Scalar: An Introduction

When you are ready to publish an element of your Scalar book, you will need to visit your Dashboard. In this space, you can navigate the elements of your book and decide which are ready to go "live," or become available to web users.

First, if you have multiple books, you will need to select one from the drop-down window at that top of your Dashboard.

Next, you can navigate to the element that is ready to be published via the tabs at the top of the page. (i.e. Pages, Media, Paths, Tags, Annotations, and Comments)

For example, let's say you are ready to publish a Page. Simply click the Edit button at the beginning of the row that corresponds with the page you wish to edit.

Next, use the drop-down menu under the "Live?" section to select Yes or No.

Finally, click Save to finalize your edits. The Page is now live. Make sure to make of the all Media elements that correspond with the page live as well so that your page is fully functional for your users.

From the Index page, click on the title of your book. This will take you to the first page of your Scalar book.

To begin editing this page, click the Edit button at the bottom of the page. You will then be directed to a screen that closely resembles the dashboard of a blog. It is in this space that you will add a title, description (recommended not required), and the body text/media of the page. You can use the blue media buttons in the Visual editing area at the top of the text box to add different types of media relationships to your page.

Beneath the text box, you will find a drop-down window. Clicking on this will allow you to choose the layout of your page depending on the ways in which you plan to display media. Under this menu, you will find options for the different kinds of Relationships you can create among the content in your Scalar book. You can choose the orientation of this page by identifying it as a Path, Annotation, Tag, or a Comment.

To create a Path: You can either make a new page or edit existing pages or media files to determine their type. From the page editor in your dashboard, click the Relationships tab. In this section, click To Make This Page a Path, then Specify the items that it contains. A pop-up window will appear. Here, you should select the items you want to add to this path and then click Add Selected. You can then drag and drop those items in order to reorder them or remove them from the path as you wish.

Just below the Relationships arrow, you will find another arrow that provides you with the option for further customization of your page. This is labeled Style. Here, you will be able to manipulate the look and feel of each page and path of your book. Within the Style option, you will see fields that will allow you to alter the colors of your page, upload a thumbnail and background image, enter custom CSS and Javascript, and upload an audio file for background sound on your page.

Below the Style option you will find another expandable area for Metadata. When you click on the arrow to expand this section, you will find another expandable area for Metadata. When you click on the arrow to expand this section, you will find that Scalar has already entered the Scalar URL attached to the page. it allows you to then decide if the page is visible or hidden. The Content Type of the page can be selected from a drop-down menu. Using the Add Additional Metadata button, you will find further metadata vocabulary from the Dublin Core Metadata standard as well as ART Metadata terms. Click Save at the bottom of the page to save your work. Remember, you can always come back to make edits.