Blogs at Penn State Community

This version of Movable Type has added tools which allow you to create static Web pages which are connected to your blog.

Create a Page

1. Login to the Blogs system and enter a blog
2. Click Create in the top links then select Page. A form similar to that for a blog entry will appear.
   
3. Fill in a title for your entry and enter text in the textbox below. You can use the formatting buttons as needed. See the “HTML Toobar Appendix” for details.
4. In the “Metadata” section, add Tags (a list of terms separated by commas) as needed.
5. Click the Save button at the bottom to save a draft. A filename will be given based on the title of your page,
   Note: You can change the name of the page in the Filename field at the bottom. All filenames should end with .html or .htm and should avoid all punctuation except for _ (underscore) or –(dash).
6. If you are ready for the page to be viewable by the public, then in the “Publishing” section, set Status to Published then click Save at the bottom.
   Note: Pages which are set to Unpublished are not viewable to the public.
7. To create a directory folder, click the Change folder link then the plus sign to create a directory (the process is similar to that for creating new Categories).
8. If you want viewers to be able to add comments or TrackBacks, check the options to Accept comments and to accept TrackBacks.
9. To view a published entry, click View Published Page link in the upper right to see how your entry has been published. You will see the contents of your page plus the blog header and some parts of the sidebar.
   Note: If you do not see this link, make sure the Status is set to Published.

Activate Pages Menu

You can add a listing of your blog sidebar with the Widget Manager

1. Login into http://blogs.psu.edu and enter a blog .
2. Click the Design link on top then select Widget Sets.
3. Click the link for First Widget Manager.
4. Make sure the widget for Pages is in the left Installed Widgets column. Drag the widget to the order desired in the list of widgets then click Save Changes at the bottom.
5. Click Publish link at the top in the green box.
6. Click the View Site (page icon) button in the top links to view the main blog page.
   Note: If you do not see your changes, return to editing your blog and click the Publish (circle arrow) button in the top links.

Hide Pages from Pages Menu

To hide a page from the Pages menu, enter the page for editing, and set the Status to Unpublished.

You will be able to edit and preview pages, but no one will be able to view them. Change the status to Published when you are ready for the public to view the pages.

Edit and Delete Pages

1. Login and enter your blog.
2. Click the Manage in the upper set of links, then click Pages.
3. Click the link for the page you wish to edit.
4. Edit as needed then click Save.
5. To delete an page, place a check next to the entry and click the Delete button.

Controlling Sequence for a Group of Pages

Pages (or pages in the same folder) are ordered alphabetically by the title first given. That is, even if you change the title later, the page order does not reshuffle.

To get the correct order in the first place, you may want to try adding a number before each page title or being creative with titles.

If you need to reshuffle the order, you will need to recreate a second version with an appropriate alphabetized title. You can:

• Set the status of the 1st page to Unpublished - this hides the page, but does not delete it.
• Create new page with sequence-friendly title.
• Copy and paste content from old page.