Friday, July 13, 2007

Installation instructions

Adding a Bible Search "page"

At BloggerBlogspot, create a post to use as your "static" page. Simply create the post, but leave some temporary text in the body ("Bible search coming soon" for example). Save it and (extremely important->) copy the URL of that individual post.

If you haven't already, sign-up with phpAV, verify your email address, login and enter the URL of the Blogger/Blogspot post you just created in the URL field. Then get the main "Form/Search Result" code. Return to Blogger/Blogspot and edit the post you just made by clicking on "Edit HTML" and inserting the code there. DO NOT CLICK ON "Compose"!! Keep it displaying the raw HTML, and click "PUBLISH POST" (Blogger will try to "edit" your code if you click on "Compose" and screw it up)

Your Bible Search will then be fully functional. But you'll need a way for people to get to it from all pages.

Putting a Bible Search form in the sidebar

This is a little bit trickier. On the Blogger/Blogspot edit page, click on "Template". Click on "Add a Page Element". (UPDATE: Apparently this requires using the newer style template, and changing that may mess up your template if you're using the old style. Below I'll try to explain how to do it for the old style templates) Where it says "HTML/JavaScript" click "ADD TO BLOG". For "Title" you can use something like "Bible Search". In the "Content" part copy and paste the "Short form for sidebars" code from your ControlPanel at phpAV.

If you're using the older style templates you'll want to insert the form manually in the side bar. Look for the line in the template that says, "div id='sidebar-wrapper'". The content of that DIV is your sidebar. Make sure you don't paste the form code inside the "b:section...". Right after the "/b:section" tag will work. Paste it there, before the closing DIV tag that ends the sidebar, but also before whatever is there that you want beneath the form.

Since Blogger/Blogspot uses smaller sidebars, there's another change you'll need to make. Look at the code and locate the part that says, class="input1" size="15". Change that to class="input1" size="12" If you already saved it before making the change, Blogger/Blogspot has a lovely surprise for you, it rearranges the elements, so those two attribute (class and size) will more than likely not be in the same order. They should be in close proximity, and there will only be one size="15" anyway. Click "SAVE CHANGES" and you'll have the search form in your sidebar.

The post will serve as a static page for all Bible Searches. If you want to link to a specific search, such as a verse or passage, do a search and when the results are what you like, copy the URL and use that link.

phpAV Bible Search