Get Your Band Online Today!

Band Name: Your Name: Email Address:

Introduction

Welcome to BandSite.org! We provide complete website solutions for band. We are a turnkey website provider, which means that we take care of the basic site design and "guts" of the site, and you only need to provide content.

Let's take a concrete example to illustrate the difference. In the past, if you wanted to add a calendar to your site, you'd need to use HTML to create the calendar for the current month, populate it, and when the next month came along you'd need to go back to the site and do the whole thing over again. This is why most sites who tried this are still stuck in 2002. With us, we've already built an automatic calendar module. You just tell us when your events happen, and our software takes care of updating it for you.

With a traditional web host, you need a number of people involved to create and maintain your website:

1. A site designer would create the visual aspects of a website.
2. A site programmer would write backend applications, such as mailing lists.
3. A site hosting company would charge a monthly rate to keep the site online.
4. An HTML expert would need to maintain and update the site.

With BandSite, we provide you with the complete package. Instead of needing an HTML expert to maintain the site, you can do it yourself regardless of your computer skills. Adding news, information about concerts and other unique features is as simple as typing into your word processor.

When you sign up for a trial website, you are given a temporary URL address where you site can be seen. It looks something like this:

http://abcd.bandsite.org/

Yours will not be "abcd", but instead something relevant to your band. It was sent to you in your introductory email, and if you've lost it, just contact us to find out where it is. To get to your site, type this in the "Address" box at the top of your browser.

This address will always stay around for as long as you own your site, however, we recommend purchasing a domain name (such as http://www.abcd.com/) to make your site's name easier to remember. These cost $15/year if you don't already own one. See the "Domain Names" section of the manual for more information.

Your website is updated by you online, through the website itself. However, you obviously don't want anyone in the world to be able to update your website. It is therefore required that you log on to your website as an administrator before you update anything. You may already be logged on as an administrator. You can tell if you're logged in by looking at this section of your website:

Logged Out	Logged In

When you signed up for your trial, you received a username and password by email which you can use to update your site. The username is always admin, and the password is unique to your site.

Did you forget what your password is? No problem. Simply click the "Log In" link on your website and choose the Forgot Password link. Enter your email address and your password will be mailed to you. Return to the logon page and you'll be set.

When you see yellow backgrounds, these are administrative controls that only you see. They are the way that you update your website.

The core of the administrative controls is the yellow bar you'll see at the top of your site when logged on as a site administrator. These are drop-down menus that work like the menus of desktop programs. You can access most areas of your site to add and edit content from this bar.

For page-specific administrative content, you'll often see boxes that look like this:

Admin:

Add Item Edit Blurb

These boxes are page-specific administration controls, and allow you to perform actions on that page's content. Only administrators will see these boxes. One handy feature in some of these is the idea of a blurb. A blurb is simply a chunk of text you can add to the top of this page.

Often on the site, you'll be able to control lists of items, for instance photos in a gallery, news items, etc. Here are some common buttons that you'll see associated with these lists:

	This button will add a new item to the list.
	This button will make changes to an existing item.
	This button will remove this item.
	This button will move the item up in the list.
	This button will move the item down in the list.

You can use and administer your BandSite with almost any computer with a web browser and an internet connection. Most any modern browser and operating systems will work, including Internet Explorer and Firefox / Mozilla. Some popup blockers interfere with parts of our software, so you'll want to disable them or allow popups from our site. Javascript is required, and must be enabled.

Your Band's Information

Your band information (home base, photo, contact information etc.) shows up on the front page of your site. You can control what goes here.

1. Go to your website, logged on as an administrator.
2. Choose the "Band Information" item of your site's "Content" menu.
3. Update the information in the form.
4. You can elect to remove the weather image or the map and directions links from this page.
5. You can also upload a photo to display on the front page. Simply click the "Browse" button and find the .GIF, .JPG, or .PNG image on your hard drive.
6. Click "Save Information" when you have completed. It may take a few seconds to process the update.

Your website has a list of band members. Each member has their own profile.

To add a band member:

1. Go to the Band Members item of your site's Content menu,

2. Click on the Add Staff button at the top of the page.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - The name of the staff member.
   • Role - What is their role in your band?
   • Email - Do they have an email address? Add it here if so.
   • Username - If they have an account on the website, select the username here.
   • About - Tell the world about this person. Be as short or as detailed as you wish.
   • Photo - You can also upload a photograph to display on their profile. Simply click the "Browse" button and find the .GIF, .JPG, or .PNG image on your hard drive.
   • Add to Linkbar - This will add a link to this band member in the links at the top of your site. Use this sparingly to avoid a very wide linkbar.
4. Click the "Add Band Member" button. They will now show up at the top of the page. You can repeat the process for as many times as you'd like.

Band News

About News Articles

The News section is one of the most core features to any website. It's the main place where your updates will happen, and is the most important method of communication with your members. To this end, we've done everything we can to make this area as powerful and flexible as possible.

The best feature of the news manager is the ability to assign start and end dates to stories. This means that the news section will always be current because expired news entries will automatically be moved to the archive. You can even post stories with a start date in the future. They will not be shown to the public until the start date arrives, and will be accessible to administrators on the news category's main page (see the "Future Stories" button at the top).

By default, your site will have one global news category, called Site News. Each Group also has its own news category. You can also create additional news categories if you wish. Drop us a line if you need help with this.

Adding News Articles

To create a new news article:

1. Choose the News item of your Content menu.
2. Click on the Add News button at the top of the News Administration page.
3. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Title - The short name describing the news item.
   • Start Date - The first date that the entry shows up on the front page. This can be in the past, present, or future.
   • End Date - The last date that the entry shows up on the front page. This can be in the past, present, or future.
   • Summary (optional) - Shows up below the headline on the front page, to give an idea what the story is about.
   • Priority - A number from 0 to 100 (default 50) indicating the priority of the story. The higher the number, the more important.
   • Entry (optional) - This is where the actual news story goes. Type in your story, using HTML tags if you wish. When the user clicks a headline, it will bring them to a page showing this.
   • URL (optional) - If you want to link directly to another page instead of typing the news in yourself, enter the URL here. Note that this should only be used if you leave the Entry field blank above.
   • Topic (optional) - Assign this news item a topic. Topics must be created before they are used.
4. Click the "Add Entry" button. The entry will now show up between the start and end dates.

About News Topics

Each news category, such as the default Site News can have zero or more topics created within them. For instance, you might choose to add these topics to your Site News, using the "Topics" button from the main news category page:

• Upcoming Shows
• Band News
• Important Annoucements
• Miscellaneous

When adding news items, you'll be able to assign a give topic to the article. This will file it under this topic. All articles will still appear together in the main news listing, but it will show a link to the topic next to your article. Clicking this link will show a filtered list of other news artices with this topic.

