Quick Start
Looking to get started with Omeka but don't have time to read through the documentation? Check out abbreviated verbiage on these popular topics...
You can always visit the Instructions Video page and refer to "Using Omeka" from the main navigation for more detailed information.
Login to Omeka
Login
- Go to https://dev.schafferlibrarycollections.org/login
- Use your full Union email address to login (including the @union.edu) along with the password that you used to initially sign up.
- You will see the Admin dashboard upon login with a full list of all existing sites, whether you belong to them or not. Find your site by looking for "Faculty site:" or "Student site:" that first appears in the name, followed by your name and the term/year.
Set Look & Feel
Set Look & Feel
You are able to customize your own site by making some choices in the theme settings. For instance, you can:
- Select from two different templates: "Default" and "Alternative".
- Choose from seven different color schemes (the color of the navigation bar): Classic Black, Garnet Red, True Green, Teal Green, Light Beige, Light Gray, & Cyan Blue. (see examples below)
- Ability to upload your own banner image.
- The flexibility to arrange photos and text in different ways, according to your preferences and needs.
View examples of how the different layouts and colors appear on the page, "creating a website"
You can watch a short video that shows how to set some of these settings.
Add Items & Media
Add Items & Media
It's useful to start adding items to your site before you create pages. Items are comprised of the images, videos and pdfs that you use for the building blocks of your site. Here's some key steps when it comes to items & media:
- Create an item set for your site, to assign items to.
- Assign the item set to your site, so that your site only searches your items and not the entire Omeka library.
- Build your pages with media using "Image options" and "Image Showcase Slider" blocks.
Go to using Omeka > the different types of blocks to see the different ways that you can display items on a page.
Create Navigation
Create Navigation
Once you have created some pages on your Omeka site, they will appear in the Navigation section for you to add and rearrange for your navigation / menu bar on your site.
You can drag and drop the menu items before, after and underneath one another, to create a nested list on your site. This would especially be helpful if you have several pages and want to organize them accordingly. See more about building navigation in our help pages.
Login to Omeka
- Use your full Union email address to login (including the @union.edu) along with the password that you used to initially sign up.
- You will see the Admin dashboard upon login with a full list of all existing sites, whether you belong to them or not. Find your site by looking for "Faculty site:" or "Student site:" that first appears in the name, followed by your name and the term/year.
Set Look & Feel
You are able to customize your own site by making some choices in the theme settings. For instance, you can:
- Select from two different templates: "Default" and "Alternative".
- Choose from seven different color schemes (the color of the navigation bar): Classic Black, Garnet Red, True Green, Teal Green, Light Beige, Light Gray, & Cyan Blue. (see examples below)
- Ability to upload your own banner image.
- The flexibility to arrange photos and text in different ways, according to your preferences and needs.
View examples of how the different layouts and colors appear on the page, "creating a website"
Add Items & Media
It's useful to start adding items to your site before you create pages. Items are comprised of the images, videos and pdfs that you use for the building blocks of your site. Here's some key steps when it comes to items & media:
- Create an item set for your site, to assign items to.
- Assign the item set to your site, so that your site only searches your items and not the entire Omeka library.
- Build your pages with media using "Image options" and "Image Showcase Slider" blocks.
Go to using Omeka > the different types of blocks to see the different ways that you can display items on a page.
Create Navigation
Once you have created some pages on your Omeka site, they will appear in the Navigation section for you to add and rearrange for your navigation / menu bar on your site.
You can drag and drop the menu items before, after and underneath one another, to create a nested list on your site. This would especially be helpful if you have several pages and want to organize them accordingly. See more about building navigation in our help pages.