Post date: Oct 06, 2010 1:52:51 AM
Start by going to Google Sites. Sign in using your Google account.
Click "Create New Site"
Select a template. I used "Project wiki" for this site, but had to remove a lot of things
Enter your site name. Update the "location" field, since it has to be unique to Google sites.
Expand "Choose a theme" and select one.
Expand "More Options", and enter a site description.
Answer the captcha
Click "Create Site". If it fails, you may need to change the "location" or enter a different captcha.
The site show the generic homepage.
Click "More Actions > Manage Site"
Site Settings: General
"Users who can access site activity": I changed this to "Collaborators only"
I changed "Landing Page" later, after I added the blog-style page
Click "Save Changes"
Site Settings: Web Address
You could assign a "real" web address here, if you had one :)
Site Appearance: Site Layout
Click "Change Site Layout" to fine tune the template, column widths, etc
Click "Add a sidebar item" to... add more things to your sidebar. Ads, anyone?
In the "Navigation" sidebar item, click "edit" to modify your public sitemap.
Click "Add page" to add a created page not already in the navigation list
Uncheck "Automatically organize my navigation" to make navigation actually useful ;p
Uncheck "Sitemap" and "Recent Site Activity" if you want to keep them private
Click "Save Changes" if you made any of these changes
Site Appearance: Colors and Fonts
If you care enough, you can change them!
Click "Return to Site" when you are finished changing your site settings.
Click "More Actions > Page Settings".
Show page title
Show links to sub-pages
Allow attachments: good for project pages, perhaps
Allow comments
Show this page in the sidebar: works with "Automatically organize my navigation"
Page URL: Change the internal name of the page.
To start making changes, click "Edit Page". There are a lot of Google widgets to insert. I use the "Bullet List" icon a lot.
If you run into problems after copying and pasting, try "Format > Delete Table". Sometimes a pasted table can really make things difficult. Also, "Format > Clear Formatting" is useful.
Be sure to "Save Page", or at least "Save Draft" before navigating away. Be especially careful if you return to the page as a different user. It might look like you lost some work, then you need to return as the original user for Google to recover the page.
Select the template to use:
Web Page: Blank webpage, no required widgets
Announcements: Web-log style page, where you can make individual posts
File Cabinet: Place to upload and download files, in a typical hierarchy
List: Customizable, sortable list. The list can have any number of columns, of these types:
Date: has a mini-calendar for choosing the date
Checkbox
Dropdown: user-definable choices
Text
URL
Name: this is the default page title, and internal page ID.
Choose a place in the site hierarchy. "Top level" is normal.
Click the "Create Page" button.
If you simply want a page to put blog updates, create a new page with "Announcements" template.
There are tons of widgets in the "Insert > More Gadgets" menu.
There is a Help link in the top-right corner. It's useful!
Have fun, you can always delete the page from the "More Actions" menu if you get sick of it.