In case you were wondering, here's how to customize the header of your blog. First, you need to create an image for that space that is as close to the exact size that you need as possible. The only tricky part of that is that you need to measure in pixels. Because different templates have different sized headers, I can't say for sure how large your should be, but if it helps, the one here is 770 x 150.
Once you have your image created, you're ready to go. Hit the "customize" link and go to the Edit Layout page. You'll see the boxes that represent the pieces of your site below. Choose "edit" under theh "Page Header" box. The screen will give you the option to upload an image. Choose "browse" and find the image you created. Under "Placement," choose "Instead of title and description."
Hit "save changes."
That is all it takes--but I would guess that it might take some tweaking to get it exactly the size you want it (sure did me!). All you need to do is edit your original image file and then follow the steps again.
Hope that helps! And again, different templates may do things a little bit different, so it might be hard to get it perfect. You might try adding a border to your image that is the same color as the background of the site so if it isn't perfect, it will still blend in. Leave suggestions if you have any!
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
Showing posts with label website. Show all posts
5.30.2008
4.14.2008
Getting Started: How to Create Your Own Children's Ministry Website
Think you can't do this? Hardly! I am going to blog step by step through my creation of this page and show you how to do exactly this for your ministry. Don't worry, you won't break anything. First things first, sign up! Just hit the "Create Blog" button in the top right hand corner of the page. (NOTE: you may want to open this page in another window or tab so you can refer back to it if you have any questions.) Blogger is now owned by Google, so if you already have a Google account, you can go ahead and sign in with that information. If not, hit the orange arrow and create an account. Your account will also allow you to use other Google services like Calendar, which you can then add to your blogger page...but now I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first.
1.11.2008
VBS 2008 Preview: MEGA Sports Camp
This summer we're knocking VBS out of the park! Watch the video for a preview of the fun to come!
This is an example of how you can use video on your website. To add a video, just begin a new post (click "new post" in the upper right-hand corner) and click the video button (see picture). A window will pop up prompting you to choose a file to upload. Click "Browse" and locate the video file on your computer. Then give the video a title and click "ok." That's it. It will take a few minutes to upload, so be patient, but once it does you can move it around in your post--or post only the video--it's up to you!
Want to learn more about MEGA Sports Camp? Visit MEGASportsCamp.com!
1.09.2008
Using Google Calendar
The calendar you see on the page is powered by Google Calendar. Now that you have a Google account, you can also create a calendar and embed it into your site. How? Let me walk you through it.
1) Create a calendar.
Visit calendar.google.com to create your ministry calendar. Sign in with your blogger username and password and voila, you're in!
2) Share the Calendar
To embed the calendar on another site, you must enable it to be shared. To do this, locate the small arrow next to the calendar name on the lower left corner of the page. Click on the arrow to drop down a menu and choose "Share this Calendar." In the center of the page choose "Share all information on this calendar with everyone." Please note, this will allow the calendar to be searched by Google, so I don't recommend posting personal phone numbers to events--try email addresses if contact information is needed for an event. Lost? Check out the screen shot--just click to enlarge.
3) Add events
Now you can start adding events. Let's say you want to add your Wednesday night program. Just click on a Wednesday, and fill out the information. You can choose to have the information repeat weekly and just go back and delete individual nights off as they come (like Christmas). TIP: In my experimenting I have found that adding an "all day" event adds a nice color bar, while adding a time to the event only adds the event in text (like the Sunday Leadership meetings above). I believe the color bar grabs attention better, so I create a short title, make it an "all day" event and just include the time in the description. As you can see by my example at the top of this page just clicking on the color bar pops up the details. But it's up to you--do what you like!
4) Additional options
Google calendar allows for you to manage multiple calendars in one. Why would you need that? Let's say you have age groups with separate events and schedules, or you'd like to keep your leadership notified of upcoming meetings. To create a second calendar, click on the "Add" button on the left side of the page (see screen shot). Name the calendar, change the shared settings as above, and begin adding events.
Well, that's it for setting up Google calendar. Next post: embedding the calendar in blogger.
1) Create a calendar.
Visit calendar.google.com to create your ministry calendar. Sign in with your blogger username and password and voila, you're in!
2) Share the Calendar
To embed the calendar on another site, you must enable it to be shared. To do this, locate the small arrow next to the calendar name on the lower left corner of the page. Click on the arrow to drop down a menu and choose "Share this Calendar." In the center of the page choose "Share all information on this calendar with everyone." Please note, this will allow the calendar to be searched by Google, so I don't recommend posting personal phone numbers to events--try email addresses if contact information is needed for an event. Lost? Check out the screen shot--just click to enlarge.
