If you are a Typepad user, have you heard about Typepad Pages? When I first heard about these I must admit I just didn't quite 'get it'. The examples they used didn't seem to relate to me. Maybe my Yankee we-can-just-make-do upbringing has something to do with it....Then, one day, about two weeks ago I finally figured out how I could use them. And I found that Typepad Pages are incredibly useful and easy.
One of the things about maintaining a blog that primarily provides information or serves as a reference is that you end up adding or correcting a lot. For instance, I often add tutorials and I want everyone to be able to find them. If I just listed them in a post, they would get lost after a few days, buried in the Archives - I've had this blog since Nov of 2005 and there are roughly 750 posts! So my solution until yesterday was to first write the tutorial as a post, then take the link for that tutorial and add it to a post called Tutorials which was a list of links to all the tutorial posts. [ Have I lost you yet? ] Then that was listed in a TypeList called Table of Contents which made it easy for readers to find them. Each time I posted a tutorial, I had to find that one Tutorials post and add a link which meant filtering my posts and then finding How to Do Stuff post or doing a search - both of which took a fair amount of time. Not certainly the worst thing in the world but just kind of a pain. The same thing with updating the A to Z Lists for Designers, Digiscrapping Sites and Fonts. So of course, since it was so tedious, I wasn't very good about updating them. :-P
My eureka moment came when I started the Recipe Rounds - why not put it on it's own Typepad Page? I thought I'd try it as an experiment. And to give credit where credit is due - Angie Pedersen's post about Typepad Pages encouraged it. Wow -that was a good idea! Recipe Rounds gets it's very own page which makes it really really easy to edit and add stuff (like all the cooking kit resources I've added this week). Rather than hunting around the list of posts, I can simply open the list of pages and select the one I want. No searching around. Brilliant!
So last night I moved all the posts for tutorials and other resources that were in my old TypeList - my old table of contents - so that each has its own Page. And I then changed the name of the Pages section to Table of Contents (if you dont change it, Typepad calls it Pages). Lastly I got rid of the TypeList and moved the new Table of Contents into that spot. Simple! And the very best part? All I had to do to move the posts to pages was to copy and paste!! I mean, what could be simpler? Those long lists of all the designers and their links could simply be copied and pasted into the new Page. I think it took all of ten minutes!
Functionally it is the same and I don't think a casual blog reader would really notice...but for me, this has made editing things like the ever changing list of designers much much easier. It gives me a stable page to plunk my resources and saves me a lot of time. Thank you Typepad! Want the full scoop on how to add Pages?
If you were a designer how would you use Typepad Pages? Right now designers post their promos in a post so why not have a page called Promotions? It would be easy to edit, easy for us blog readers to find and wouldn't get lost in all the other posts. Or a page for Challenges or Contests???
Oh and I've started to update the A to Z Designer List and the A to Z Digiscrapping Websites list too and even thought it is much easier, it's going to take awhile....and if you notice I'm missing someone [ like maybe you or your favorite designer] please let me know at seswhite@gmail.com Thanks!!