Controlling Administrators

Global site administrators are able to make changes to all news categories. You can also assign sub-administrators on a per-category basis. This means that a given user will be able to add, update and delete news entries from a given category but will have no extra rights on the rest of the site.

To add a new news sub-administrator:

1. Go to the main page of the news category in question.
2. Click the "Admins" button at the top of the page.
3. Under the "Add Administrator:" box, choose the user you'd like to add.
4. Click "Add User".

The process to remove a sub-administrator is the same, except using the "Remove User" link above.

News Article Attachments

Attachments are a powerful aspect of your site's news manager. Each article can have one or more attachments associated with it. These are uploaded files that are related to a given news article, such as an audio file, a PDF document, an image, or most anything else.

To create a news article with an attachment, first add the news article as usual. Then, when viewing the new news article, click the "Add Attachment" button in the page's administrative box.

Note that adding an MP3 as an attachment automatically turns the news category's RSS feed into a valid Podcast feed.

Groups

About Groups

Groups are one of the most powerful BandSite features. Each group is like a miniature version of your website, complete with its own membership, news, photo galleries, polls, forums, etc.

Groups can be public (anyone can view and join) or private (only those you invite can view and join). For private groups, you'll need to use the "Subscribers and Admins" link on the "Make Changes" menu to invite members to your group.

There are various ways you can use groups on your site. The best is as a fan club. You can create a group that works as your mailing list. A fan signing up in the group will be added to its mailing list, and you can give away things to your fan club members such as MP3s.

Group Administration

Administrators can be assigned on a per-group basis, so that a user can run a group but not have the "keys to the castle". From a given group, if you're a group administrator, you'll see a "Make Changes" link at the top of the page. This is where most of the group administration is done.

From this menu, you can assign additional administrators from the "Subscribers and Admins" link. Click the "Add" button to assign new members and administrators. Note that they must already have an account, so use the Account Creator if they aren't yet registered on the site.

Note that global site administrators are automatically silent administrators over every group, public or private.

Making Changes

From the "Make Changes" link at the top of each group, you'll see all of the options for adding, updating and removing content for the group. Most of these are the same as you'll see elsewhere on the site.

The "Edit Welcome Message" allows you to give a freeform welcome to your site.

The "Edit Group Page Layout" is similar to the "Front-Page Layout" area of your main site. To remove a column, simply delete all the items from it. To start from the default layout, remove all items from all columns. One special case: if you remove all modules except for the welcome message, it will treat the welcome message as the group's page and show only the message (no boxes). This is useful if you only want a freeform page.

Songs and CDs

About Songs and CDs

We have a detailed module available for you to easily catalog your songs and albums. It catalogs them into a tidy format, manages lyrics and tablature, contains sound clips and is fully searchable.

All songs that are added to your site fall into one of two categories: part of an album, or unreleased. Each album is grouped together, and all unreleased songs are grouped together as a pseudo-album. If you have multiple classifications of unreleased songs, you may wish to create "albums" for each.

Adding Your Music Catalog

To add an album to your catalog:

• Go to the "Songs & Albums" item of your site's "Content" menu.
• Click the "Add Album" button.
• Fill in the "Album Name" and "Year" fields.
• The "Description" field allows you to talk about the album, and if applicable, create a link to sell the CD.
• For the track list, you can either type the songs in by hand, or use the drop-downs if a song has already been added as an unreleased track or as a track on another CD.
• Cover art can be added in .JPG, .GIF or .PNG format. It will be automatically resized to an appropriate size.
• Click the "Add Album" button.
• From the next page, you can click the "Edit" buttons next to individual songs to add lyrics, tablature, and song clips if desired.

To add an unreleased song:

• Go to the "Songs & Albums" item of your site's "Content" menu.
• Click the "Add Unreleased Song" button.
• Fill out the form. The song will be added into the unreleased section of your site.

Gig Manager

About the Gig Manager

Our system makes it super easy to keep your gig calendar up-to-date. When you book a show at a new venue, you go to your site and enter information about the venue, then add information about the specific show. The next time you book a show there, the information about the venue will already be in place.

Like everything else on BandSite, after the event has passed, the gig announcement is automatically archived with nothing needed on your end.

Adding a Gig

To add a new gig to your schedule:

1. Go to the "Gig Manager" item of your site's "Content" menu.
2. Click the "Add Concert" button in the yellow admin link box.
3. Choose an artist from the list (usually your band, but you can add others).
4. Select or create a venue. Be sure to add as much information as possible; you'll only have to do this once!
   
5. Add the event-specific information. The short description will show on the gig list, and is a good spot for things such as "Opening for Big Mountain Fudge Cake". The full description will show only when you click the event itself.
   

Gig and Setlist Archive

After a gig has passed, the event is moved into the show archive. From the "Gig Manager" item of your site's "Content" menu, you'll see a "Show Past Concerts" link. By default, this will simply show the list of shows you've played in the past, however, you can also add setlists to the shows.

The setlist feature is a very fancy system that not only shows the setlist, but also has statistics. If you go back to that show you did last summer, it might tell you that it was the first time you played "Big Success" and the last time you played "We Have the Technology".

Stats are also kept for each individual song. Did you know that you played "New Sex" at 45% of your shows since it was introduced? It will also show a graphical map of the plays - a green bar means a show it was played at, a red bar means a show it was not played at.

Distances and Notification

Remember how we had you add some specific information about each venue, such as the city? Behind the scenes, we do some magic to pinpoint the exact location of the show. If your site has the optional Interactivity package which allows users to create accounts, they'll be able to tell the system what city they live in.

Since BandSite knows where they live and where your concerts are located, your fans will see how far each show is from them. Even better, they can subscribe to be notified when a concert is added within "X" miles of them. It's an amazing way to keep your fans updated with the tour dates they actually care about!

User Accounts

Perhaps the most important feature that makes BandSite sites powerful is the idea of user accounts. Anonymous users can browse most parts of your site at will without needing accounts. However, many of the fun features require them to create an account, which gives them their own identity on your site. It's very easy for them to do, and it gives them a reason to visit over and over, and it gives them a place to share information, photos, and more with other members.

Each account has a username and password combination that they use to log on. They remain logged on until they click the "Log Off" link, or move to a different computer.

Under the "User Directory" item of your site's "User Manager" menu, you'll see a list of your users. This page is not linked in to your public linkbar by default, but can be added if you choose. This page has additional controls when you're logged in as an administrator, and is your central place to control the accounts that are added to your site. In addition to the public features that allow you to view profiles, search for accounts and send messages to users, you can also edit and delete accounts, as well as view logs for individual users.

By default, anyone can view your user directory and the profiles it contains (minus the email addresses, which are only shown to logged-on users for spam prevention purposes). If you'd like to lock down the user directory, see the "Manage Permissions" link at the top of the main "User Directory" page. From there, you can set the system to only allow logged on users to view these pages, or you can also set it to specific accounts only. Site administrators can always view the directory.

