Katrina Foley’s Re-Elect Campaign page is one that I’ve been working on for a few months now.  It is updated on a regular basis as it’s campaign time right now.  This site features a few dynamic widgets that really make the site interactive and current with online trends while not being too flashy.

Live Site

Another very cool feature on the Princess Theater site is the ability to post videos and have them displayed on the main page!  For visual purposes, only one video is displayed at a time but visitors to the site can simply click on any of the numbered tabs to switch between videos to view.

To post a video, you will need to log-in to the backend of the site, otherwise known as the dashboard, and create/write a new post.

Now you are ready to start your video post.  It is very similar to creating any other kind of post with the exception of the Key + Value Fields and a little bit of YouTube link editing.  It may seem a bit confusing at first but after posting a few videos it will not seem so confusing…hopefully.  :)  This image should will hit on all the important aspects of the post with the exception of how to grab the YouTube URL/link but I will go over that in a bit.

Okay now if you haven’t gone to YouTube to find the video you want to post, go there now & find the one you want.  Be sure you have watched the video before deciding on one because you want to be sure you are grabbing the one with content & quality you are happy with.  Once you have found the video clip you would like to use, you are going to find the box that provides you with the URL to copy (see image below).  Use your mouse to place your cursor in that box & highlight the entire URL.  Once it is highlighted, you will then hold down both the CTRL and C keys on your keyboard to copy the URL.

Now that you have the link to the video itself you are ready to add it to the Value section of your video post.  Keep in mind that you will be altering the copied URL slightly otherwise the video will not show up correctly in the post.  So go ahead and place your cursor in the Value box next to the Key and hold down the keys CTRL and V to paste the video URL.  Now use your cursor to remove watch? from the URL.  Next you want to use your cursor to replace the equal sign with “/“.

So the original copied URL goes from

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzhxHsqQvsI

to

http://www.youtube.com/v/yzhxHsqQvsI

Now you should be all set to click on your Publish button and share the video with all the visitors to your site!  If you have any questions or comments, post a comment here and I will do my best to answer any questions!

I’ve just finished the finishing touches on this blog and I’m so pleased with how it turned out.  The client was wanting a blog that would be easy to navigate but at the same time host a few advanced features like multiple videos on the main page, ad management, and community interactivity.    This blog is a bit more advanced than I usually do for clients but I had so much fun working on it!  Honestly I would love to have more clients that want a blog that has a few of the more intensive features but at the same time I have an appreciation for the simpler style blogs.

If you are ever in the area of Mount Ayr, Iowa…be sure to stop in the Princess Theater for some entertainment.  Until then, have a peek at the site and let them know what you think of it!
Live Site

I will try and make this little tutorial as simple & painless as possible.  It may be alot to take in at first but I promise all these little details will make your blog attractive & functional.  If you have any questions about any of these steps…just leave me a comment and I will respond to your question here so that it will be easy to come back and refer to.

Let’s get started!

Featured Gallery
One of my favorite parts of this blog is the Featured Gallery.  The Featured Gallery is basically a large rectangle image, a title & an excerpt of a post…actually it’s a series of these elements, hence the word Gallery!

To create posts that will show up in the Featured Gallery first you will need an image that is exactly 590 pixels x 240 pixels.  To create a Featured Gallery post, you will go to Write New Post page.

You will see in the image above that you will need to upload an image for this post.  You will do so by clicking on a little box located in the toolbar right above the area that you type your post.  Here are images to walk you through the process of uploading your Featured Gallery image.

Once you have located the file on your computer and selected it, it will go through a process called Crunching.  Then you will see the following screen.

Keep in mind that you only need to do the things that are highlighted with my notations in blue.  For the Featured Gallery image, do not select Insert into Post.

More to come later…