Moultrie Creek Gazette

WordPress Image Galleries

September 23, 2011 6:09 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

One of the many reasons genealogists like blogging is the ability to show off those great family photos. WordPress lets us show them off in style with a very nice gallery function. In this gallery, you see four photos arranged in two columns. Depending on your theme, you can design galleries with up to four columns and as many images as you’d like. You choose the size and order of the images in your gallery and you choose what your visitor will see when she clicks on an image – just the image or an attachment page for that image.

Anytime you start uploading more than one image in a post, WordPress will assume you are building a gallery. If you aren’t, just insert the images into your text as you always do. If you do want to create a gallery, click on the Gallery tab that magically appears as soon as you add more than one image in a post.

gallery pane

The gallery pane shows each of the images you’ve uploaded at the top of the pane. You can click the Show link to the right of an image to update the metadata (title, alt text, caption, etc.) for it. In the Gallery Settings area, you’ll set the options you want for your gallery. Here I’ve chosen to display my images in an attachment page rather than just the image in the browser. The attachment page displays the image and both the Title and Caption fields as a page using your site’s theme.

Next comes how you want to order the images you display. Your options are menu order (the order they appear in the gallery pane), title, date/time or random – and you can choose ascending or descending order. The last option is the number of columns for your gallery. In my case, 4 columns wouldn’t fit into my theme and 3 would be awkward since I only have 4 image so I chose to use 2 columns. Once everything’s ready, click Insert gallery and you’re done.

If you look at the HTML of your post, all you’ll see is a gallery shortcode - gallery columns=”2″ - showing a columns attribute. Note: the shortcode should be surrounded by square braces ( [ ] ). There are many more options available for the gallery shortcode and these can give you even more flexibility. For example, you’ll notice the gallery below has larger images. The standard shortcode defaults to using the thumbnail size, but you can add a size attribute to select which size you prefer. I used medium here.

Another useful attribute is exclude. By default, the gallery will include every image uploaded in the post. In this case, I don’t want the gallery pane screenshot included in the gallery so I used the exclude attribute to keep it separate. There’s also an include attribute which will let you pull in images from anywhere in your media library.

You’ll find a complete discussion of the gallery shortcode and all its attributes at the Gallery Support page.

Your theme has the most impact on how your gallery is displayed. Older themes may not be as gallery-friendly as more recent ones. Do a bit of experimenting to see how your theme handles galleries. If you don’t like what you see, you might want to start looking for a new theme. As we’ll see in future posts, galleries aren’t the only features that improve with theme support.

Posted in: Blog Bytes , Tagged: gallery, photos, shortcode, WordPress

Create a Custom Scrivener Template

September 21, 2011 12:30 pm , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

My style of family history does not fit into any of the standard document types. It’s part biography, part scrapbook and part academic paper. Imagine my surprise to find that none of the standard templates included in Scrivener quite fit my style. No problem! With a bit of effort, I can create a custom template that fits both my document style and my work style. And, the time spent creating it can save me a lot of work in the future. Let’s take a look.

I started with the blank template and began building the sections I will use in my projects. In addition to the manuscript, I have a section for Research where I’ll collect the screenshots, documentation and other information related to my writing projects. I also have a section for Notes. I use this for quick references like formal names, correct spellings, acronyms, URLs and other information I’ll reference often in my manuscript. And, since this template will be used primarily for ebooks, I’m using the Notes section to keep track of the image tags I include in the draft with notes on which image to use and how to present it. It’s also a good place to put my cheat sheet listing all my available tags for quick reference. This is just the way I work – your needs may be quite different and Scrivener gives us all the flexibility to “have it our way”.

I’ve also added several standard pages to this project template and even included text in many of them. Except for project-specific information like title and ISBN, this content won’t change from one project to the next so why should I have to keep retyping or copy/pasting it. And, if it should change, I’ll just update the template.

Once I’ve got my basic layout and content set up the way I want, it’s time to save it. Choose the File > Save as Template command, then complete the information pane shown here and click on the OK button. Notice that template files are saved on the Mac in the ~/Library/Application Support/Scrivener/ProjectTemplates folder. In this example, I’ve chosen to have my template saved in the Non-Fiction category so when I create a new project, I’ll find this template included with Scrivener’s other non-fiction templates.

