Get started ... i.e. the most important thing!

[paul_r]

If you're using the sitebuilder you probably haven't a lot, if any, experience of building websites so it may look a little daunting at first. Don't worry, if you got into here to read this you'll be able to get into the basics of the sitebuilder in no time. Once you get started it'll get easier with every bit more you do.

From both a psychological and practical point of view the most important thing is to get something on your site as soon as possible. It doesn't matter if it's just a few words on a single page - just get something live.

Once that's there you know how to do it, you'll want to add to it, and you'll get a real buzz from seeing it taking shape.

[paul_r]

When you first log in to the sitebuilder your first step will be to choose from a range of templates to start you off. You'll see these at the top of the page, grouped into categories, including sport. There are a lot to choose from but it's important to know that it doesn't really matter much which one you choose - you can change everything in it as you go along. So just pick one that's roughly the layout you want.

Next, on the left you'll be given a choice of basic colour schemes available for that template (different templates have slightly different colour options so don't be afraid to browse around the templates before choosing). Choose the colour scheme closest to what you want on the site. Most of this can be changed later but it's best to start with the basic colour closest to the desired end result, as this sets the text colour options.

Then on the right side select a Style (Personal, Retail, or Service). This just sets up the initial pages provided to start your site. Each style starts with slightly different pages, but again this doesn't actually matter as you can add or delete any number of pages, and page types, in a few clicks.

When you're ready click the 'Next' buttom to move onto Step 2.

[paul_r]

The 'Internal Site Name' is only for you own use and will only be seen by you when you are using the sitebuilder, so so any convenient nickname is fine.

'External Site Name' is the web address (URL) that people will use to find your site on the internet. Most people won't need to do anything with this as the main site address will already be filled in for you.

Probably the only circumstances where some users may need to fill in the second box is if you are planning to have seperate sections of your website for seperate parts of your sports organisation. An example of this might be if you are a club with say hockey, rugby, and cricket sections and want each section to have their own website. Our demo site at www.supportingyoursport.com (http://www.supportingyoursport.com) is set up to demonstarate this for seperate Rugby and Hockey sections. The main demo site is at ...

www.supportingyoursport.com (http://www.supportingyoursport.com) but there are sub-sites at

www.supportingyoursport.com/rugby (http://www.supportingyoursport.com/rugby) and

www.supportingyoursport.com/hockey (http://www.supportingyoursport.com/hockey) (these contain just the default content to give you the idea - each sub-site can have whatever content you like)

Click the 'Next' button at the top to move onto Step 3.

[paul_r]

This is where you add, change, and delete stuff to make the site look how you want it. It's also where you publish it to the web. At this point you are only minutes away from publishing your site on the internet. Exciting, huh?

OK, if you publish it withing a few minutes it's going to contain mostly just the default stuff that's provided to show you the shape of the initial pages, but it really won't take long to start personalising it.

The page you should now be looking at is in 3 main sections.

On the right side of the page the biggest section displays your web pages as they will appear when you publish the site. Above this section is a menu system similar in many ways to that you will find in a word processor for example. It allows you to change font styles and colours, add images, links, tables, change the site headers, menu buttons, etc. Make the site just the way you want it, in a nutshell. Mostly you just click in the area of text you want to change and type in the new stuff, formatting this using familiar formatting tools from the menu. Similarly you can change images and layouts.

On the left side, the upper section is a navigation aid. It lists the pages in your site and allows you to change the order in which they appear in the site navigation, simply by dragging pages to a new position in the list. You can add new pages from a list of prefabricated layouts, or start with a blank page. You can of course also change pages, or delete pages altogether.

Also on the left side, the lower section contains links to relevant help pages. These links are context-sensitive, i.e. depending on what you are doing at the time the links change to the most relevant help topics.

There are lots of buttons and tabs to click and play with and it will take a bit of time experimenting to see how it all works. DON'T expect to master it all in an hour. DO expect to get frustrated now and again as you work out how to do things. DO expect to get a lot of satisfation out of seeing your site develop and published on the web for the world to see.

I'm not going to attempt to explain how everything works here - that's all available in reasonable detail in the built-in context-sensitive help in the sitebuilder.

Instead we'll jump to how to preview your site and publish it on the internet. You can do this to check how it all works before you do much work to the site. Just make a few changes to the default pages so you can see that it's your site ok, then go ahead and publish that. Remember you can change it as often as you like, or even 'un-publish' it again if you don't want the world to see it yet.

[paul_r]

Almost there now. At this point you can save your work, preview what it will look like on the web, or publish it.

To save what you have done so far without publishing it on the web click 'Done' (top right on the editing page). When you next come back to the sitebuilder you can carry on from where you left off.

When you think you're ready to publish your handiwork you can preview it first if you like. Top right on the screen you'll see a 'Preview Site' button. That will open the site in a new window, showing you how it will look if you then publish it on the web.

When you're happy to publish - click the 'Publish' button (guessed that already, huh?) on the top right. On the next screen you are given the option to center the site in the browser window - if you want to center the site tick the box. If not, the site will be displayed to the left side of the users screen. I'd suggest you try it centered first - you can change back to left-justified and republish at any time if you change your mind. When ready, click on the 'Next' button again.

When that screen has finished processing your website will now be live on the internet. You'll see a link you can follow to see it. This may be in the form
http://212.108.66.137/~supporting or

http://www.supportingyoursport.com or

http://supportingyoursport.com

Any of these will work, although the latter two are obviously the user-friendly way to promote or link to your site.

Click 'Next' to go back to your sitebuilder control panel. You'll see a few useful things here - we'll cover those in Step 6.

[paul_r]

Once you have something live on your site you'll want to add, change, and improve it so let's take a quick tour of the main sitebuilder login area to explain what's there.

At the top you'll see how much free space you have for your site - should be loads, but contact us if you are running short.

In the main panel is a link to your site (or a list of them if you have more than one). Clicking the site link takes you back into the editing area of the sitebuilder. You can change stuff in there as often as you like.

To the right you'll see 2 columns: 'Change History', and 'Activities'.

'Change History' has 2 dates: the last time the site was published, and the last time it was edited. This is useful because you can edit the site and save it without publishing if you still aren't finished with the changes. Click on these 2 dates to see the site as it is currently published, or to see the latest changed you made but which may not yet be published.

Under 'Activities' you can ...

Publish the latest version.
Choose a new template (existing content is unchanged).
Unpublish the site (take it off the internet).
Rename the site (this is just the internal site name).
Delete the site altogether.
Clone the site (perhaps if you were going to have 2 sites for different sports, but a lot of the content would be the same, this would save some time).On the left side of the login page is a panel with are several options:

'My Sites' will display a list of sites you have (normally just the one).
'Support Resources' takes you to a useful series of video tutorials (also available along with help and tutorials for the DirectAdmin control panel at www.podium4sport.co.uk/p4s/sys/ (http://www.podium4sport.co.uk/p4s/sys/)). These compliment the help pages.
'Help Viewer' takes you to the full set of help pages.
'eCommerce Setup' allows you to set up a modest shop using Paypal as a payment gateway. (Note that you need to check with us first before doing this as we will not permit commercial activity that is in direct competition with Vi Sports normal commercial activity, or that is not solely in direct support of your sporting organisation).That's about it for the basics. From here you'll learn more, and quicker, by clicking stuff and seeing what it does. If you don't like the result, 'undo' it or exit without saving. If you've tried to work out how to do something (and I mean REALLY tried!) and still can't work it out - post here and hopefully someone will be able to help.

Similarly if you've worked out something quite clever - post to share that with others. By sharing problems and solutions everyone's site will benefit.