Google Power Tools Bible

The Page Manager allows you to easily manage your entire Web site, so that you can quickly move between pages you want to edit, delete pages, lose changes, or publish pages. The Page Manager also allows you to easily create a new page on your site. To access the Page Manager, click the Page Manager link found at the top left of any Page Creator page.

Page Manager lists each of your created Web pages, as shown in Figure 23.7. If you are just starting, you may see only your home page, identified with a small “home” icon. You also can click the green page associated with the Create a new page link to create a new page and launch the Edit page.

Figure 23.7: Move between Web pages on your site using Page Manager.

View your Web pages in Page Manager as a grid (the default) or change to a list view. To change between views, click the List link or Grid link in the upper-right corner of the Page Manager page.

The pages are listed in either page name order (alphabetical order) or by the most recently edited page first and the oldest edits last. You can easily switch between these different page orders by selecting one of the links next to Sort in the upper left of the page. Click either by page name or by most recent edits.

Page Manager actions

You can take many actions from the Page Manager. Select the page you want to take action on by selecting the check box next to the page. A shortcut for selecting all pages, particularly if you are taking advantage of all the free Web hosting and have created many pages, is to use Select All, located in the top blue bar. To deselect all the pages, click None.

After you select one or more pages, you can quickly publish them all by clicking Publish. Or you can take other actions by selecting them from the drop-down list. These are your choices:

• Tell your friends

• Discard unpublished changes

• Unpublish

• Duplicate

• Delete

When you have published new pages to your site, you may want your friends and associates to know so they can look at your updated pages. In Page Manager, select the pages you want to tell your friends about by selecting the check boxes associated with the pages you’ve updated. Don’t click the page titles because that loads the pages into the editor. Selecting a check box launches a new Gmail message already complete with a link to the page and an announcement that your friends should see your new page. Simply add the e-mail addresses of the desired recipients.

Return pages to their unedited state by choosing to discard unpublished changes. This returns the page to the state it was in the last time it was published, even if you’ve chosen to save your changes while editing.

Remove a page from the publicly viewable Web site by selecting Unpublish from the drop-down list. Pages are not deleted; they are just removed from public view. The page is still viewable in Page Manager and can be republished or edited at any time.

To save time creating new pages that contain many of the same features or content, you can choose to create a new Web page by duplicating another page. Some people even create an unpublished template page that they use over and over again by using the Duplicate feature. This is particularly handy when you create menus or other complex layout features.

The Delete feature removes the page from Page Manager and any copies that exist on the public Web site. When you select this feature, the computer warns you that your actions will permanently delete the selected Web pages. If you accidentally delete a file, there is no recovering it, nada, zip, not a chance, gone forever.

Other stuff

Click the Site Settings link found in the Page Manager to set some of your Web site’s features, such as the text that appears in the title bar when people access your page. By default, the Site name is your Google account name.

You can see your Web site’s URL for easy reference, but after you create a site, Google assigns the URL where it is published, and you can’t change that.

There is an Image Upload check box. When it is selected, Google automatically optimizes the size of uploaded images, thereby reducing the download time of large images for people viewing your Web page. If you want to upload large images and not have Google optimize them, deselect this box.

Because Page Creator is still in Google Labs, you must decide whether you want the experimental features activated. Be aware that these beta features may work with unpredictable results. When Page Creator graduates from the labs, these features will have been fully tested and the experimental features button will no longer exist.

When you click the Experimental Features button, a page appears that explains the unpredictable nature of these experimental features and asks you whether you are certain this is what you want to do. To return without enabling the experimental features, click No (sounds scary). To enable the features, click Yes (I understand what I’m getting myself into). If you click Yes, a red notice appears telling you that experimental features are enabled. The button changes to Disable experimental features. From that point on, in the Edit page you also see a notice at the top of the page reminding you that experimental features are enabled with a Send feedback link next to this notice. Google Labs wants to know when things need fixing or they would love your comments to improve their products.

If your content is not suitable for minors, you can let people know by selecting the check box under Adult Content. The terms and conditions of using the Google service state that when displaying adult content, you must check this box.