By default, anyone can create an account for themselves without needing validation of their email address or approval from an administrator. If you're nervous about this, you can protect the process using the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu.

The Account Validation item on this page, there are three options:

1. No Validation (default) - Anyone can create an account immediately.
2. Email Address Verification - Anyone can create an account, but they must first validate their email address. Nothing is necessary on your part with this option. If you delete an account with a given email address, they will not be able to create another account with the same address.
3. Administrator Approval - This means the user can create an account, but it can't be used until an administrator specifically approves it. If you choose this option, your "Administration" box on your site's front page will show the pending user accounts.

Many pages throughout your site require users to be logged on in order to view. There are ways to protect pages from anonymous visitors. From the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu, you can access the following items:

• Lockdown Directories to Anonymous Users (link at top of page) - This is the most flexible option, allowing you to lock down any area of the site. You can lock down directories (such as /mod/group/ to lock down all groups), or you can lock down individual files (such as /view.php to stop profile viewing). Be careful with this, as it's possible to lock down things that should be available to everyone.
• Allow Anonymous Posts (checked by default) - Uncheck this to disallow anonymous users from posting messages. Note that this will probably eliminate most of the legitimate posts on your site as well, since many users won't want to get an account.
• Allow Anonymous Poll Votes (checked by default) - Uncheck this to require accounts for voting on polls. Note that even with this checked, it's very difficult for users to vote multiple times, so this option may only serve to reduce the number of legitimate votes.

Normally, you'll want your users to create their own accounts so that they can fill in their own information. However, sometimes you'll want to create accounts for users. This is often the case when first setting up a site, where you want to create and assign administrators.

This can be done from the "Account Creator" item of your site's "User Manager" menu. From here, you can create up to 20 accounts on one form. Fill in the relevant details for each line you wish to use, and check the "Make Admin" checkbox to give them global administrative rights to your site.

For a quicker account setup, if you have only a list of email addresses, you can go to the "Simple Account Creator" item of the "Account Creator" option of your "User Manager" menu. Here you can paste a list of email addresses and not go through the username / name / etc selection process.

On either of these options, each created account will receive an email with their automatically created password, and instructions to log on. Nothing is necessary on your part.

By default, an account simply has the rights of a standard user. These accounts can post messages, join groups and chat with other members, but they can't change the core content of the website. When you create your website, the username "admin" has full rights to change anything on the website. If you'd like to assign global administrative rights to another user, there are a few ways to do this:

• If the user doesn't yet have an account, go to the "Account Creator" item of your site's "User Manager" menu. Add a line for the user, and click the "Make Admin" box. Click "Add Users", and the account will be created with the user receiving an email with logon information.
• If the user does already have an account, go to the "Administrators" item of your site's "User Manager" menu. Select the user under the "Add Administrator" drop-down to add them.
• If the user does already have an account, you can alternately view their account page by clicking on their name somewhere on the site. Click the "Edit" link on their profile page, and choose the "Yes" option for "Is this user a global site administrator?".

Note that you don't necessarily need to give away the keys to the castle. Many areas of the site allow you to appoint sub-administrators. These areas include groups, calendars, news categories, and galleries. There are two ways to assign sub-administrators:

• Go to the entity in question, and go through the steps to adding a subadmin. For instance, for a group, you'd go to that group, click "Make Changes", and click the "Subscribers and Admins" link. Each area has a different method.
• Edit a non-admin's profile in the "User Directory", and you'll see checkboxes to assign subadministrator rights to all supported areas on the site.

Walkthrough: Try Out a User Account

Before You Start

You have an account on your site, even if you don't know it. When you created your trial site, you were automatically logged on to a special account with the username of 'admin'. The admin account is just like any other account, except that it has permissions to update the site.

Since you are probably still logged on as the administrator, you will need to log off in order to use this tutorial. This tutorial will put you in the shoes of a regular visitor of this site.

Step 1: Create An Account

1. Go to the front page of your site. This is what your users will first see.
2. Log off of the administrator account if you haven't done so. Click the "Log Out" link on your front page.
3. Notice the "Create an Account" link on the left-hand side of your page. Click this.
4. Fill out the simple form and click the "Create Account" button. Depending on how you set up your account, you may need to follow the instructions of an email to validate your account. You are now a registered user on your site.

Step 2: Customize Your Account

1. Now that you are a registered user, go back to the main page.
2. Click the "Customize Profile" link. This page is the central place for you to edit your account.
3. Whenever you need to change information such as your email address, name, or password, simply go to this page to update it. You can also use the more advanced customization features.

Step 3: Submitting Your Location

1. We'll add your location the account now. Go to the "Customize Profile" page on the left side of your page.
2. Click on the "Submit Your Location" link.
3. Fill in either the City/State boxes, or the Zip Code box. For security reasons, your users are not asked to submit more detailed location information.
4. Click the "Submit Location" button.
5. Your location will now show up in your profile, and it will also be searchable in the member location search.

Step 4: Add Photos

1. We'll add some photographs to the account now. Go to the "Customize Profile" page on the left side of your page.
2. Click on the "Add Photos" link.
3. Click the "Add A Photo" button at the top of the page.
4. Click the "Browse" button and choose a photo. It will be on your hard drive in a file such as C:\photo.jpg. The photo must be in .JPG, .GIF or .PNG formats (more info).
5. Give the photo a caption.
6. Click the "Add Photo" button.

Step 5: Other Features

When viewing the profile of another member, there are a few fun things that can be done to interact with this person:

• Members can send messages to one another. View the profile of another member, and click the "Send Message" link.
• Members can chat in real time to another member, using the "IM" link in another user's profile.
• You can add members to your "Frequent Contacts" list to make it quicker to contact them. This list will show up on your front page.
• There's more features than we could ever name here. Just play around and try it out, that's half of the fun!

Mass Mailing Lists

About Mass Mailing Lists

In order to stay in touch with your users, you'll want to collect their email addresses so that you can send them periodic updates. We make this easy with the mass mailer. From the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Content" menu, make sure the "Mail List Signup" module is listed on your page. This will allow users to join your mailing list.

The "Mass Mailer" item of your site's "User Manager" menu is the center of this feature. Under the "Announcement Lists" area of this page, you'll see at least one list, the Site Mailing List. This is where the front-page mailing list signups go to.

The "Template" of a given mass mailing group is the content that each message begins with. If you have a certain boilerplate that you'd like to start with, here's the place to enter it.

Note that users can subscribe for either plain text or HTML. The HTML editor for your site is automatically turned on when sending email. The users who have opted for HTML email will see a reasonably similar page to what you see when typing the message. Users who have opted for plain text will see the message stripped of formatting. Be sure that this is a reasonable view. It's usually best to avoid HTML formatting when possible.

Previous mailings are stored in the archive, which can be seen from the "Mailings" link next to the mass mailing group.