I know my template will go through many adjustments. It may even spawn several new templates. I’m already considering templates for idea books and how-to books in addition to the family history ones. It’s just a matter of finding which parts of Scrivener make your writing efforts easier, then putting them within easy reach.

Posted in: Publishing Tools , Tagged: Scrivener, templates

Joseph L. Colee

September 20, 2011 3:47 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

JOSEPH L
Infant of J.B. & D.F. COLEE
Born July 15, 1888
Died Oct. 21, 1888

A light from our household is gone.
A voice we loved is stilled.
A place is vacant in our heart
That never can be filled.

Mission of Nombre de Dios

Posted in: Gravestones , Tagged: Mission of Nombre de Dios, surname:Colee, Tombstone Tuesday

Legend Maker First Look

September 19, 2011 9:30 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

Legend Maker [$49.95 - Mac] does the heavy work to convert your manuscript into an ebook. It is capable of creating ebooks in both ePub and Kindle’s Mobi format. And, your book can be styled to include images, audio and even video. Because it is a conversion application, you do your setup work in whatever application you’re already comfortable using. If that app can save your manuscript in .rtf (rich text format), it’s fine to use for your markup.

The user guide has all the details on setting up your manuscript for the conversion process, including the tags to include for special formatting requirements like new sections, forced page breaks and endnotes. Tags are also used to identify where images, video and graphical elements are to be placed within the manuscript. It took me less than an hour to turn my 80+ page manuscript into marked-up text.

Here you see a sample of the tagged manuscript in iWork’s Pages app. Because the reader device/application controls both the style and size of text in an ebook, Legend Maker instructs you to format your manuscript text using the Times New Roman font at 18 points. From there you can use bold, italics, colors and alignment as you see fit. The bookmark:How to Use This Book tag shown at the top of the screen is used to identify new chapters or sections. The text associated with the bookmark is what appears in the table of contents. The image:filename.png tag is used to identify the image file that will appear at this point in the document. All images in electronic books should be in PNG format. PNG is used because it can scale images without distortion. While you’re creating your image at a size appropriate for a tablet like the iPad, it has to scale down to fit on smaller screens like a Nook or even an iPhone/Android phone. PNG also supports transparency, which gives you a lot more design flexibility.

This sample from the book shows a photograph with a simple shadow. I created a transparent workspace in Photoshop Elements that’s a little bigger than the image so I could include the shadow effect with the image. Because the background is transparent, this looks just as nice on whatever background the reader chooses to use. This also comes in handy if you want to do text effects in your publication.

Here you see a page with an image displayed on my iPod Touch. It shows how well this image has scaled down to the smaller screen.

Although not used in this project, one very useful feature provided with Legend Maker is the ability to create endnotes. And it is quite simple. All you do is type the citation immediately following the reference text surrounded by two “broken brackets”.

. . . as well as the Huguenots blown ashore by a storm 18 miles south of St. Augustine. <<Manucy, Albert C. Menéndez: Pedro Menéndez De Avilés, Captain General of the Ocean Sea. Sarasota, Fla: Pineapple Press, 1992. Print.>>

Now, at the point where you want the endnotes section to appear in your book, all you need is a bookmark:endnotes tag. Not only will Legend Maker collect your endnotes at that location, it will place the appropriate superscripted number at the reference that links to the citation. At the actual citation, it will add a ♠ character at the end of the citation which links back to the point of reference in your manuscript. And, the Endnotes section is added to your book’s table of contents. This feature alone makes Legend Maker worth the $50 as far as I’m concerned.

All my descriptions and examples to this point revolve around the ePub format. I’ve checked my results in iBooks, Stanza and the OverDrive readers with the same results. I have not yet tested it on an actual Nook device. My guess is the color Nook will be very similar to my other apps, but it’s the eInk version that concerns me. More research . . .

