVars="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=1279&containerheight=1023&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/2009-05-29_1125.swf" allowFullScreen="true" base="http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/" scale="showall">

Changes:

containerwidth=600&containerheight=500&content=http=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/2009-05-29_1125.swf"> #FFFFFF" width="600" height="500"type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" flashVars="thumb=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/FirstFrame.jpg&containerwidth=600&containerheight=500&content=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/2009-05-29_1125.swf" allowFullScreen="true" base="http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/" scale="showall">

Resulting Code on Saved Page:

containerwidth=600&containerheight=500 &content=http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/2009-05-29_1125.swf" allowfullscreen="true" base="http://content.screencast.com/users/English202c/folders/Default/media/c429252b-9577-4d91-8006-1129e9a43367/"scale="showall" width="600" height="500">

Embedding a Jing Screencast: Trial Part 1

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:00:19 -0500

Note: This is not an ideal solution.

Step 1: Upload your jingcast to our screencast.com account.

Username: English202c
Password: screencast202c
Log-in email:jun3@psu.edu

Note: You will see thumbnail sketches of our jingcast video tutorials.

Step 2: Find your jingcast file and click on the small Share button in the bottom right-hand corner of the thumbnail.

Step 3: Copy the html code for Embed on your page

Step 4: Return to your Blog Page.

Step 5: Select the html code tab on your tool bar:

Hint: Read the html code to find the place on your page where you want your screencast to reside, preferably after the introduction and before the steps.

Step 6: Paste the code.

Note: Read the html code, you will see four places to resize the image.

Step 7: Change the code in the following four places:

to

containerwidth=1279&containerheight=1023 to containerwidth= 1279&containerheight=1200c

containerwidth=1279&containerheight=1023 to container width =1279&containerheight=1200

Note: You should change the height and width 4 times each. If the screen does not look right, continue to tweak. There is no set order where you will find each dimension. Seek and revise. Your code may look signicantly unique. Most codes will have the container dimension: resolution. Maximize resolution. The Object dimension resizes the screen for your web space.

Step 9: Save.

You have successfully embedded your jingcast!