3) Add events
Now you can start adding events. Let's say you want to add your Wednesday night program. Just click on a Wednesday, and fill out the information. You can choose to have the information repeat weekly and just go back and delete individual nights off as they come (like Christmas). TIP: In my experimenting I have found that adding an "all day" event adds a nice color bar, while adding a time to the event only adds the event in text (like the Sunday Leadership meetings above). I believe the color bar grabs attention better, so I create a short title, make it an "all day" event and just include the time in the description. As you can see by my example at the top of this page just clicking on the color bar pops up the details. But it's up to you--do what you like!
4) Additional options
Google calendar allows for you to manage multiple calendars in one. Why would you need that? Let's say you have age groups with separate events and schedules, or you'd like to keep your leadership notified of upcoming meetings. To create a second calendar, click on the "Add" button on the left side of the page (see screen shot). Name the calendar, change the shared settings as above, and begin adding events.
Well, that's it for setting up Google calendar. Next post: embedding the calendar in blogger.
1.07.2008
Adding Google Calendar to Blogger
Adding Google calendar to Blogger is not as hard as you might think. I just figured out how to do it today so I could tell you! Follow these steps and you will be in business. I tried to include screen shots every step of the way, so click the picture to see examples!
1) Prepare Blogger
From your main blog page, hit "customize" in the upper right hand corner. That will bring you some options. Make sure the "Template" tab at the top left is selected. You'll see a basic page layout with the option to "add page element" at the bottom of the large column AND at the top of the right column. The calendar, due to its size, works best in the large column; however, we'll be learning how to add elements in the sidebar later, so note the location of the link.
Click on "add page element" at the bottom of the page and it will bring up some options to add. Take a second to look at some of the cool things you can add--pictures, surveys, videos, lists, etc. More on those later. Click the "add to blog" button under "HTML/JavaScript."
A simple window will open. Stop there. We need to open Google in a new tab or window and get the information for the box. On to Step 2!
2) Prepare Google Calendar
Open Google Calendar in a new window or tab. Locate the calendar box in the lower left hand corner (see screen shot). Click on the down arrow of the calendar you wish to add to blogger (if it's more than one, we'll get the other later) and choose "calendar settings."
On the calendar settings, you will see the "Embed This Calendar" option. Click the blue link that reads "customize the color, size..." It will open a new window.
3) Format the Calendar
This may look a little scary at first, but you can do it! All of the settings are on the picture from the example on this blog. Feel free to play around with the settings, though. You won't break anything and you can always close the window and go through step two again. Your actual calendar will not change.
Once you're happy with how it looks, choose the "update html" button. Then select all of the text in the box and choose "copy." Now head back to that blank box in Blogger--that's where we're pasting the code!
4) Adding Calendar to Blogger
Back to Blogger. Remember that empty window waiting for some code? Now you've got it. Paste it into the box, add a title, and hit "Save changes."
5) Moving the Calendar
Your calendar is at the bottom of your page now! Nice job! Told you you could do it! Now you might want the calendar at the top, like the example. It's very easy to do (cake compared to what you've accomplished today)! Go back to the template page (see step 1 if you forgot how to get there). There should now be a box representing the calendar (titled whatever you called your calendar). Click and hold on the box and drag it above the "blog posts" box. It is possible to drag it higher if you want it there, but if you do that by mistake, just drag it back down.
Congratulations! You did it! From here on out it should be easier. Nice job!
1) Prepare Blogger
From your main blog page, hit "customize" in the upper right hand corner. That will bring you some options. Make sure the "Template" tab at the top left is selected. You'll see a basic page layout with the option to "add page element" at the bottom of the large column AND at the top of the right column. The calendar, due to its size, works best in the large column; however, we'll be learning how to add elements in the sidebar later, so note the location of the link.
Click on "add page element" at the bottom of the page and it will bring up some options to add. Take a second to look at some of the cool things you can add--pictures, surveys, videos, lists, etc. More on those later. Click the "add to blog" button under "HTML/JavaScript."A simple window will open. Stop there. We need to open Google in a new tab or window and get the information for the box. On to Step 2!
2) Prepare Google Calendar
Open Google Calendar in a new window or tab. Locate the calendar box in the lower left hand corner (see screen shot). Click on the down arrow of the calendar you wish to add to blogger (if it's more than one, we'll get the other later) and choose "calendar settings."
On the calendar settings, you will see the "Embed This Calendar" option. Click the blue link that reads "customize the color, size..." It will open a new window.
3) Format the Calendar
This may look a little scary at first, but you can do it! All of the settings are on the picture from the example on this blog. Feel free to play around with the settings, though. You won't break anything and you can always close the window and go through step two again. Your actual calendar will not change.