The Legend Maker manual discusses several formatting differences between the ePub and Mobi formats, but my one try (so far) at creating a Kindle/Mobi version shows I will have to work on my images before I’ll have a publish-ready Kindle book. The most glaring issue was the shadows I like so much in ePub. They show up in the Mobi version as solid black, hard-edged things that scream at you like fingernails on a blackboard. It will take some more experimentation to see how I can manipulate images in this format.

All-in-all, I’ve very pleased with Legend Maker. Publishing a book is no easy task, but this app lets you set up your ebook with tools you already know using simple tags that quickly become second nature. While graphics and multimedia will require more effort, Legend Maker’s user guide is written for “normal” people and is full of useful ideas to make your book-building effort as simple as possible.

This is just the first look. I’m sure I’ll be talking about this app a lot. Stay tuned.

Posted in: Personal Publishing , Tagged: ebooks, epub, Legend Maker, Mobi, publishing

Christmas is Coming!

September 18, 2011 10:00 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

It’s less than 100 days til Christmas. If you’re considering custom-designed Christmas gifts at affordable prices, now’s the time to get started. Here’s a couple of ideas that make great gifts:

Custom note cards. One Christmas my sister-in-law had 6 sets of notecards (12 cards per set) created from her original photos. She then re-arranged the cards so each set contained 2 of each photo. She had them done by Shutterfly at $9.99/set – a small cost to her, but priceless to each of us. You could use original photos or old family photos for your cards.
Framed art. Jazz up a photo to look older – sepia coloring, jagged edges, whatever – then print it out on tee-shirt transfer paper. Now, iron it on to gessoed canvas (I was more successful using those canvas boards than a stretched canvas.) for a truly unique piece of art. A digitized copy of a piece of heirloom artwork can be printed on artist-quality watercolor paper or even canvas to make a stunning gift for a special someone.
Calendars. Lulu has a great calendar-building platform that lets you pull your photos in from just about any of the major photo-sharing sites. Not only can you add your own events – birthdays, anniversaries, special days in your family’s history – but you can put photos into days on your calendar. So, not only can you announce that it’s Cousin Joe’s birthday, you can display his baby picture on that day.
Calendar magnets. A cheap calendar option is to make your own and print it on inkjet magnet sheets. Use some of those advertising calendars businesses send out as inspiration to create a single 12-month calendar with your own photo/graphic and it will look great on anyone’s frig!
Christmas ornaments. Many of the services mentioned below will make ornaments from your photo or graphic. Take a lesson from Hallmark and create your own keepsake ornaments each year. These are always precious treasures for Grandma and other family members who are tough to buy for! It could also be the basis for building a unique family tree.

Now you see why we’re talking about this in September. You’ll need to do some research and it will take some time to get all your photos and designs pulled together. Then too, you won’t find yourself saving much money if you’re spending megabucks for overnight shipping at the last minute.

Need some more ideas? You’ll find lots of ideas in my book, The Future of Memories. Download your copy today.

Check out these photo/gift printing services to see which one works best for you:

Posted in: Projects , Tagged: Christmas, family history, gift ideas, photos

Book Building

September 16, 2011 9:30 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

eBook building just got a whole lot easier with the release of two very interesting apps. Book Creator [$6.99 - iPad] makes it easy to build very graphical books right on your iPad which can then be published through the iBookstore. The few minutes I’ve spent with it so far shows it has great potential for building family story books for young and old alike. The other option – Legend Maker [$49.99 - Mac] – offers even more potential. This is a serious book-building tool that can convert your manuscript to both ePub and Kindle’s Mobi formats. Both formats can contain images and the ePub version can even contain audio and video.

This weekend’s plans are to dig into both apps to see what they can do and how useful they will be for family historians. I can’t wait to get started!

Posted in: E-style , Tagged: Book Creator, ebooks, epub, Kindle, Legend Maker, personal publishing

The Towle Children

September 13, 2011 9:00 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

FLORENCE N.
Dau of
A. B. & I. C. Towle
BORN
June 24. AND
DIED
Aug 9, 1888

The inscription isn’t legible.

ANGELIA
Dau of
A. B. & I. C. Towle
BORN
June 29. AND
DIED
July 28, 1890.Earth has one pure spirit less
Heaven one inmate more.

