Terry's Second Site Tips

Customizing Your Site - Examples for Other Options

This page updated 22 Jan 2011

Version note: Applies to Second Site 3 & 4

This is one of a group of articles providing examples of how I used the capabilities of Second Site to customize my site as I preferred. This article deals with some suggestions in the Data, Pages, and Layouts sections that I found useful. An example of the results can be seen in my Family History pages. While you may want different results, these examples may illustrate methods you may find useful.

Other articles in this series can be found from my Customizing Your Site - Examples page.

There are large number of options in Data, Pages, and Layouts sections by which you can customize various aspects of your site. They are well worth scanning through to see if there are some changes you would like to make. Some alter the overall impression of the pages, while others control specific aspects of the way your data is presented. I list here a number that I found interesting, arranged by the section in which they appear in Second Site:

• Data > Dates
  I prefer the person index to show each person's lifespan, as years, in the form (1823-1918). I like the same format on the lifespan for the subject, shown on the line under the name, and for the spouse above the list of children. So in the "Subject Lifespan Option" I selected:
         Lifespan on second line
  In both the "Spouse Lifespan Option" and "Index Lifespan Option" fields I selected:
         Lifespan on subject line
  In the "Subject Lifespan Format," "Spouse Lifespan Format," "Parent Lifespan Format," "Child Lifespan Format," and "Index Lifespan Format" fields I selected:
         (date - date)
  In the "Subject Date Format," "Spouse Date Format," "Parent Date Format," "Child Date Format,"and "Index Date Format" I selected:
         Aaa yy

• Pages > Page Sizes
  I decided to place only one person per page on my site. The primary reason is that my site is limited to people about whom I have something of merit to say. In some cases, that is quite a lot of text, together with photos in some cases, and lots of source citations. As a result, many pages are quite long. This produces a lot of pages, which can be an issue if you are uploading your site to a host for Internet viewing. One person per page has the added advantage that person's name is actually the page title, so if a reader emails me using the link at the bottom of the page the subject line will show the name of the person your reader was looking at. The large number of pages can be dealt with by compressing the site into an archive file before uploading and then uncompressing on the host. If you use John Cardinal's Family History Hosting service, Second Site's Publish feature does that for you automatically. On this screen, I entered in the "People per Page" field:
         1
  I checked the "Set Page Title to the Person's Name" box so that the email feature will include the name in the subject line.
  I selected in the "Person Page Sequence" field:
         By TMG ID
  I checked the "Static Page Assignments" box. This is important if you are going to place your site on the Internet, because it keeps the Person Page assignments from changing if you update your site with new people. If the page assignments change people who bookmark your site will end up on the wrong page when they return, and worse, search site results will direct readers to the wrong page until they have had time to find the new pages.

• Layouts > Default Layout
  I wanted the width of the text in the right pane (Main Page, Person Pages, etc.) to adjust in width to fit the reader's browser window, rather than being a fixed width as is the default. To do that I selected in the "Layout" field:
         1 Col LC Con Side-Xtra
  The key is the LC term, which specifies "liquid content," in other words, content that adjusts in width as needed.

• Layouts > Person Pages
  I wanted a little box with a note encouraging readers to contact me, and provide links to do that after every person. To do that I entered in the "Extra Person Bottom" field:
  
  <div class="link-box">
  <TABLE width="400" BORDER="2">
    <TR>
      <TD COLSPAN="3">
  <div align="center"> We encourage you to use
  the &quot;Contact Us&quot; link below if you are interested in
  the people shown here or to inquire about people in related
  lines not included.</div>
      </TD>
    </TR>
    <TR>
      <TD WIDTH="33%">
  <div align="center"><a href="http://www.reigelridge.com" TARGET="_top">ReigelRidge Home</a> </div>
      </TD>
      <TD WIDTH="33%">
  <div align="center"><A HREF="main.htm">Main Page</A></div>
      </TD>
      <TD WIDTH="34%">
  <div align="center"> <a href="JavaScript:hemlink('ReigelRoots', 'reigelridge.com');"> Contact Us</a></div>
      </TD>
    </TR>
  </TABLE>
  </div>
  

This HTML code produces the table with the note and links seen at the bottom of each of my Person Pages. By placing it in this field the note appears after every person. Since I've gone to one person per page, that places it at the bottom of every page. For an example of the result, see the bottom of this page in my family history site.

I wanted a line across the bottom of each Person Page, followed by a small note about how the pages were produced, and a copyright notice. I did that by checking the "Extra Footer Override" box, then adding in the "Extra Footer" field:

<hr>
<div align="center">For information about how these pages were produced, see <a href="http://tmg.reigelridge.com/About%20Our%20Pages.htm" TARGET="_top">About Our Pages</a>.
<p align="center">Copyright 2000-2011<br>
Facts &#8211; names, dates, and places &#8211; cannot be copyrighted; you are free to copy them.<br>
But the descriptive narratives are my creative work product and are copyrighted.<br>
You may copy them for your personal use, but please respect my copyright<br>
and do not republish them in any form without written permission.</p>
</div>

The "<hr>" term is the HTML code for a "horizontal rule." it produces the line. Following that is the text of the note about how the pages are produced, including a link to a page on my site that explains that. After that is the copyright notice, using "<br>" codes to create line breaks where I wanted them.

I also place here the codes for Google's amazing site tracking system, which tells me which pages have been visited, where the reader came from and went next, and much more. For details see Google Analytics. It's free, at least currently.

I don't like the person pages to have a "Person Page - 3" subtitle. So in the "Header Script" field I selected:
       No Page Number

• Layouts > Chart Pages
  Layouts > List Pages
  I place the same entry in the "Extra Footer" field of these two screens as I do in the Layouts > Person Pages screen, to the line and notices appear at the bottom of these pages as well.

The function of the Layouts section is described more fully in my Customizing Themes and Layouts article.

There are lots of ways to customize your webpages. How much you might choose to do depends on how much time you want to spend on the project, how picky you are, and what resources you have available. Hopefully, some of the ideas offered here will be helpful in creating a set of webpages that meet your needs.

Copyright 2000-2012