Once you're happy with how it looks, choose the "update html" button. Then select all of the text in the box and choose "copy." Now head back to that blank box in Blogger--that's where we're pasting the code!
4) Adding Calendar to Blogger
Back to Blogger. Remember that empty window waiting for some code? Now you've got it. Paste it into the box, add a title, and hit "Save changes."
5) Moving the Calendar
Your calendar is at the bottom of your page now! Nice job! Told you you could do it! Now you might want the calendar at the top, like the example. It's very easy to do (cake compared to what you've accomplished today)! Go back to the template page (see step 1 if you forgot how to get there). There should now be a box representing the calendar (titled whatever you called your calendar). Click and hold on the box and drag it above the "blog posts" box. It is possible to drag it higher if you want it there, but if you do that by mistake, just drag it back down.
Congratulations! You did it! From here on out it should be easier. Nice job!
1.04.2008
PacMan
Who says you can't have games on your site! Widgetbox has tons of things (aka widgets) that can be added to your blog for fun. And doing so is simple--visit their site and find a widget that you like. Decide which column you want it located in, adjust the size accordingly by changing the height and width, and choose "Get Widget." Choose the site that you want to add the widget to (in our case, Blogger) and it prepares the widget. All that is left now is to hit "install" and confirm with Blogger that you want to add the widget.
Once it is added to Blogger you can choose to move its location on the page by dragging it around on the template page.
**please note that we do not endorse Widgetbox.com nor any of its widgets.
Once it is added to Blogger you can choose to move its location on the page by dragging it around on the template page.
**please note that we do not endorse Widgetbox.com nor any of its widgets.
Creating a Slideshow
Creating a slideshow is a snap using another great (free!) Google tool, Picasa. (But other things like Flickr can be used.) Visit http://picasa.google.com// and download the program. Use the same username and password that you use for Blogger. Keep in mind if you already use Picasa for personal use, you can link to that instead.
Once Picasa is installed (follow the prompts) it will ask if you want it to search your computer for pictures. Go ahead and click yes. This will allow you to easily access any pictures on your computer through Picasa. Don't have any pictures you would want on your blog uploaded to your computer yet? No problem. Anytime you add images to your computer, Picasa will automatically detect them.
Alright, you've got Picasa full of pictures (hopefully ones you can use). You can do quite a bit of
editing in Picasa, so be sure to play around with those features. But for now, we'll focus on adding the images to Blogger. To do that, you need to put images in your online web album. Select an image (or entire folder) that you want to use on your blog--just click on the picture. At the bottom of the screen you'll see the web album button (shown at right). Click on the button and you will be asked to log into your
account. Once logged in a screen will pop up asking for some information. See my example if you have any questions. Keep in mind your first album will be a new one. Should you want to add images to the slideshow later, choose “Add to an existing web album” and you can select the album name from the “Album Title” box.
Now your pictures are online--we just need to get them into Blogger. Head back to your Blogger page, choose "customize" and on the "template, page elements" page choose "add a new element." Select "slideshow." It will give you some options. Under "Source," choose "Picasa Web Albums;" under "Options" choose "Album," type in your username, and it will provide a list of albums (or the album) to choose from. Select the correct album and click save. Drag the slideshow element to the location you desire on the template page, save, and check it out. Nice job!
Once Picasa is installed (follow the prompts) it will ask if you want it to search your computer for pictures. Go ahead and click yes. This will allow you to easily access any pictures on your computer through Picasa. Don't have any pictures you would want on your blog uploaded to your computer yet? No problem. Anytime you add images to your computer, Picasa will automatically detect them.
Alright, you've got Picasa full of pictures (hopefully ones you can use). You can do quite a bit of
editing in Picasa, so be sure to play around with those features. But for now, we'll focus on adding the images to Blogger. To do that, you need to put images in your online web album. Select an image (or entire folder) that you want to use on your blog--just click on the picture. At the bottom of the screen you'll see the web album button (shown at right). Click on the button and you will be asked to log into your
account. Once logged in a screen will pop up asking for some information. See my example if you have any questions. Keep in mind your first album will be a new one. Should you want to add images to the slideshow later, choose “Add to an existing web album” and you can select the album name from the “Album Title” box.Now your pictures are online--we just need to get them into Blogger. Head back to your Blogger page, choose "customize" and on the "template, page elements" page choose "add a new element." Select "slideshow." It will give you some options. Under "Source," choose "Picasa Web Albums;" under "Options" choose "Album," type in your username, and it will provide a list of albums (or the album) to choose from. Select the correct album and click save. Drag the slideshow element to the location you desire on the template page, save, and check it out. Nice job!
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