Sending Mass Mail

From the "Mass Mailer" item of your site's "User Manager" menu, click the "Send" link next to the mailing list you'd like to send a message to. Go ahead and fill in the subject and mail fields with the content you'd like to send. You have the option of limiting the scope of who the message is sent to in the fields below. Click the "Preview" button to ensure that your message is formatted correct, and then click send if all is well.

Manually Adding Subscribers

If you have a pre-existing list of subscribers from a previous list, you can add them by clicking the "Subscribers" link next to a given list. Click the "Add Addresses" link from this page to add subscribers.

Note that it's far better to have people sign up themselves then to sign them up yourself, especially without their permission. A tag is automatically added to the bottom of each message which allows each user to unsubscribe themselves from the list. Please note that sending of spam is against our terms of service.

Discussion & Interaction

About Forums

Forums are at the core of the interactive aspect of your website. You've probably seen these on other sites; they are a way for your users to discuss things at their own pace, rather than in real time (as in, for instance, the chat area). There are several levels involved in the forums:

• Forums are at the highest level. These contain topics, which in turn contain posts. By default, your site has two forums: the Site Forum, and Prayer Requests. Each group has its own forum as well.
• Topics are contained within forums. For example, the Prayer Requests forum might have a topic called "Please Pray for Bill Malone". Each topic contains one or more posts.
• Posts are contained within topics. The "Please Pray for Bill Malone" topic may have started out with the initial post, and various people may have responded to this with words of encouragement in separate posts within this topic.

About Chat Rooms

While forums are meant for interaction over time, chat rooms are interaction in real-time. These are not linked into your main site by default, but can be added from the linkbar. Users post messages to the chat room, and these are shown almost immediately to anyone else who is also in the chat room at a given time. Chat rooms are a great way to encourage people to visit your site often.

Each group has its own chat room. There is a static box on the group's page, with a link to the "PowerWall", which is the full chat room.

About Private Messages & IMs

Registered users on your site can privately communicate with one another using two features: private messages, and IMs.

Private messages are sent at any time to a user, and will appear on their screen the next time the visit the site. Additionally, they can choose to be notified by email when new private messages arrive.

IMs (instant messages) are similar to private messages, but work more like a chat room. These are only useful when both members are online at the same time, and work similar to AIM or Yahoo! Messenger.

Both of these can be initiated by viewing the target user's profile.

Adding Content

File Manager

Adding Freeform Pages

As hard as we try to automate page creation with BandSite, you may occasionally need to create a page that we don't have a template for. Before doing this, make sure that there isn't a good place to put it. The news section is a great place for many documents.

Your site's file manager works much like Windows Explorer. There's a root folder, called "Documents" by default. In this folder are files, along with nested folders. These folders can contain more subfolders and more files, and so on. You can navigate to a given file or folder using the tree on the left of the screen, and on the right side you'll be given a list of commands inside of a yellow box.

You can add a file by:

1. Go to the File Manager item of your site's Content menu.
2. Optional: navigate to a given folder where you'd like to add the file. By default, there's only the "Documents" folder, so this isn't necessary.
3. Click either the "Create New File" link (if you'd like to type or paste the contents by hand), or the "Upload New File" link (if you'd like to send an existing file from your hard drive).
4. Follow the directions on the form to add the file.

Additional File Manager Features

You can assign administrators for each file manager group. See the "Administrators" button on the file manager page. This will only give them access to this area of the site.

When non-binary files (text, html, etc) are edited, a revision history is saved. In other words, if you make a change you didn't intend, you can roll back to a previous version at any time. You can also see what has changed from revision to revision with the "Diff" link.

When uploading images to the file manager, you can resize them if you wish. See the "Resize" link when viewing the page for the image.

Each group has its own file manager as well, and any group admins can add and manage files for their own file manager. There is a global quota for all files in all file managers combined.

Nested Documents

If you have a group of pages you'd like to easy create and link together, you can use nested documents. When viewing a regular HTML file in your File Manager (rather than a directory), you'll see a link called "Add Nested Document". This will create a subpage of the current document, and will automatically create a link to it in the top-right corner.

You need only to link the "root" document into your site - the rest are accessible from there.

Using and Linking to Your Documents

Upon creating a document in your site's file manager, it's just sitting online and is not being used. You need to link it into your site in order for it to be seen by your users. Here are a few methods of doing that:

• When viewing the site's properties page in your file manager, click the "Add to Linkbar" link.
• Take the "Full Path to This File" URL address and link it into your site by hand. You can do this with your HTML editor.
• When viewing the page itself, if it's templated, see the "Add to Linkbar" item of the admin bar's "This Page" menu.
• Simply take the "Full Path to This File" and send it via email to someone if you'd rather not link it into the site but you still want to share it with specific people.
• Use the front-page modules (described below).

Front-Page Modules

Your file manager can produce special front-page modules that link in trees of documents. There's one available by default, called "File Manager", that will link to the entire tree of documents in your main file manager.

You can also create modules for specific folders. Go to the folder in your file manager, and click the "Add to Front Page" link. It will link in only documents within this folder, along with any nested folders.

Note that admin-only documents will never be linked, and documents which are only visible to logged-in users will not be shown to anonymous users.

Images and Photos

Image Format Guidelines

Your image must be in one of the following formats:

1. .JPG - This is the best format for photos.
2. .GIF - This is a good format for non-photo images.
3. .PNG - This is another good non-photo image format.

A common error is to try to use an unsupported format such as Word documents, PDF files or BMP files. You'll want to find the original images, or convert these into a supported format. Due to the wide number of variables in this realm, we do not provide support help for this.

It's not usually necessary to resize your photos if they're large - this is done automatically.

About Adding Images

Adding images and photos to your website is such a broad topic that it deserves its own section. Depending on where you'd like to add your image, see the directions below.

Your Logo and Band Photo

Your website starts with a default logo in the corner. You can change this if you'd like (and you probably will :). You can also add a photo of your band to the "Our Band" box on your front page. Here's how to do this:

1. Choose the Band Information item of your Content menu.
2. At the bottom of this page you'll see an "Upload Band Photo" field and an "Upload Band Logo" field. The Photo field will add a picture to your band information module on the front page. The Logo will replace the image in the top-left corner of your site.
3. Click the "Browse" button next to this field.
4. Locate the image file on your hard drive.
5. When you've found it, click the "Open" button.
6. Click "Save" back on the web page to submit your photo. It will show up on your main page.

Staff Member Photos

See the Listing Your Staff Memebers entry for information about how to add staff member photos.

Adding Images to Other Areas

You can insert images using your HTML editor. See this section for more information.

For other spots, you can upload the image to your File Manager and then link to it using HTML.

Photo Galleries

About Photo Galleries

Photo galleries are collections of similar photographs. For instance, your website could have galleries of pictures of your band, your members, your events, and anything else you want. This is where "freeform" photograps can go.

