Installation
- Login to your Reclaim Hosting account, and go to your cPanel.
- Find ‘Web Applications’ in the first set of options – click on ‘Omeka.’
- You are now in the Installatron – Click on ‘+ install this application.’
- On the next screen, leave most of the settings on the default options , except the following:
- Location: in the Directory box, you will need to provide a name to directory on the server where your Omeka files will reside. This directory name will also appear in the URL of your current website after a backslash.
- In this example, http://mywebsite.org/myexhibit, “myexhibit” is the name of directory where you installed the Omeka software (this is difficult to change later).
- Scroll down to Settings:
- In ‘Administrator Username’, create a username for you.
- In ‘Administrator Password’, click on the show password button, and record the password.
- In Web Site Title, add the name of your new website (this you can easily change later).
- Scroll to the bottom, click ‘+ Install’- and the Installatron will take a few minutes to install the software for you.
- Location: in the Directory box, you will need to provide a name to directory on the server where your Omeka files will reside. This directory name will also appear in the URL of your current website after a backslash.
- Once installtron is done, note there are 2 URLs liste under the name of your website.
- URL 1: is the public side (front end) of your Omeka site (ie, http://mywebsite.org/myexhibit)
- URL 2 takes you to the administrative side where you manage the content and configure some of the website’s settings (ie, http://mywebsite.org/myexhibit/admin).
- The installation is complete, and you may log out of the Reclaim Hosting cPanel.
Managing Content in Omeka
- Log in directly to your Omeka website, with the username and password you created, http://mywebsite.org/myexhibit/admin
- You arrive at a Dashboard, which functions similarly to the WordPress Dashboard. Here you find links to all of the major administrative functions in Omeka, including adding items, managing the appearance of your site and other site-level settings.
- Building blocks of Omeka sites are Items, so it’s a good time to add a few.
- Follow the instructions from the Omeka Documentation for Managing Items: http://omeka.org/codex/Managing_Items_2.0
- Those items can be made public and available for browsing as soon as you wish.
- To do more with your Omeka site, you will need to install some plugins. Go to top black navigation and click on ‘Plugins.’
- What follows is a list of installed plugins. Your site comes with 3 pre-installed plugins Exhibit Building COiNS, and Simple Pages. Click the green ‘install’ button for each plugin.
- Exhibit Builder, and Simple Pages have now been added to the admin menu on the left.
- Create a webpage within your Omeka site by clicking on the ‘Simple Pages’ tab in the left navigation.
- Read more about using the Simple Pages plugin: http://omeka.org/codex/Plugins/SimplePages_2.0
- Create a very small exhibit using the Exhibit Builder plugin allows you to develop online exhibits, or special web pages, that combine items from your Omeka archive with narrative text.
- Read more about using the Exhibit Builder plugin: http://omeka.org/codex/Plugins/ExhibitBuilder_2.0
Extending Omeka with Plugins
The way to extend the functionality or change the appearance of an Omeka site will require knowing how to add plugins and themes to your installation. Follow the steps provided here: http://ssrc.doingdh.org/extending-omeka-with-plugins/
Manage Appearances
- Click on the Appearance tab found on the top navigation. Omeka uses themes and navigation settings (menus) in a similar way to WordPress, to control the basic design elements of an Omeka website.
- Read more about adjusting those setting, and configuring themes, http://omeka.org/codex/Managing_Appearance_2.0
Add a Theme to Your Omeka Installation on Reclaim:
Your Omeka site comes with two themes, but you may wish to add another from the Omeka Theme directory.
- Find a theme you like and download the zip file to your computer. Do not unzip the file.
- Open another tab in your browser and sign into the Reclaim portal. Click on the CPanel for your domain, and go to the ‘File Manager.’
- In the left hand menu, click on the ‘public_html folder icon, which opens the directory. Click on directory you created for your Omeka installation. Look down the list of directories and click on the ‘themes’ folder.
- Find the ‘Upload’ tab in the top navigation bar of the File Manager.
- Click ‘Choose File’ and select the downloaded plugin zip file you saved to your computer.
- Click on the ‘Back to …’ link at the bottom of the screen to go back to the File Manager.
- Select the uploaded .zip file, then click ‘Extract’ in the top navigation bar.
- You will see a folder labeled with the theme name – you can now delete the .zip file — click on the .zip file, then click ‘Delete’ in the top navigation bar.
- Go back to your Omeka website’s /admin, and login. Under Appearances->Themes, the theme you just uploaded should be available to select and configure.
Troubleshooting
Reclaim has hosting-specific documentation for Omeka, a forum in which you can post issues, and a very responsive support team.