- Author: Dave Krause
It took Karl about six months to create the original Site Builder and begin rolling it out to counties.
"I was adding one or two counties per month," Karl told me this morning. "I made sure Site Builder worked for people by following up constantly with them. Any issues or needs were dealt with immediately."
In 2000, Site Builder was far from the full-featured content management system we have now. "I had student assistants that would resize photos and make PDFs for county staff. There were no tools to do this automatically."
The attention to service led to a strong adoption rate for Site Builder. Today, there are over 600 sites using it. As it was growing, Karl also developed the first version of Collaborative Tools, ANR's discussion management tool.
"I had to create accounts for people by hand back then," he recalled. "I would literally call or email someone directly with a password."
Karl feels his real awakening to ANR came with the creation of the Core Issue Grant System, which is no longer in service.
"Each week I would get a call asking for another feature, and each feature showed me more of the layout of the division as a whole," he shared.
Karl continued to develop applications on his own, releasing division critical systems like the Surveys, Datastore, Directory, Portal, FileVault and more. In 2006, Karl was able to hire Bryon Noel and Dave Krause to help with the mission. Since then, the web team has developed more than 50 applications, totaling more than 1.5 million lines of code.
In 2010, Karl became the IT Manager for CSIT. Since then, he has expanded the capabilities of IT with new programs keeping customer service in mind. Karl began distributing equipment to division academics across the state, served on the leadership team for IGIS, established a division-wide IT help desk, spearheaded the scan and store projects for the RECs and administrative units moving into the ANR Building, and provided leadership for the installation of technology in the new building.
On a personal note, Karl has been an amazing mentor, friend and coworker. He maintained a funny, friendly style with everyone and was always ready to collaborate. His enthusiasm for providing IT solutions to the division was infectious, and his desire to make a difference was always front and center in all of his decisions and work.
We'll miss you, Karl.
- Author: Dave Krause
While you wait for the new "mobile-friendly" Site Builder design to launch in early April, you can enjoy two new features to the design tool right now!
Custom Header Photos
Our now departed designer, Alex, did a great job curating photos for the header library. Each photo he found or received was color-corrected, resized, and generally buffed to a high shine. Now that he is no longer in this role, we've decided to open up the design tool to allow users to upload header photos. Here's how it works:
Go into Site Builder and click "Site Info & Appearance" on the left navigation under Administration (you must be a full access administrator or owner to do this). Click the Launch Designer button.
After the design tool window pops up, click "Photo" on the top blue bar. You should see a link that says "Upload Custom Photo." Click the link.
Select your photo (990px minimum width, height will adjust) using the form and save. I'll show you what the other two options do in just a moment.
Your photo has now been uploaded. If you don't like it, you can click the delete link to remove it, or upload a new image.
Your header photo has been replaced! One caveat: only one custom header can be uploaded per site, and it will replace ALL header photos on each page. At some point, we will add this feature per page, but for now, it's site-wide.
The other two options from the upload image form will do two things, both of which can really harm your site if used improperly!
The first is "Remove Top Text," and it will do just that. If your header image incorporates your site name, you may elect to remove the top text. However, if the site name isn't in your photo, you really shouldn't select this option.
The second is "Remove Margin," and it will remove the space at the top dedicated to the top links and search box. This is useful if your banner photo has light background or is higher on the left.
Centennial Ribbon
Back in Site Info & Appearance, under the Launch Designer button is a new option to place the Centennial Ribbon over the header photo in the first design option (will also be an option for the mobile design when it becomes available).
If you are using the first design and enable the ribbon, it will look something like this:
If you use the ribbon on the mobile-friendly design, it will look something like this:
These new features offer more flexibility when developing a Site Builder site. If you have any suggestions for other features, please submit them to the ANR IT Help System.
/h2>/h2>- Author: Karl Krist
While mobile applications (iPhone, etc) are appealing in many ways, there are also many downsides. In ANR we've taken a different approach to making our content accessible to a mobile audience- responsive web design.
If you are interested in our mobile strategy, or if you just want to make your site available on small mobile devices, take a look at this video.
- Author: Dave Krause
Alex's cool temperament has earned him a great deal of praise over the years, and his departure will be felt by all of those he has assisted.
If you'd like to send Alex a note, his last day will be February 22, 2013. After that, he will be moving to his new PROGRAMMING position at UC Davis. After stewing in the web cave for the past five years, Alex has finally morphed into one of us. Rumor has it that he now spends his free time playing video games and eating hot pockets.
In terms of continuing to provide customer support as we seek to replace him, please use the IT Help system to request assistance, and we will do our best to provide help in a timely manner.
- Author: Dave Krause
We've made a few changes to Site Builder and our Blog system that are worth sharing with you. Indeed, we should probably Pin a Tweet to our Wall and throw it in one of our Circles.
We've upgraded the Sharing feature of Site Builder and the Blogs to allow for the inclusion of a Twitter handle. This is your Twitter ID, the name following the "@" symbol. You can use a Twitter ID to locate a profile on their site, like this example: http://twitter.com/ANRWebGuy.
On the the page properties of your "home page," you can set the default Twitter handle for your site. If you have "sharing" enabled, any time someone shares to Twitter, your ID will go along for the ride, identifying you as the source of the content! You can override the site Twitter Handle by entering a different handle on any page (on the page properties form). This will allow you to have several Tweeters on the same site.
This functionality was also shared with ANR Blogs. Like Site Builder, you can add your handle to the blog information page as a default, and then each post will accept a unique handle. Go ahead and click the share button at the top of this post and select Twitter. You'll see that @ANRWebGuy is in the tweet!
Additionally, the Blog system received a few things Site Builder has had for a while. Each blog post now has a "small" URL, which is http://ucanr.edu/b/XXXX (where XXXX is the post number). For example, this post has this small URL: http://ucanr.edu/b/8944. Moreover, we removed the sharing link for Digg, since Digg is Deadd, and created sharing links for Pinterest and Google+. Please note, your blog post must have an image to share with Pinterest. This is their requirement!
Going back to Site Builder, you'll see that Web/IT News posts relating to Site Builder, Blogs and the Survey System are now featured on your dashboard. Hopefully, this will help you stay current with new features and give you greater access to us!
Lastly, the calendar asset in Site Builder was modified a few months ago to gather specific locations for events. This allows us to gather the coordinates for every event happening in ANR (that is posted to Site Builder, of course). It also allows us to convert the location into into a link to a map and directions page! Here's an example of this location link in action: http://ucanr.edu/?calitem=176690. Be sure to include your full locations in your events to take advantage of this feature!