Google Sites is an online web content management tool that can help you to quickly create a website. It can be compared to other tools like Drupal, TYPO3, or Joomla!, but with added collaborative functionality.
The design of Google Sites is similar to a wiki. Several users can collaborate to build a website. One possible use of Google Sites is to aggregate data from other Google Apps, like Google Docs, Google Calendar, video, or simply text.
To facilitate the creation of a new site, Google Sites provides a large selection of templates both for whole sites and individual pages.
A common use for Google Sites is the creation of a website dedicated to a project team.
The creation of a website starts by choosing a template. It defines the type of pages used (as shown in the following screenshot), the navigations links, and the graphical theme which comprises fonts and background images:
Choosing a site model in the gallery
A template can be visualized before it is used. If no template is available, it is possible to start with an empty template and then select a graphic theme that will ensure a consistent look and feel for the site (as shown in the following screenshot):
Choosing a theme starting with a blank page
In any case, the layout and graphical options remain editable at any time. The single most important element in a website is probably its navigation menu. It can be modified in Google Sites:
Changing the navigation menu in the sidebar. By default, the menu is organized according the hierarchy of pages and sub-pages.
In Google Sites, each page is a node for a set of subpages as we will see shortly. Usually, the main navigation menu reflects this hierarchical structure. By default, Google Sites organizes the menu automatically by letting users choose the depth of the tree. For specific uses, this behavior can be modified.
Finally, an interesting feature is the possibility to store any Google Site as a template. Any modification of the original site will immediately propagate to the template.
With Goo gle Sites, it is possible to create five different kinds of pages that structure information in various ways. In addition to formatted text, links, images, videos, Google Docs, and even raw HTML code can be added.
The five types of pages proposed by Google Sites
Web Page
This is an unstructured page in which you can add formatted text, images, and tables. More complicated layout can be obtained by nesting tables within tables.
Announcements
This is a blog like page on which a visitor can leave their comments. It is used mainly to keep track of information in chronological order. A team can use it, for instance, to publish information on key events.
File Cabinet Page
This kin d of page allows you to upload local documents to a web page and organize them into a hierarchy of folders.
List Page
This pag e allows visitors to easily add items to a list or to a table. An example use we can think of for this type of page would be an elementary bug tracking system where each new defect is notified by adding a short description to an existing list of bugs.
Start Page
This kin d of page allows users to customize their start page and add gadgets to it. It can also contain shared content visible to any collaborator.
Each page can be saved as a template and saved for later use.
Accessing the history of a web page.
All versions of any page from a site are kept in the site history, which is accessible to any of its collaborators.
Objects that may be used in a web page fall into one of three categories:
The three categories of objects that can be inserted in Google Site web page
The "non-Google" objects: images, URLs, or reference lists.
The Google objects: objects created wit hin other Google Apps such as Google Calendar, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Google Docs, and videos from Google Video. These objects implement the integration between Google Sites and the other apps from the suite.
The gadgets : these are modules published on the web and that are categorized as "News", "Finance", or "Technology" and that mostly bring interactivity to Google Site's pages.
Using gadgets allows, for instance, combining Google Sites with workflow tools (such as RunMyProcess that we shall discuss in Chapter 11, Third-party Extensions) to create dashboards fed by various sources of information.
A Google Site can be made public to the whole Web or its visibility can be restricted to users from a Google Apps domain or even only to a subset of those.
The access rights for Google Sites are quite similar to those of Google Docs; they rely on three roles:
- The readers can only see pages of a site but not modify them.
- The editors can create modify or delete pages. They can add comments to announcement pages and add attachments to file cabinets pages. They can also change the navigation menu and subscribe to notifications for any changes that are either on the site as a whole or only to specific pages.
- The owners (there can be many of them) can moreover invite other collaborators, and modify the themes and the layout of pages. They are the only ones who can delete the sites.
- The administrator can decide to add more restrictions (for more information on this topic, see the section devoted to Google Sites in Chapter 7, Managing a Google Apps Domain).