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Project Presentation April 14

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Textual Features

Contents

  1. 1 Table of Contents
  2. 2 Subpage listing
  3. 3 Polls, forms and spreadsheets
    1. 3.1 Embed a link to a spreadsheet
  4. 4 Comments from viewers
  5. 5 Page attachments and Page comments
  6. 6 Surveys
  7. 7 Recent list items
  8. 8 Documents
    1. 8.1 Embed a link to a pdf or ppt document
  9. 9 Popup windows?
    1. 9.1 A) Send viewer to a specific heading on another page
    2. 9.2 B) Link to open a screenshot image

This page provides instructions for Google Sites' textual features, as listed in the table of contents to the right. 

Other pages within this section 


Table of Contents

  • To add an automatically generated table of contents to a page, click "Insert" in the menu bar, and then "Table of Contents."

  • The table of contents will be populated only by the words of paragraphs that are formatted as heading levels 2, 3, or 4 using the "Format" menu. 

  • If you don't like the way headings are formatted you can change the color and font size after creating them as Google Headings.

Subpage listing

  • To add an automatically generated list of subpages within a box, click "Insert" in the menu bar, and then "Subpage Listing'

  • You can change the contents, the size of the box and the format of the box. 

Polls, forms and spreadsheets

By creating a simple form in Google Docs, you can insert into your Google Site
    • a simple survey or poll
    • a comment form
    • a collaborative excel file
    • the spreadsheet that shows the form/poll's results (or any spreadsheet, actually)

Below, Any site viewer can enter information into the form.

Try it yourself and see what happens!

Reference list form spreadsheet demo


Below is the spreadsheet (located in my Google Account) that is populated with data input from the form.

If you input your data into the form and then refresh the page, a new line should appear on the spreadsheet.
However, there may be a time delay and answers may not appear until Google refreshes the source.

Reference list form spreadsheet demo


Imagine using this to collect data for research purposes. 

You can keep the spreadsheet off the site if you want people to enter confidential/private information.

How?

Above, I have inserted the spreadsheet form AND the resulting spreadsheet that it edits. 

To create and insert the form,

  • Go to Google Docs and create a new document within Google Docs (button on the upper right corner).  Select the option to create a new form. 
  • Within Google Sites, while editing a page click the "insert" menu and select "Spreadsheet Form."

If you want the spreadsheet to be shown on your page, insert the spreadsheet as a published Google Doc.  
    • Each form creates a related spreadsheet for its results.  In Google Docs, if you click on a spreadsheet with this icon, it will bring up the spreadsheet.


If you wish, you can edit your form while you are viewing its related spreadsheet.  You click the "Form" tab in the document's editing tools bar as shown here.  The number in ( ) tells you how many responses you have collected from your form to date.



You can resize the column widths, add colors, etc. and change other features of the spreadsheet, as usual.

    • To prepare your spreadsheet for public viewing online, when you are viewing it within Google Docs, click the button in the upper right, "share."  Select the option to "publish as web page"

  • Go back to editing your page in Google Sites and insert the spreadsheet using the "insert" menu. 

    • Make sure you select the published spreadsheet from the list of your Google Docs -- it will not distinguish between the publishable and unpublished documents available for insertion.


Embed a link to a spreadsheet

Once you have published a spreadsheet as a web page, you can also embed it as a link that opens the file in a viewer. 

For example,

click on these hyperlinked words to see the same spreadsheet in a Google Docs viewer.

You can choose to have the viewer open in a new window, or in the same window. 

How?

See the instructions below for embedding a link to a document.

Comments from viewers

Do you want to enable users to discuss with each other?

Do you want to enable unmoderated commenting on your page by the general public?

  • You will have to insert a widget that does this (Google Sites comments and attachments at bottoms of pages can only be inserted by site collaborators and editors while they are logged in).

This comment form below is linked to Dr. Smith's personal Google Account. 

Try inserting your comment.

Comments

RESULTS: this will eventually refresh.

Comments

How? 

  • see the instructions above for inserting spreadsheets.  It needs to be a spreadsheet that is "published" via Google Docs or else people who are not logged into your Google Docs account will not see it.

Page attachments and Page comments

See the attachment at the bottom of this page?  Only site editors and collaborators can add attachments and comments to pages.  

NOTE:  When you attach a file to a Google Sites page, it actually publishes it online via Google Docs Viewer. 

If you right-click the "view" button you will see the URL  with a /viewer .... in its address.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxjb21zNDYzdzEwfGd4OjY5NjU4MDg4ZTkxZWJjNTQ

GOOD:  This document can now be viewed anywhere on the internet.  For example, if you put this link into an email it should take a person directly to your file. 

