Chapter 6: Blog Settings
You can customize the Blog, Category and Entry html pages by choosing various settings in the "Display Settings" tab of Edit Blog sheet. You can also customize the contents of the Navigation column by using the "Navigation Editor". This chapter covers the "Display Settings" and "Navigation Editor" options and usage.
Blog Display Settings
Double click the Blog name in the outline view to edit it. The Blog attributes and settings are shown in two different tab views. Click on the "Display Settings" tab to view the settings that affect the look and feel of the generated HTML files.
Content Area Width: This is used to set the relative width of the page that should be used for showing the actual page content (entry titles, abstract & body).
Navigation Area Width: This is used to set the relative width of the page that should be used for showing the contents of the navigation column (category names, calendar, statistics, quick links etc).
The Content area width and Navigation area width apply to all the pages in the Blog, namely Blog, Category, Entry, Archive, Year and Day.
Then there are 3 groups of settings that apply to the Blog, Category and Feed page.
The "Number of entries" option lets you set the number of entries you like to see in that page.
The "Number of links" option lets you set the number of entries whose titles are shown as links at the bottom of the page.
If you have more entries than the sum of the above two values then you have to go to the archives to see the old entries.
The "Order of entries and links" option lets you choose the display order of the entry content. You can order by post date, modified date, title etc.
The "What to show in page" option lets you choose the actual content that should be displayed in the page.
Apart from the actual content and order of the entries controlled by the above settings, there are two other aspects of the HTML pages that can be customized. You can customize the layout of the page by assigning a Template Set and you can customize the appearance (fonts, colors etc) of the text by assigning a Stylesheet to the blog.
After you chance the "Display Settings" of a blog, click the "Save" button. To review the changes click the Preview button. You may have to click the Reload/Refresh button in the browser to see the new changes. Web browsers cache HTML files and most times show old pages unless asked to reload/fetch the new pages.
The next two chapters show you how to create custom template sets and stylesheets and assign them to the blog.
Navigation Editor
Select "Show Navigation Editor" in the "Layout" menu to launch the Navigation Editor. Navigation editor provides a simple interface to create, edit and delete navigation sections in the navigation column. The navigation column is usually shown on the right or left side of each html page.
Each Blog can have a different set of navigation sections. To see the navigation sections of a Blog, choose the Blog name in the "Blog" popup button. The "Title" popup button lists the names of all the navigation sections in the selected Blog. To see the content of a navigation section, choose its name from the "Title" popup button. The "Position" popup button lists the relative position of the navigation section in the navigation column.
To change the position of a navigation section choose the new relative position in "Position" popup button. The positions of the navigation sections are then reversed. After you make any changes to the navigation section (Heading, Content or Position) don't forget to click the "Save" button.
The navigation section's heading should always appear between the tags <div class="sidetitle"> and </div>. The navigations section's content should always appear between the tags <div class="side"> and </div>.
If you want to restore to the initial navigation sections then click on the "Factory Defaults" button. Note that this will delete all your current navigation sections and restore to the initial set of sections, this action cannot be undone.