SquareSpace Updates without Downtime

 I made these directions from this Youtube Tutorial to help save me the time of not having to watch the videos over and over again.

Updating Page Without Downtime

Note:

She added that you can also make changes that you never save, but I'm leaving this out because. Yuck. I hate losing changes that way.  And there's no way to show your accomplice what you've done without a full on meeting about it.

Option 1: Save and Replace Section

1. Open the Squarespace editor and navigate to the page you want to update.
2. At 4:05, click "Save" and go to the page.
3. At 4:07, click "Add Section" and select the section from your saved sections.
4. Populate the section onto the website.
5. If replacing a previous section, click "Delete" on the old section.
6. Remember that changes are visible to the public only after hitting the "Save" button.

Option 2: Best for Changing Pages

1. Duplicate the page you want to update.
2. Ensure the duplicated page is under the "Not Linked" section to keep it hidden.
3. Edit the new page, knowing it won't be visible unless linked directly.
4. Rename the original page to distinguish it (e.g., "Home Old").
5. Set the duplicated page as the home page.
6. Delete the original page when ready.
7. If needed, drag the new page to the top navigation.

Option 3: Best for Site-Wide Changes 

(Note that this version of editing requires you to ask squarespace for a refund for any unused amount of credit for the previous site, and for you to start up a whole new account with the new website.  This is why we're probably going to use Option 2 for most changes.)

1. Duplicate the entire website from the Squarespace dashboard.
2. Edit the duplicated website with freedom.
3. Note that it's not live and has a built-in domain from Squarespace.
4. When ready, move the domain from the original website to the duplicated one: a. Go to the dashboard and click on "Domains." b. Manage domain settings and choose the domain to move. c. Use the option "Move domain to another website" and select the duplicated website.

By following these steps, you can efficiently update your page or perform more extensive changes without causing downtime for your website.

 

Extra notes here about specific SquareSpace updates and customizations.

Let's say you want to increase the amount of space between the default line that shows which page you're on in the menu and the word it underlines. 

• Go to the paintbrush tool (customize css tool) and click in the navigation menu. 
• On the right you should see Line Height, which you can change larger to give more space. 

I'm testing a tiny bit of video:
https://www.pexels.com/video/sea-beach-sand-ocean-4193127/

• - I found HandBrake free and opensource from this website about how to optimize your videos
• So My next plan is to try to compress it better and see what happens.  Hmm... So easier said than done as now I'm downloading net Desktop to make the program work. I hope this isn't a problem for my hardware.
• And I  may have to youtube this at some poitn to undertsand what Im' doing. 

 

I didn't like it, and I tried a blur filter and still didn't like it. Too much pixelation. If I can make it smaller, maybe it would be fine. But for now I'll leave it alone. I went with the image version. 

 On Quotes

• Quote color on bg and Source Color on bg, it's a bit like the same way we did the line height issue, where you open the customize paintbrush, and then click on the thing you need to change the color of.  It should come up as its name.

• You'll notice that there's two kinds of text color quotes, one on an image and one without the image (sometimes on art videos that SS has in our custom colors)  That's because the one in black is actually a text box and not a quote. 

• Wow, I thought I had it figured out but it looks like editing the font color for quotes sitewide is tricky.  I'm gonna leave this one until the end as well.  Basically anything involving the customize brush is going to be sitewide.
  

• Another note is that the original BioPic had a film grain, but it was not necessary and it doesn't add enough to make it worth the bytes to keep it going.  However, it does look good with the sea image under the Thich Nhat Hanh quote.

Dividers:

My thought is that we only need a max of two dividers for the page (wavy ones) one for the top header, and one for the bottom footer, and whereever tehre is a quote, we make that part of the bottom footer, possibly with  an image underlay.   

New page for the privacy Policy vs footer:

I am also creating a new possibly temporary place for the Privacy policy. It will be under Resources.

The SEO guy had this tip for us: 90% or more of users will not scroll down a page.  This is why you make all the top parts of the page the most user friendly, and fill the rest of the page with the reading content that computer bots like Google will read.