Your site starts with a single photo gallery called "General Photo Gallery". If you don't plan to add many photos on a regular basis, you may want to add all photos to this default gallery. Alternately, you can create new galleries from this page for each event. You can even create subgalleries within other galleries.

Each Group has its own photo gallery as well, which you can also add nested galleries into.

Adding New Galleries

If you'd like to add a new photo gallery to contain photos, here's how:

1. Choose the Photo Gallery item of your site's Content menu.
2. Click the "Add Gallery" button at the top of this page.
3. Select a name (ie, "Live Photos") and a description (ie, "Photographs from shows") for the gallery.
4. If you'd like to have this gallery on your front page, click the "Add to Block List" checkbox, then use the Front-Page Layout item of your site's Content & Layout menu to place the module on your front page.
5. Click "Add Gallery".
6. You'll be taken to your new gallery. Continue instructions below.

Adding New Subgalleries

Let's say you have a gallery called "Live Photos", and you played a big show last weekend. You could add a separate gallery nested within the live photos gallery for these. To add a nested gallery from within an existing gallery:

1. Go to the gallery in question
2. Click the "Add Nested Gallery" button in the yellow admin box
3. Fill out the forms to add the gallery

Adding Photos to a Gallery

Once you've created some galleries to place your photos into, follow these steps:

1. Choose the Photo Gallery item of your site's Content menu.
2. Click on the gallery where you'd like your photos to go.
3. Click on the "Add Photos" button at the top of this page.
4. From here, you can upload a number of photos at once. Keep this number small if you're on a slow connection or are using large photos.
5. For each photo to upload:
   • Click the "Browse" button.
   • Locate your photograph on your hard drive. Click "Open" in the box when you're finished.
   • Give the photo a short Caption (ie, "Pastor Brown"), and an optional lon description (ie, "Pastor Brown smiles at the congregation").
6. Click "Add Photos". They will appear in the gallery.

Polls

About Polls

Most banjd websites are a form of one-way communication, but using polls, you can complete the circuit and find out what your fans think.

For privacy reasons, poll voting is completely anonymous. However, safeguards are in place to prevent multiple votes from one person. We use a two pronged approach for this - cookies hide the submission form for users who have already voted, and IP addresses are recorded for each vote.

You have the choice of whether to allow anonymous users to vote on polls or not, on a site-wide basis. This can be selected from the "Preferences" item of your site's "Layout" menu. We highly recommend allowing anonymous users to vote, since multiple vote safeguards are in place and since you'll receive far more votes this way.

Each poll category has a list of past, current and future polls. Each poll has a start date, and an optional end date. There can only be one active poll per category - if multiple polls are within the start/end date parameters, only the one with the most recent start date is shown.

In addition to the poll category on the front page of your site, meant for site-wide polls, each group has its own poll category.

Adding Polls

To add a new poll to your site, first go to the poll category page. For the main site polls, this means going to the "Polls" item of your site's "Content" menu. To access polls for your groups, first go to the group, then click the "Make Changes" link, then click the "Edit Polls" option from the menu.

Once at this page, follow these steps to add a poll:

1. Click the "Add Poll" link.
2. Enter a question for the poll to ask. Try to keep this relatively short.
3. Type two or more poll options in the lines below. The option names should also be as short as possible. You can have up to 10 options per poll.
4. If desired, give the poll a start and an end date. Leaving these as they are will ensure that the poll will go up immediately.

Once saved, you'll see the poll in the list. Note that you can schedule polls into the future to create a seamless transition each night at midnight.

Other Content

Linkbar

At the top of your site below your site's header (or the left side, if you've configured it as such), you'll see a list of links such as "About Us", "News", "Calendar", etc. These links serve as the primary navigation for your visitors to the various areas of your site. This makes it very important that you organize these to point to the areas of your site that you'd like to highlight.

When logged on as an administrator, you'll see an "Edit" button next to your linkbar. Hit this button to make changes. From this page, you'll see the tree of links. Links may be nested into drop-down menus of any depth. The "Used Links" section shows you what is currently in your linkbar, and the "Unused Links" are links that have been created but are not currently in use.

To add a new link to the linkbar:

• Go to the page on your site that you'd like to link.
• Choose the "Add to Linkbar" from your site's "This Page" menu (in the yellow bar at the top of your site).
• Fill out the form. If you'd like to add a new link into the tree beneath an existing link, select the parent link in the "File Under" drop-down.
  

You can edit an existing link to change its information, and to move it to a different area within the tree. You can also remove an item. This will move it, and all child links, to the unused links area.

One important tip: make sure that the linkbar is narrow enough so that horizontal scrolling isn't necessary in narrow browsers. About 8-10 links with short names is all we recommend.  

Custom Forms

There may be times when you need to collect information from your fans. Some examples of this would be event signup forms, surveys, and data collectors. This can be done with the "Custom Forms" item of your site's "Features" menu. This is a reasonably advanced feature.

From this page, you'll see one custom form which has already been created, called "Account Questions". This works the same as other custom forms, except that the questions you add are added to the "Customize Profile" page for users, and the results will be displayed on the user's profile.

To create a form of your own, click the "Add a new custom form" link. Fill out the form:

• Form Name.
• Multiple Responses: If this is set to "No", each unique user can only respond once. When set to "Yes", a user can respond multiple times.
• Allow Anonymous: If this is set to "No", anyone can respond, with or without an account. If set to "Yes", only logged-in users can respond.

Click the "Add Form" to create a skeleton form. The next page will allow you to add questions to the form. For each question you'd like to add to the form, select the type of question from the "Add a Field" drop-down box, and click "Add". It will ask you a few things about the question you're adding. These can include:

• Field Name: Shows at the top of the results table column for this question.
• Prompt: This is what the user will be asked for this question.
• Must Match: This is an advanced setting. You may enter a regular expression here. If you leave this blank, anything will be accepted, including a blank response to this question. Enter a single "." (a period) to require a response to the question.
• Size: For text fields, the maximum number of letters. Leave blank for unlimited.
• Is this Unique: Check this box only if you wish this to be a unique response. If you add a "Username" field, and someone has already answered this question with "test123", it will fail if you try to answer this as well. 99% of the time you'll want to leave this option unchecked.

Note that it's unsafe to ask for credit cards from this feature. Please contact them separately to collect payment, if needed.

When you've added the necessary fields to your form, you'll usually need to link it into your site in order for people to use it. The address is shown on the main page for that custom form. You can link this into your site wherever you'd like, or you can pass around that URL yourself to the people who need to answer it.  

Website Look & Feel

Our design philosophy is simple: we provide you with simple and highly usable templates to get your site started, and then we give you the tools to customize your site's look and feel if you desire. We deliberately stay away from flashy designs, because we've found that while end users may have an initial "wow" reaction, they tend to be harder to use and those users may not return.