Mission of Nombre de Dios

Posted in: Gravestones , Tagged: Mission of Nombre de Dios, surname:Towle, Tombstone Tuesday

At the Corner of Paper and Digital

September 10, 2011 9:00 am , Leave a Comment , Denise Barrett

We are all familiar with bar codes and the checkout scanners at stores. The scanner reads the bar code, decodes it to a product number, performs a lookup in the store’s inventory database, pulls the price to add to your purchase total and deducts the sold item from the inventory. That barcode printed on the item’s packaging becomes digital data thanks to the scanner at the checkout.

Another kind of two-dimensional code is now showing up regularly. It’s called a QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code). It’s a small, square design composed of strange combinations of tiny squares and it can provide a whole lot more than just a product number. QR codes are being used to hold contact information, web addresses, map coordinates and other text items. Although originally designed to help keep track of parts and inventory items, with the advent of the smart phone and their built-in cameras, QR codes are now being used to quickly share information. Today you’ll find QR codes on business cards, magazine advertisements, posters and flyers and all kinds of other signage. Using an app like Barcode Scanner, you can quickly scan the code on a business card to add that person’s contact information to your phone’s address book. Other codes might take you to a web site with more information about the event you saw on a poster. And, if you’re wondering why all those vendors are sending you advertisements and email after a conference, take another look at that ID badge you were wearing. You’ll probably find a QR code containing your registration information.

You can make your own QR codes quite easily. QuickMark has a great online generator with templates for many kinds of data. It can encode SMS messages, phone numbers and free text (think citations or map coordinates) as well as URLs. Mac users can take advantage of the QuickMark Code Reader [$3.99 - Mac] to both read (using the Mac’s iSight camera) and generate codes. They also have apps for iOS, Android and Windows phones.

While the most obvious use of a custom code is to include it on your business card, you’ll soon find many other uses. These small box codes can be an easy way to catalog items in your personal archive, track books you loan to family or friends or even document source citations for items downloaded from online databases. A QR code included with a gravestone photo/story can provide map coordinates which your phone’s map/GPS app can then direct you right to the site.

Here you see QuickMark’s code generator from the desktop app. As you can see, it provides templates for addresses, contact information and more, but I’ve used the plain text to generate a QR code for a source citation. This particular book is a family heirloom and my copy is packed away in an archival box. This code can be incorporated on the box label for the book to quickly provide details a small label doesn’t have space for.

If you’d like to learn more about QR codes and try generating some of your own, stop by the QuickMark site. You can even generate some QR codes of your own. Now that you know what a QR code is, you’ll be surprised how often you’ll see them. Both the QuickMark [$1.99 for iOS : free for Android] phone app and the Barcode Scanner [$0.99 for iOS : free for Android] app can read QR codes and the more familiar barcodes. You’ll be surprised how often you put these apps to use.

Posted in: G-notes , Tagged: bar code, Barcode Scanner, QR code, QuickMark

Things you can do with Dropbox

September 9, 2011 10:00 am , 1 Comment , Denise Barrett

Dropbox goodness continues to grow as more and more apps take advantage of its functionality to share content between multiple devices – and even people. Here are just a few examples:

Keep needed research within easy reach at all times. I’ve got my PDF copy of Evidence Explained in a Dropbox folder so I can refer to it wherever I am.
Keep data files synchronized between multiple computers/devices. I use Text Expander to reduce keyboarding on my desktop and my iThings. With Dropbox, I use the same snippets data file for all the devices. If I add a new snippet, it’s immediately available on all systems. Text Expander is one of a growing number of apps that supports Dropbox synchronization. 1Password is another handy app that supports Dropbox for sharing data across systems and devices.
Take my writing projects with me. Scrivener syncs projects to Dropbox as text files. I have set up my latest Scrivener project to sync with the Notebooks app on my iPad so whenever I get inspired to add a paragraph or even just an idea, it’s within easy reach.
Easily transfer books to my supported readers. On the iPad, I can choose to open PDFs in GoodReader, Folio or iBooks and ePubs in iBooks or Stanza.

Dropbox is easy to use and the basic service includes 2GBs of storage at no cost. If you aren’t already using Dropbox, now is a good time to take a look.