Rock Creek Elementary School

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Currently, we cannot change the colors of our websites. I asked Catapult if they can make website color themes an option someday, and I was told that they will keep it in mind as a cool new feature (but please be patient as this is not high on the priority list).  So the best way to customize your website is to add a banner to each webpage. Besides adding student images, find beautiful images on the internet that represent what you are teaching your students, and use Pixlr to resize and crop these images before adding them to your banner slideshow. 

Are you finding it difficult to use a Catapult table? Try creating a simple table of 2, 3 or 4 columns in MS Word, make perfect, save. And then save it again as an HTML webpage document. Now highlight the whole table off of the HTML doc, right-click, copy. Get onto a Catapult webpage, paste. 

1. Open Adobe Photoshop. 
   
   
2. Click on File > Open and browse your way to your image.
   
   
3. Click on Crop Tool located on the left. Then set width to 745 and height to 150 (or whichever size needed).
   
   
   
   
4. Using your mouse, click and drag cropping tool over image as far as it will go completing a rectangle.
   
   
5. Use mouse arrow to move your image where you want it and click enter key on keyboard. Image becomes small.
   
   
6. Click on File > Save for Web and Devices. 
   
   
7. Dialogue box opens. Be sure you are on the optimized tab, upper left. Upper-right "Preset", arrow down to JPEG High (for better quality images) or JPEG-Medium (faster running time on slower user computers and mobile devices), and click on SAVE button, bottom-right.
   
   Notice the next Catapult image - I chose JPEG Medium for this image, and so the banner image size turned out to be 26 KB which is perfect. 40 KB or less is a good number, and the quality of the image wasn't compromised.
      
   
   
8. Save as another name, saving it to any folder you choose for organizing purposes. You will need to find this image in a minute. Click done.
   
   

1. Log onto Catapult.
   
   
2. Click on Image Manager called "Images" located at top left of your screen to open the Image Manager dialogue box.
   
   
   
   
3. This is where you will be uploading and storing your banner images so that you can insert them into your personal slideshow. Click on the "upload files" button on the left and "browse" to the (cropped/re-sized) image or images that you want to upload from your computer into Catapult.
   
   
4. Important: Un-check the "Optimize Images" check box when you are saving banner images only. (Do check this check box when uploading other types of images - otherwise it may take some parents longer to open your website.)
   
   
5. In the middle of the box (shown below), click on the folder that you would like to store your images in BEFORE clicking on "Save File." Your images will then move into this correct folder. Close dialogue box. No folder? See below.
   
6. 1. 
      Create a folder if you haven't already done so by selecting the parent folder, and then clicking on the "create folder" button. Complete step #5.
      
      
      



7. Now, go to the webpage that you would like to insert a banner slideshow to. 
   
   
8. Drag the "Slideshow" element into the banner area of that specific webpage. The "Slideshow" element is located on the left under the words "Content Elements."
   
   
9. In this dialogue box, width is 745, height is 150, resolution can be any digit - - however many seconds you would like each image to play, and then click on the plus sign to add an image or images (that had been cropped and resized correctly) to your slide show. 
   
   
   
10. Click on the "Browse" button, find the image you want, and then click on "Select File," and OK as many times as it takes to insert your images. Click SAVE.
    Optional: You can even add a link or captions to your images.
    
    
11. "Preview" or "Publish to the Web" to see your new banner for that webpage.