This section details how to go about customizing how your site looks. Note that while we provide automatic software upgrades for your site, we do not automatically upgrade your site's visual templates so that we don't change your site's look overnight without you knowing. Therefore, some features may be unavailable on your site. We're always happy to upgrade you to the newest version of our templating software. Just drop us a line. Note that it's a one-way upgrade that may involve significant visual changes and minor functional changes. Ask if you have any questions.

The layout template of your site determines the overall layout of your site. The main parts of a template are the header, which is HTML code that starts every one of your pages, and the footer, which ends your pages.

Warning: This is an advanced feature which requires solid knowledge of HTML and CSS. While we don't provide HTML and CSS support, sites like HTMLHelp.com are an excellent resource for help if you need it.

To edit your layout templates, go to the "Look & Feel" item of your site's "Layout" menu. Under the "Layouts" section of this page will be listed your options. To make changes, always work from a clone rather than editing directly. Click the "Clone" link next to your current layout.

You'll see a page with raw HTML mixed in with some expansions, such as |TITLE|. These are special words that expand into other text depending on the specific page. For instance, |TITLE| turns into "Forums" when you're on your forums page. Here's a list of possible expansions for you to use:

• |TITLE| - The page title, for the <title> tag. Required in header.
  
• |HEADER| - The page header text. Required in header.
  
• |CSS| - The path to the related CSS file. Highly recommended in header.
  
• |WELCOME| - The welcome message (different if logged on). Not required.
• |UDB(entity_name)| - Returns the name of your organization. Other possibilities include entity_city, entity_state, and entity_logo.
• |LINKBAR_HORIZ| and |LINKBAR_VERT| - These will display your site's linkbar in either horizontal or vertical formats.

The following expansions can be used in the "Module Template" section:

• |HEADER| - The title of the module. Required.
  
• |BLOCK| - The body of the module. Required.
  
• |COLOR(module_header_bg)| - Expands to the six-character hex code for a given color in the current theme. Note that you must include a hash character (#) before the value yourself. Possible values: module_header_bg, module_header_fg, module_body_bg, module_body_fg, body_bg, body_fg.

When you're done, click one of the "Add Layout" buttons at the bottom to save your changes.  

The colors for layouts which are marked as "ColorControl" can be edited with a point-and-click interface using Internet Explorer 5.5 and above. To use this feature, make sure you've chosen a ColorControl layout, and then go to the "Look & Feel" item of your site's "Layout" menu.

You'll see a number of options available by default under the "Color Themes" area of this page. To use one, click the "Choose" link beneath it. To make changes, click the "Edit" link beneath it. A copy will be created that you can edit without changing the original.

There are several sections on this page that allow you to edit various areas of the site. The "Main Page" area changes the primary colors that form every page. The "Tables" area determine the color used when tables are shown on your site, such as the calendar and forums list. Finally, the "Front-Page Modules" controls the boxes on the front page of your site. Click the "Background", "Foreground" or "Link" colors to edit the colors for a given area.

Changing Your Front-Page Layout

About Your Front-Page

There are two aspects to your front-page layout: the HTML template, and the module order. The HTML template controls the basic framework of your front page, such as whether it has one, two or three columns of modules, or is completely freeform and does not use modules at all. The module order controls which boxes go where on your front-page.

Editing Your Front-Page Modules

You can start by going to the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu. From this page, you'll see a table with a number of columns (by default, two) that represent the boxes on your front page. From this table, you can rearrange the boxes. Click the up arrow next to a module to move it up in the list, and the down arrow to move it down. Click the "Del" button to remove it from your current front-page layout (you'll be able to add it again later).

To add a pre-existing module to your front page, choose it from the drop-down beneath a column, then click the "Add" button. It will show up at the bottom of that column. Read on if you'd like to add a module that doesn't yet exist.

Creating Your Own Front-Page Modules

As hard as we try to automate page creation, you may occasionally need to create a front-page box that we don't have a template for. Before doing this, make sure that there isn't a good place to put it. The news section is a great place for many documents.

To create a new freeform front-page box:

1. Choose the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu.
2. Click on the "Add A Custom Module" link in the list.
3. Click on the "Add a new module" link at the top of the page.
4. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Name - This is the "title" of the module.
   • Contents - This is the actual contents of your module. You can use HTML if you please.
   • Add to Page? - If you'd like to go ahead and add it to your front page now, choose a column. Otherwise, you can add it later.
5. Click the "Add Module" button.
   

About Rotating Front-Page Modules

We offer a special kind of front-page module that may be of use to you. It's called a "rotating module" because you can give it more than one possible block of content, and each time your front page loads, it will show a random choice from this list of content.

The method for creating these is similar to the regular modules:

1. Choose the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Layout" menu.
2. Click on the "Add A Custom Rotating Module" link in the list.
3. Click on the "Add a new rotating module" link at the top of the page.
4. Fill in the entries in the form.
   • Rotating Module Name - This is the title of the module, used internally to identify it for you.
   • Add to Page? - If you'd like to go ahead and add it to your front page now, choose a column. Otherwise, you can add it later.
   • Header - You can now add the first content option. Choose the title here.
   • Contents of First Option - Type the body of the first content option here.
     
5. Click the "Add Module" button. 
6. You'll now see it on the "Front-Page Layout" list. Click "Edit" next to it to add additional content options.

Front-Page HTML Template

Finally, you can customize the HTML for your front page layout. Note that this is an advanced feature that requires HTML knowledge, and most people will not have the need to change this. Note that the HTML template for the modules themselves is contained in the "Templates" area of the "Look & Feel" page.

Start by going to the "Front-Page Layout" item of your site's "Content" menu. From there, click the "Front-Page Visual Templates" link. The main layout is usually a table with two or three columns for modules. There are a few default layouts to choose from, and these mostly deal with the number of columns on your front page. To make changes, either Edit or Clone (recommended) an existing module. In order to use modules on your front page, you'll need to add expansions for columns. These are of the form |COLUMN(1,LEFT)| - the first parameter (1) is the column number, and the second parameter determines which module HTML template to apply for this column (LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER, with CENTER being default).

One useful application for this section is if you wish to use a completely freeform front-page layout, with no modules at all. You can clone the "Freeform Front Page" template and add any HTML you wish for the front page to have complete control over the contents.

Miscellaneous

Here are some websites we think you may find useful:

• UseIt.com - Website usability resources from Jakob Nielsen.
• HTMLHelp - An excellent resource for learning raw HTML.

Our pricing philosophy is simple: we don't want to charge extra money for features that don't cost us extra to offer, so almost all of our features are included in your monthly fee out of the box. However, a few features can't be included with every site, so we offer them as premium services. All of these can be seen and purchased from our upgrades page. Here is a list of our currently available account upgrades:

• Webmail: We will install a Hotmail/GMail-like software package on your site that will allow you and your staff to check your POP-based email accounts from anywhere, without installing a client on your desktop. The one-time fee is $50.
  
