Big Medium 2: The Complete Guide Josh Clark Published October 2008. Big Medium 2.0.8 edition. Copyright © 2006-2008 Josh Clark and Global Moxie, LLC. Some rights reserved.1 You are free (encouraged!) to copy, distribute and adapt this book, under the following conditions: You may not use this work for commercial purposes without the author's permission, and you must attribute the original work to Josh Clark. Big Medium is content management software created by Josh Clark and Global Moxie, LLC. For more information or to purchase the software, please visit the Global Moxie website2, the hypertext laboratory of Josh Clark. Big Medium, Global Moxie, Big Medium 2: The Complete Guide, the genie logo image and related trade dress are service marks of Global Moxie, LLC. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. All credit for Big Medium 2 goes to my wife Ellen, who endured many months of eccentric hours, uneven temper and glassy-eyed distraction during its development. In return, I received more love and support than my impossible behavior deserved. 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 2 http://globalmoxie.com/ Big Medium 2 The Complete Guide Josh Clark GLOBAL MOXIE Paris Table of Contents 1. Welcome .............................................................................................................. 1 What does Big Medium do? ............................................................................... 2 What skills do I need? ..................................................................................... 4 What’s new in Big Medium 2? ........................................................................... 5 2. Ready... Set... Go! .................................................................................................. 9 Get an account ................................................................................................. 9 Sign in ............................................................................................................ 9 Your account privileges .................................................................................. 10 3. Editing Webpages ................................................................................................ 13 The edit menu ............................................................................................... 13 The edit screen for article pages ....................................................................... 18 Text edit history: A paper trail for your pages ................................................... 36 One-click editing: A shortcut from the live site .................................................. 37 Editing and reviewing visitor comments ........................................................... 38 4. The Page Types ................................................................................................... 41 Section pages ................................................................................................. 41 Links ............................................................................................................ 43 Document downloads ..................................................................................... 44 Podcasts ........................................................................................................ 46 5. Micro-Content: Announcements & Tips ................................................................ 47 Announcements ............................................................................................. 48 Tips .............................................................................................................. 48 How announcements and tips are displayed ....................................................... 49 Advertisements .............................................................................................. 49 Third-party “badges,” “widgets” and “gadgets” ................................................. 50 6. The Libraries ...................................................................................................... 51 Browsing the library ........................................................................................ 51 Adding and editing library items ...................................................................... 54 Batch-uploading images and documents ........................................................... 55 File upload limits ............................................................................................ 57 7. Sections and Content Categories ........................................................................... 59 What’s a section? ............................................................................................. 59 What about tags? ........................................................................................... 60 Section levels .................................................................................................. 60 Section Structure: Add, delete and rearrange sections ......................................... 61 Section Properties: Section-specific preferences ................................................. 65 Rebuild pages after making changes ................................................................. 69 8. Themes and Site Designs ..................................................................................... 71 The Theme Library ........................................................................................ 72 Theme Ingredients .......................................................................................... 74 Add Your Own Themes to the Library ............................................................ 75 Removing a custom theme ............................................................................... 77 Sharing a custom theme ................................................................................. 77 9. Templates ........................................................................................................... 79 How Big Medium Uses Templates .................................................................... 79 The Template Editor ...................................................................................... 81 The HTML Template Types ............................................................................. 83 Other Formats: News Gadget, RSS Feed & Sitemap .......................................... 83 Creating Templates with Your Own Design ...................................................... 84 10. Widgets ............................................................................................................. 89 Customizing the Display of Widgets ................................................................ 90 Page Header .................................................................................................. 90 Links ............................................................................................................ 92 Content and Images ..................................................................................... 107 Section Navigation, Search and Tags .............................................................. 127 Homepage and Site Name ............................................................................. 138 Tips and Announcements ............................................................................... 139 News Feeds ................................................................................................. 145 News Gadgets ............................................................................................... 148 E-mail Page ................................................................................................. 151 Page Footer ................................................................................................. 152 Environment Values ..................................................................................... 153 11. Styles ............................................................................................................. 159 The Theme Style Sheet ................................................................................. 159 The Style Editor .......................................................................................... 160 12. Image Management .......................................................................................... 167 The Library Concept .................................................................................... 167 Image Control for Designers .......................................................................... 168 Adding Custom Image Sizes .......................................................................... 168 Scaling Methods ........................................................................................... 170 13. Account Management ....................................................................................... 173 Account privileges ........................................................................................ 173 Editing or deleting accounts .......................................................................... 173 Site and section privileges ............................................................................. 175 vi | Big Medium 2 E-mail alerts ...............................................................................................