Kate's dashboard

I read the longer discussion and think I get the point. Interesting how I have to try to imagine how others use a wiki. . . And I guess my uses are just that much different from the ones you have cited.

I don't want the wiki to be used as an interactive space so much as to have it be an easy place to showcase documents -- to create a course portfolio for other teachers to be able to look at how a course is structured. Using a wiki, I can update and revise assignments easily, share them with fellow learning community teachers (and they can post theirs, too. . . and ditto for the revising). But aside from the work of a small group of people on the site, the purpose is to showcase the course. For that, we need easy access for people NOT expected to do anything but perhaps comment. So we want to invite people who fit neither of your above categories. Just VIEWERS. And they surely don't want to have to create an account just to see our wiki. I think, tho, that my invitations DO allow people just to pop on and look at what we have wrought. Even without a password or a wiki account.

I'd also like to use a wiki to create an online curriculum vitae. I could link to every paper I published, I could post course syllabi etc etc. What a great idea! But if I applied for a grant, a scholarship or a new job, I'd have to be able to tell strangers to come look at it. Will that be a problem with 2.0? (because the beta site was where I thought to work on that project.)

Ah, but I want to invite people who DO NOT have pbwiki accounts to view my wiki. Why would everyone visiting a wiki create an account on pbwiki? Isn't that like having to create an account every time you visit a webpage? I would like to use my wiki as a kind of webpage. . . and would like a wide readership of non-wiki users.

Could invitations include a name with the e-mail address that would then show up on the sidebar where it indicates who visited?

It would be better if PBwiki just maintained formatting from Word. Is this in the works as an option? It's a drag to have to recreate all the formatting!

But I did get a good advice from Vu Nguyen, the designer of Qua. He suggested the following, and it really worked!

Vu Nguyen replied to How do I change the colors of my links? a question about PBwiki.

Okay, this is going to be a little awkward, but it's the best way to do it because of the way the Point&Click Editor handles nesting of <span>'s (you don't need to understand that). I've also confirmed that this problem is fixed in PBwiki 2.0. Anyway, without further ado: 1) Create your link like you would normally, but in the "Link Text" field, add an extra character before the link text. For example, if I'm linking to the FrontPage, I might make the link text "zFrontPage". Click OK and make your link. 2) Now, back in the main editor, highlight ONLY the real portion of the link text, which in this case would be "FrontPage". Select a different color with the color picker. That portion should now be a new color. 3) Erase the extra character (in this case, a 'z') Like I said, it's awkward, but it's definitely fixed in PBwiki 2.0, so we all have that to look forward to.

So thank god we don't all have to become programmers to create a wiki!

Hope this helps!

Kate</span>

Thank you very much Vu! It took some trial and error, but, generally speaking, I was able to change the colors of the links fonts and even make them look like each other. I even figured out how to copy the "code" from one of them into the box of the other (and then change the title). So thank you for your teaching!

My only other question concerns why "what you see is not what you get" from the editing page to the saved front page in some cases. It's really weird to see a link underlined and in a specific size on the editing page and then save it and have it look different on the Front Page. Any comment on why that might be happening and what to do about it?

Anyway, I'm very happy to have my links the right colors! Thank you again!

Casey, a "normal" user of pbwiki -- and even my techie here at school -- can't understand those answers to the question, how do I make my links some other color than dark blue! I have no idea what it means to say, "put this code in the sidebar." Huh? But I already indicated that.
We are creating a wiki with many live links on beautiful colored squares. You can't see the links if it's blue on blue. We want to make the link yellow or white.
Is there a way to change the default color of dark blue?

That's great and we DID it! However, we want to maintain the color of the letters on the link itself (the word you click on). Our letters for "Shared ASsignments" are yellow, for example. But when we make a link out of that title, the letters become blue. (not as pretty). I suppose there is only one color an active link can be, and that is blue?

Huh? Clear as mud to us normal folks. I want to change the color within a table and it looks as if the second color button in editing should do that. But I click "edit" choose a color, and nothing happens. I'm sure this is a stupid question, but I don't see it addressed on the "related topics." Where is the FAQs page? Hmmmm....

Thank you, Cliff. We're going to try it! Kate