• RealAudio Streaming: We will install software onto your website that will allow you to stream RealAudio and RealVideo files. This means that you'll save disk space, and your users will be able to start listening immediately after clicking your file, rather than waiting for the download to complete. The one-time fee is $50.
  
• Search Engine Submission: We will submit your website to over 50 of the top Christian and secular search engines for a one-time fee of $150.
  
• Disk Space and Extra POP Mailboxes: Contact us if you need more of these. Extra disk space is available for an extra $50/year for each block of 50 MB, and extra POP mailboxes are available for $50/year for each block of 5 mailboxes.
• Custom Software Development: If you need a piece of software that we don't offer, or if you need modifications to our internal software to fit your needs, drop us a line with your detailed needs and we'll give you a free estimate. The hourly fee is $50 for this service.

Additionally, you'll also probably want a domain name for your site. See the "Domain Names" section of the FAQ for more information.

Your website comes with a temporary website address to get you started. It looks like myname.bandsite.org. You're welcome to keep this as your site's primary address, but most people choose to give it their own name, such as myname.org. This is called a domain name.

Once signed up, you'll be able to set up a domain name for your site. If you already own one from a previous site, you can use it with us for no additional charge. Alternately, you can purchase one through us for $15/year. Both of these can be done from the "Domain/Email" item of your site's "Features" menu.

Email at Your Domain

Receiving Email

Most people who get a domain for their website, say, mysite.org for this example, will want to be able to receive mail at their domain name. In other words, webmaster@mysite.org should go to the webmaster of the site.

When you set up a domain name with us, this is taken care of the way most people prefer. All mail addressed to any name at the domain is forwarded to your normal email account (the one you specified when creating your trial).

Managing Email Accounts

Everything is controlled from the "Domain/Email" selection of the "Features" menu in your administration panel. At the bottom of the page is the default address mentioned above. There are also two ways to create new addresses.

One way, which is the simplest, is to set up new forwarding accounts. These simply pass the email along to an existing email account. Most people prefer these because it means not having to check another mailbox to receive mail.

The other way is to set up POP mailboxes. Every account has a certain number of these available, based on your monthly fee. These are true mailboxes, separate from your existing mail. In order to view the mail they contain, you must separately check them.

Accessing POP Mailboxes and Sending Mail

Any POP mail client will work for reading and sending email. Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird are popular. You can also use GMail. The settings that you will need to use are as follows, using terry@mysite.org with password "mypass" as an example:

POP Server:	mail.mysite.org (substitute your domain name)
POP Username:	terry@mysite.org (the @mysite.org is important!)
POP Password:	mypass
SMTP Server:	(Contact Your ISP)
SSL:	Not enabled (if you see this option)

Like most web hosts, we do not offer a SMTP server for the purpose of sending mail. This is because we can't authenticate you, and spammers could use our server as a way to send mail if it was set up to send mail without authentication. Your ISP (such as Earthlink, AOL, etc) can help you find what SMTP server you should be using to send mail.

The most common error is to forget the @mysite.org on the username. Another common problem is the password - if a user can't access their mail due to "invalid username/password" errors, simply reset their password to something new and let them know what it is.

If you don't know how to set this up, or you're on the road a lot, you may want to set up our webmail client. It is similar to Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail. See the "Upgrades" item of your site's "Features" menu to purchase this, for a one-time fee of $50.

Your Site's HTML Editor

About the Editor

The HTML editor is one of the power features we offer that makes it possible for you to update your site without knowing HTML. Whenever you see a box that looks a little like a Microsoft Word document that allows you to use controls such as Bold, Italics, etc. to edit your content, this is the HTML editor.

Note that only users of Internet Explorer 5.5+ on Microsoft Windows will see the HTML editor.

Uploading Images

When using the HTML editor on your site, you can add images into the editor box. Here are the directions.

1. When editing data on your site inside of the HTML editor, place your cursor in the editor box in the location where you'd like the image to go.
2. Locate and click the icon that looks like a picture frame:

    

   

    

3. A box will pop up. Click the "Browse Server" button:

    

   

    

4. Another window will pop up. Click the "Browse..." button:

    

   

    

5. Another box will pop up. Locate the image file on your hard drive. Note that it must be in .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG format! When you have selected the file to upload, click the "Open" button.
6. Back at the first popup box, click the "Upload" button.
7. You should see your image appear in the box above. Click it.
8. Click the "Ok" button on the next window, and your image will be inserted into your document.

Adding Links

A key feature of your site's HTML is the ability to add links. Since this may not be apparent if you've never used an HTML editor, here is the process you'd use to link a word of text to another website, in this case, Yahoo!.

1. Type out the text you'd like to use in your document, which will contain the link:

2. Use your mouse to highlight the text you'd like to use to link to the other site:

3. Click the "Link" icon, which looks like a globe with a chain on top of it:

4. A box will pop up asking you for the address you'd like to link to. Fill this in, then click the OK button:

5. You will be returned to your document, and your link will be blue and underlined, to signify that it is an active link:

Adding Raw HTML

Most times, when using the site's HTML editor to add and edit content, you can do what you need to do using the buttons provided. Occasionally, however, you may need to add raw HTML. The most common reason for this is to add scripted content from another website, such as a news feed. Or, you may just want to have more control over formatting if you know HTML.

Our editor provides this functionality. If you'd like to switch into raw HTML mode, simply click the "Source" checkbox in the editor:

Type or paste the content you need to insert as raw HTML, and then uncheck the source checkbox when done to return to the standard editor mode.

One other common question about formatting within the editor involves how to insert a single linebreak. Since the editor was designed to work like a word processor, pressing "Enter" adds a double-spaced paragraph break. If you'd like to only add a single linebreak, hold the "Shift" key while pressing "Enter".

Helpful Ideas

Creating a Weblog

If you're looking for an innovative and personal way to connect with your fans, try out our Weblog feature (from the Weblog item of your site's Features menu). Also known as blogs or online journals/diaries, this is a great way to informally keep others up to date with what's going on.

Here are some things you should know about our weblogs:

• Each weblog post has a start date associated with it. If this date is set to the future, it will not show up until the day you specify.
• A blog entry can be either set to "Active" or "Draft". Draft entries will not show to the public until you activate them. This is a handy way to save entry ideas for a "rainy day", or to save a partial entry to finish later.
• Topics can be created to tag your content. For instance, you could create topics for "Personal", "Music", "Events", etc. Each post can have multiple topics, and users can filter based on topic.
• When adding an entry, you can post an image. This image will show as a thumbnail in the top-right of your post. You can click the image to reveal the whole image.
• If you have a long post, consider clicking the "Add Read More..." button to put most of the content into. This will keep your main weblog page shorter.
• The URL of your blog is http://www.yoursite.com/d/yourusername/. You can give this to people who wish to view your blog, or link to it on your site.
• Your site can have multiple weblogs. Each user account can have one weblog.
  • If you'd like multiple weblogs on your site, create multple users, one for each weblog.
  • Each weblog can only be updated by one person. To have a communal weblog, create a separate user and share the account with others.
• Our software has some more advanced features that are not enabled by default, such as template editing. These features are not supported, but if you'd like to use them, drop us a line.

