Hi again some more!

It’s been awhile since my last post but I’m sure you’ll like what I’ve been working on. The icon above.

Ok, it’s not JUST the icon it’s the IDEA behind the icon. The story goes that at one point some time loong ago (over a week!), I was emailed by a reader asking if I could create a visual archive. As you know, iWeb automatically creates a text archive page that contains all the entries in the blog. This page is fine for those that can remember the title text of my blog, but there are others that link the tip or story in the article with the picture I do for each one. Those readers have to click through my not-very-descriptive titles until they find the image that matches the story they’re looking for. Now, creating titles that clearly define each post is far beyond my abilities (can’t stop thinking!!) BUT I thought that I could possibly take on the task of creating a visual archive.

My initial idea was to simply add pictures to the current archive and be done with it. The problem with that solution was that each time I posted a new story, I’d have move all the graphics down and, that just seemed like too much trouble. I considered tinkering with the blog template so that the graphic created for the main blog would simply be posted there too. That was probably within my ability, but maybe not within the abilities of many of the readers passing by this site and I’d want them to be able to easily (if not quickly) recreate it if they’d like. That’s when I began looking at the visual side of things, iWeb’s Photo template. It might be able to work, but it’d take some creativity. Lucky for me, I had some surplus creativity I’d gotten at a bargain price, so the game was on!

First, I needed a way to easily get the images onto the page. This was accomplished by using the Preview Passthru. Since almost all of my graphics are created in Keynote, I was able to go into my original file library, PP ‘em to .png graphics, then drop them into their very own iPhoto album. In order to have the blog title under each (like is shown in the non-visual archive), I had to alter the title information for each image to match the blog entry. A simple check to make sure they’re in the same order as I entered them, and, one drag and drop to iWeb later, I have all the images in order with a frame around each AND the blog titles. Quick(-ish) and easy!

Next, I wanted to get rid of the action that starts the slideshow when you clicked on an image. I needed to complete the illusion that this was a visual archive and not a Photo page. Deleting the button to invoke the slideshow was easy, but how do I make an iWeb Photo act like an old fashioned image link? The answer was to use a liberal dose of well placed nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, but more like ALMOST nothing. In iWeb, you can’t attach a hyperlink to the Photos on a photo page. You CAN attach a link to almost anything else, though, so I created rectangles to match the size and orientation of the images and placed them in front of the photos. I set the fill to None and changed the stroke to white (to match the background) to give the effect that “nothing” is there. Unless you’re paying close attention (or using IE on Windows), you won’t even notice it.

That, thought I, was good enough! So, I created a link on the main page for “Visual Archive” using the same font as the other headers (GB18030 Bitmap for the curious) and published it!

Then, thought I, surely there is a notch somewhere that could use some “kicking up”. Maybe just a little bit extra on that page to take it beyond just a special Photo page. This is what came from THAT thought, a bit of a descriptor to help you find all the pages of a certain type since there’s no search available from that page. Now, if you’re looking for:

As I imagine more stuff, I’ll create new stuff. And one day, maybe ONE day, I’ll put this legend on that page. But perhaps its more fun just to imagine what these arcane symbols are for!