CAUTION :  It should NOT be used for confidential documents, because even if your Google Site is not public, the documents attached to pages will be public.

Surveys

Tell us about your CSL course!


RESULTS

Tell us about your CSL course!



How?

Use the instructions in "Polls and Forms" above.  If you are inserting the spreadsheet of results, It needs to be a spreadsheet that is "published" via Google Docs or else people who are not logged into your Google Docs account will not see it.

Recent list items

On our COMS 463 home page in the right hand column you have a "feed" of the 4 most recent announcements.  You can also add a "feed" of the most recent items on an "action items" or "to do" list.

This is grabbing information from Dr. Smith's Time Tracker page.

Dr. Smith's Time

DateDescriptionActivity typeHours
April 11, 2010 Saturday and Sunday interaction with team messages on Email, Blackboard, and Google Docs.  Student interaction 5 
April 9, 2010 Interacting with students online this week via Google Docs, Email, Bb Student interaction 10 
April 9, 2010 Website updates this week to Google Sites Design pages, Home page, Instructional Team page  Course materials 2 
April 9, 2010 Emails within instructional team past 2 wks Partnership 3 
April 7, 2010 Making PDFs of website drafts April 1 and April 5/7 Planning 2 
Showing 5 items from page Dr. Smith's Time Tracker sorted by Date. View more »

How?

  • First you need to have a page on your site that has a "list." This page format must be chosen when you first create the page.
  • In the "insert" menu, select "recent list items."  Select the features you desire.

Documents


You can embed any file from Google Docs and make the window any width or length.

QualityMoneyPeerMentoringLetterSMITHDec2009v2


How?

Insert a Google Doc that has been "published as a web page."
  • Upload the file/ files into your Google Docs account.  
  • Select a google doc with the blue/white icon seen below, (not the file in its original format such as pdf).

  • When you are viewing a file within Google Docs and click the button in the upper right, "share."  Select the option to "publish as web page"

  • Going back to editing your page in Google Sites, in the "insert" menu, choose "Documents."  It will list the documents available from your Google Docs account, and here you select the file that you have published.

Embed a link to a pdf or ppt document

Once you have published a pdf or ppt document via Google Docs (using the steps immediately above), embed a link to the document at any point in the page. 

If it is a pdf, It will look like this: 

FileNameOfYourDocument  Click to view the document online

GOOD: Embedding a link to a pdf published in Google Docs Viewer enables them to view the file without having to download it or view it using software on their computer. 


How?

  • Obtain the URL to the published Google Docs ppt or pdf you want to link to. 
    • Open your document in Google Docs. In the upper left, click on "Share" to get the link to share.

    • copy the URL it provides you so that you can paste it later. 
  • When editing your Google Site page, select the words that you want to link to the document, and click "Link" in the editing bar above. 
  • Select the option to link to a web address, and insert the URL there.

Popup windows?

Here are some workarounds for embedding features that are in some ways similar to popup windows.

  • Unfortunately Google Sites does not let you embed JavaScript which is normally used for popups. 
  • However, this is not a great loss since popups may be "blocked" from opening by a viewer's security settings.

A) Send viewer to a specific heading on another page

Try this link.  It will open a new window that takes you directly to the "submission" section of the Individual Blog page in this site.  Wow. 

How?

  • Go to the page that has the headings you want to link to.  
    • If the page does not have a Google-Sites "Table of Contents" then insert one
      • When you create a heading in Google Sites, an "anchor" is created so that it shows up in the Google Sites "Table of Contents" feature.
    • While editing the page, click "insert" and insert a Table of Contents. 
    • Save the changes to the page. 
  • Go to the target page's Table of Contents and (on a PC) right-click on the heading you want to link to. Select "Copy Link Location" to copy the anchor-link to your clipboard.

  • The link will have a # symbol in it, after which is the name of the heading or subheading
    for example, http://sites.google.com/site/coms463w10/assignments/15-individual-blog#TOC-Submission
  • When editing your page in Google Sites
    • first select the text that you want to link
    • click "Link" in the toolbar, and insert this link.

B) Link to open a screenshot image

  • Option 1 -- use the "PrtScn" key on a PC (or alternative on a Mac) and then clip the image using image-editing software of your choice (I use the free Irfan View software).  You will need to then save the image to your desktop, upload it to Google Docs, publish it within Google Docs, and then link to the published file's URL.  See the instructions above for embedding links to documents.  
  • Option 2 -- download the FREE third-party Jing software to your own computer or laptop.  It more efficiently creates screenshots like this that can open in a new tab or window.