Getting Visitors

Now that your band is online, the next step is getting people to use your website. You'll get two types of visitors: current fans, and prospective fans who stumble across your site. You'll reach these two groups separately, so let's look at each of them.

Current Fans

The first group that you'll want to attract are your current fans. They will be the majority of your traffic, and can make your site a very vibrant and fun place if you get them started. Here are some ways to promote your website to your fans:

• Give them fresh content to return for. Every week, update your upcoming news, events, etc. This is the most important thing you can do to have a popular site! A stale site gives your members no reason to return.
• Give away oddball MP3s, such as unreleased demos, live tracks, etc. Anything to make them feel special for having something most people don't.
• When you're first launching your website, send a mailing out to your fans if you've got a list.
• Mention your website often at your shows. The magic words: "here's a track you can download for free at our website, which is ___".
• Facilitate community. Encourage your fans to create accounts and chat on the "Forums" portion of your site.
• Use your website address everywhere! CDS, mailings, t-shirts, advertisements, banners at shows, and anywhere else you can think of.

Remember that it may take awhile before your site community reaches a "critical mass". At first, only the braver users will post messages. As things become more active, more people will feel comfortable with participating. Encourage discussion by setting an example and reminding people to talk!

Potential Fans

When people stumble across your site by links or random searches, you want to make sure your best side is showing.

• You must make it easy for new people to hear a full-length sample MP3. Make it blindingly obvious how to do this from anywhere on your site.
• Start a blog, and post entries reviewing local bands, businesses, etc. These will show up on search engines and attract local traffic!
• One very important thing to remember is that your site will not automatically show up in search results. You must submit it to a given search engine in order to be listed.
• Submit your site to as many search engines as possible, especially Google. Your site may eventually get found through links to it, but this could take months or years, and you can speed this up immensely by submitting them yourself.
• If you'd rather not go through the process of search engine submission yourself, we can add your site to dozens of search engines for you. See our search engine submission page for details.
• Encourage other relevant sites to link to you. This improves your search engine ranking. Local venues, other bands, and local music websites may be happy to link to your site.
• Your site should have a domain name. Instead of xyzsite.bandsite.org, you can be xyzsite.com, which will help with name recognition. See the "Domain/Email" item of your "Features" menu to set one up.

Asking For Donations

You can use your site to ask for donations from your fans if you wish. The easiest way is to set up an account with PayPal to accept the funds. They will give you the HTML to use to link into your site. Most BandSite users choose to create a custom front-page module to paste their code into. Be sure to use your HTML editor's source mode to paste raw HTML code.

Note that you should keep reasonable expectations about the amount of donations that you'll pull in. Most of your visitors will be nervous about paying online, especially if they already give donations in person each week. You'll be best off using it as a fund for a specific purpose. Let's say you're looking to get a new touring van. Specifically saying that donations accepted online will go towards a specific purpose should help to increase the amount given. Also, be sure to educate your users that they can give online, and that the process is very secure.

Publishing a Podcast

Podcasts are a hot topic on the internet these days, but few people really know what they are or how to create them. Long story short, Podcasts are like online radio shows that anyone can create. It's typically very hard from a technology standpoint to create a podcast, but we make it possible for any intermediate user to create one.

First, a quick background in the theory. An RSS feed is a computer-readable file that contains updates from a certain area of your website. Your users can subscribe to these RSS feeds using a syndicator program, and they'll then be notified when you post new items to that area of your site. A podcast is nothing more than a special RSS feed that contains MP3 files.

Every news category on your site has its own RSS feed. To podcast, here's all you'll need to do:

1. Create a news category. The best way to do this is to create a group and to use its "News" module for your podcast.
2. Create an episode. This is the main challenge. You need to think of something to say, and you need to find a way to record it. While we don't provide support with this step, we've heard good things about Audacity, a free sound editor. Be sure to use very low-quality compression settings to avoid large files.
3. Add a news item to your news category. Title it "Episode 1" or something similar, and tell a little about it in the news text.
4. Add the MP3 file as an attachment to the article. Give it any title, this part doesn't matter. Be patient, it will take awhile to upload.
5. Share your podcast with others! From the news category's list page, notice the "Notify Me Of New Articles" box at the bottom. Click the "By RSS" link. Take the URL of this page - this is what you publish as your podcast feed URL.

Note that it's possible to post non-MP3 items to your podcast feeds. These will be ignored by podcast syndicators.

Adding Audio and Video

Many bands want to add audio and video to their sites. There are numerous way to to this using Bandsite.

The first consideration is the media format. We offer downloadable A/V included with your monthly hosting. Obviously, MP3 is king for a good number of reasons. It's fairly small, it's usable on a ton of different kinds of systems. The main disadvantage is that there are no digital rights management features built into MP3. You can decide for yourself if that's an issue.

One disadvantage with downloadable audio is that users have to wait for it to finish downloading before they can start listen. Our optional streaming package ($5/mo) enables MP3 files to be streamed, and also allows you to upload RealAudio and RealVideo files. These offer some protection against copying and piracy.

You can upload audio and video to the File Manager, and then link the file manually into your site in the spot of your choosing. By using nested documents, you can create one file that introduces the documents, then add the audio/video documents as nested documents, which are automatically linked in.

We're unable to help with media creation and file encoding, since there are too many variables involved. However, a few guidelines may help you in this realm. The most important is to use the lowest encoding quality possible while still preserving the essence of your media. Things move very slowly online, and the smaller the file size, the more chance you have of people viewing your files. MP3 is recommended for audio, and 64kbps mono is a good setting for speech.

Finally, you'll want to decide what to offer. At the very least, you'll want some clips of a few of your songs available. However, we strongly recommend offering a few full downloads. The piracy concerns are small compared to the additional exposure it will get you.

Troubleshooting

The most common reason for this is that you're using a popup blocker. Many of these buttons will pop up windows to ask for more information, and your popup blocker is preventing this from happening. If you aren't sure if you're running popup blocking software, you can check from PopupTest.com. If you do have a popup blocker, the most common places to find it are any toolbars you've installed to your browser (Google, Yahoo, etc), the browser itself (Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, etc) or your internet service provider (Earthlink, AOL, etc). Please consult your popup blocker's support information for help on disabling it. Many allow you to enable popups for a single domain, which would allow you to only use popups on your site with us.

This is usually caused by a browser which has cookies disabled. These are required to log onto your site, and it's safe to enable them. Here is how to enable cookies for your browser.

If cookies are enabled and you still can't log in, the problem is most likely further up the chain. Check with your firewall and proxy server to make sure that they are not blocking cookies. We use persistent cookies (rather than session cookies) to store our login. Be sure that you aren't blocking third party cookies for our domain as well.