Making this Exhibition
This online exhibition is based on a poster made by Judy Carmody and Justine Bennett for the CONUL 2017 conference. This helped me decide on a layout for the exhibition, following a simple multi-page structure for each section and using the existing theme for fonts and colours.
I used Blogger to create the exhibition and themed it using the layout editor and gadgets to customise the site - except for one feature where I cheated. I'll confess at the end.
Background: I chose a background image and center alignment. I picked a main colour theme to match the poster.
Advanced: Most of the options here are to ensure the font and colour themes are consistent across the site, however, I adjusted the widths to give me a large main page and smaller left hand navigation panel.
Gadgets: I used the 'Layout' tab on the dashboard to configure my gadgets. If you notice a problem with a gadget displaying, or not displaying, check that the edit you made is the same in both this section and Layout.
Layout
I used a 16px x 16px .png file made from the Glucksman Library initials 'GL' to create a 'Favicon' for the site. There are favicon generators available online.
This theme has a Sidebar section on the left and I used this to add gadgets (also known as plugins on other platforms).
I used the 'Image' gadget to insert a logo for the exhibition and a link back to the NDAI website.
I used the 'Pages' gadget to include and arrange a menu of pages from the site.
If I was using an institutional login, rather than my own, I would have added 'Profile'.
Top Section
'Subscription' was not needed as this is a static exhibition that I do not plan on adding to.
The 'Search' function on Blogger ONLY SEARCHES POSTS. This is a problem if you plan to use pages instead of posts as people cannot search your site. This can be a factor in deciding the layout of your exhibition. As this is a small, compact exhibition (and I wanted to show a Blogger exhibition with pages) I disabled the search. If you search online you can find work arounds to this.
The 'Header' is important and you have options here. Remember it will show on all pages and posts.
I used a gadget on the sidebar to list my pages, but using 'Page list (top)' in this section would allow me to put the menu across the top instead.
Main Page Body
Posts do not display in a menu and I wanted a menu for my exhibition so a visitor could navigate easily through the sections. As a result, I used pages, not posts so didn't need any of the post features. I removed the 'Featured post' and 'Popular posts' gadgets but I could not remove 'Blog Posts' as Blogger is designed for posts. I did not create any posts so this did not interfere with the site.
I used the 'Footer' to insert a copyright statement for the exhibition site.
I added share buttons with 'AddThis'.
I created an account on AddThis and followed the steps to add a new
'Tool'. I customised an expanding button, and copied
the code from AddThis to paste into my site. The button is located at the lower right hand corner of the page but you have to add it to the sidebar gadget using HTML/JavaScript. You need to give it a title but the text will just sit
there. To get around this (and when you are using free versions you have
to be able to compromise and cheat) I added some copyright text.
Visitors to the site will not know that there is anything amiss about
that text but it solves a problem for me.
Search engine optimisation:
Blogger is a Google product and this is incredibly useful when you are thinking about optimising your site for search engines (typically Google). Using my Google account profile I went to Google Search Console and verified my site. I also added Google Analytics to my site under 'Settings' > 'Other' > Google Analytics by creating a profile and pasting the Tracking ID from Google Analytics into my site. It should start with a UA-.
Confessions of a cheater.
I snapped! I was trying the free versions of Blogger and WordPress to see how well they could be used to create online exhibitions. It was a useful exercise because it made me think about how to work around problems and although some got a bit convoluted, I was happy to have messed around.
In one case however, in this exhibition, I just couldn't take any more. I was so close to having a pretty exhibition that I just went into the code (you know when you go to theme > customise and you are offered HTML editing? Well, that's where I went). All I did was find the text that I didn't like and replaced it with text I was happier to have displayed.
Dipping your toe into HTML and seeing what changes happen when you make an edit is a way of learning and I would encourage it. Disclaimer: have a test site where you mess around with your HTML. Sometimes you can make a change and all appears well but it will interfere with something down the line or worse, you will make a few changes and forget where you started if you need to fix something. If things get really bad, just go back to the original theme and start customising again.
Answers on a postcard if you figure out what the cheat was!
I used Blogger to create the exhibition and themed it using the layout editor and gadgets to customise the site - except for one feature where I cheated. I'll confess at the end.
Theme
Theme customisations: Soho themeBackground: I chose a background image and center alignment. I picked a main colour theme to match the poster.
Layout
This theme has a Sidebar section on the left and I used this to add gadgets (also known as plugins on other platforms).
I used the 'Image' gadget to insert a logo for the exhibition and a link back to the NDAI website.
I used the 'Pages' gadget to include and arrange a menu of pages from the site.
If I was using an institutional login, rather than my own, I would have added 'Profile'.
Top Section
The 'Search' function on Blogger ONLY SEARCHES POSTS. This is a problem if you plan to use pages instead of posts as people cannot search your site. This can be a factor in deciding the layout of your exhibition. As this is a small, compact exhibition (and I wanted to show a Blogger exhibition with pages) I disabled the search. If you search online you can find work arounds to this.
The 'Header' is important and you have options here. Remember it will show on all pages and posts.
I used a gadget on the sidebar to list my pages, but using 'Page list (top)' in this section would allow me to put the menu across the top instead.
Main Page Body
I used the 'Footer' to insert a copyright statement for the exhibition site.
Search engine optimisation:
Blogger is a Google product and this is incredibly useful when you are thinking about optimising your site for search engines (typically Google). Using my Google account profile I went to Google Search Console and verified my site. I also added Google Analytics to my site under 'Settings' > 'Other' > Google Analytics by creating a profile and pasting the Tracking ID from Google Analytics into my site. It should start with a UA-.
Confessions of a cheater.
I snapped! I was trying the free versions of Blogger and WordPress to see how well they could be used to create online exhibitions. It was a useful exercise because it made me think about how to work around problems and although some got a bit convoluted, I was happy to have messed around.
In one case however, in this exhibition, I just couldn't take any more. I was so close to having a pretty exhibition that I just went into the code (you know when you go to theme > customise and you are offered HTML editing? Well, that's where I went). All I did was find the text that I didn't like and replaced it with text I was happier to have displayed.
Dipping your toe into HTML and seeing what changes happen when you make an edit is a way of learning and I would encourage it. Disclaimer: have a test site where you mess around with your HTML. Sometimes you can make a change and all appears well but it will interfere with something down the line or worse, you will make a few changes and forget where you started if you need to fix something. If things get really bad, just go back to the original theme and start customising again.
Answers on a postcard if you figure out what the cheat was!