Getting Started with SiteMaker

Logging in

To log in to SiteMaker, go to the SiteMaker Administration page (http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/login) and click the Configure an Existing Site link at the top of the page.  Enter your username (in most cases, your AAPS email address) and your SiteMaker password, then click the Login button.

(Also on the SiteMaker Administration page you'll find a link to the GVC.SiteMaker manual, which is an excellent reference manual.)

As of April 2006, you also have the option of logging in to SiteMaker using the "Login" link that appears at the bottom of a page; once you've logged in this way, you'll be returned to the page you were on when you clicked the login link.

If you forget your password

Go to the Password Reminder page: http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/sendpassword. Enter your email address into the box then click the Send Me My Password button.  Your password will be sent to you via email within a few minutes.

What browser should I use?

You can use any web browser to work in SiteMaker on any platform (Mac, PC, etc.) but if you want to have access to the built-in WYSIWYG editor, which is a Javascript application, you must use Firefox or Safari on the Mac side; on a PC, you can use Internet Explorer or the Firefox/Mozilla browser.

Changing the “look” of your site

To changes what style template your site uses, from the Main Configuration page of your site, click the Configure Overall Appearance button; here you can select what style template your site is using.  This is also where you can turn Publishing on or off for your site, which allows or disallows people from viewing your site.

Adding pages to your site

In SiteMaker, pages are called “sections”.  There are a number of different sections you can add to your site.  You will probably find yourself using the Text and/or Image section and the List of Links & Files type section the most.  With a Text and/or Image section, you can enter and format the text on the page, and include one or more images on the page.  A List of Links & Files section is a fast and easy way to create a list of hot-links (e.g. for a student research project).  Other types of sections:
- a Single Link or File section allows you to put a link to another website on your navigation bar, or to put a link to a document that you’ve uploaded to your site so that people can download it.
- Embedded Sites and Sections allow you to pull information from other SiteMaker sites into your own, whether you are the site owner of the embedded site or not.
- A Data Access section is used in conjunction with Data Tables created in a SiteMaker site.
- A Mixed Media section allows users to combine images, audio, video, animations, other web pages, etc., together on a single page.

When might I use embedding?

There are two situations in which you might use embedding in your site:
1) You want to pull information from some other SiteMaker site to display within your own
Example: The Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCEs) are published on the Instructional Services web site, and rather than recreating that information on your site by retyping, or copying and pasting it, you could embed the GLCEs section into your site.  And should the GLCEs page get updated downtown, you would have that updated version of the page showing in your site immediately as well.
2) You want to share editing access of a specific area of your site
Example: On your classroom site, a parent has volunteered to help maintain the student work example page of your site, but you want them to have editing access only to those pages, not to the rest of your site.  By using a separate SiteMaker site for the Student Work pages, you can give the parent editing access to that site, but not to your main classroom site; you would then embed the Student Work site into your main classroom site, so the student work pages appear on your site.
If you need to request an additional site for a purpose such as above, go to http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/requestsite where you can request your SiteMaker Unit Manager to create an additional site for your use.

Using the TinyMCE text editor

SiteMaker has a built-in text editor (TinyMCE) that allows you to format text, insert hyperlinks and images, create tables, and otherwise format your web pages without you having to know the HTML code required for such formatting.  To use the editor when working on a Text and/or Image page, click the Rich Text Editor button in the Choose Mode area, and the editor will launch in a few seconds.
For more information on using the editor, please visit the Using the TinyMCE Editor section of this site.

Images on your site

Each SiteMaker site has a certain amount of filespace available for images, documents, and datatable data to be stored on the site.  Initially users start with 3mb of space; this amount can be bumped up if needed, but we urge users to use their space wisely as we have only a certain amount for the entire district to use. 

To maximize the use of your file space on SiteMaker, here are a few tips:
1) ALWAYS resize photos to the size you want them to display at before uploading them to your site.  Photos taken directly off of a digital camera will be much larger than you want them to display on your site, so please pull them into iPhoto or GraphicConverter and resize them before uploading.  Directions on using GraphicConverter are available on the Resources for SiteMaker Owners.  In general, most images for your site should not be larger than 600 pixels wide to fit properly on the screen.

2) All files that you will be uploading to your site need to have the appropriate three-letter extension at the end of the filename to indicate what type of file it is; the extensions for some of the more common file types are:
.doc - Word document
.xls - Excel spreadsheet
.ppt - Powerpoint presentation
.pdf - Acrobat Reader file
.cwk - AppleWorks/ClarisWorks file
.jpg - digital photo file*
.gif - graphic image file*
.png - portable network graphics*
* These three image file types are the ONLY types that all web browsers will display in the browser window; other image types will likely prompt the user to download the image to their machine to be able to view the image.

3) If you want to have movie or sound files on your site, we recommend you secure space on the district’s internal web server (e.g. pioneer.aaps.k12.mi.us, abbot.aaps.k12.mi.us, etc.); each building has space on this server and staff members are allowed to have space on the server.  Because movie and sound files are quite large, storing those files on the district’s web server and then linking to them from your SiteMaker space will make the best use of the space that we have.