Category: Scalar

Scalar 2 User Guide: Working with Widgets A widget is an interactive element that can be embedded in your Scalar project. Scalar has 6 kinds of widgets that you can add to any page: Timeline, Map, Carousel, Card, Summary, and Visualization. Note: Visualizations are discussed in the tutorial on Relationships. Timelines and Maps Create timelines and maps to display elements of your project in chronological order. The Scalar timeline widget can display any elements in your book (pages or media items) as long as they include metadata in the “temporal” or “date” field; Maps can plot elements of the book if the “spatial” field has been populated with geographic coordinates. Remember that you should always take a moment to populate metadata when you import media items and construct pages so that all of your content will be available to you when you want to create a widget. Widgets can be tied to pieces of text or added as inline elements to a specific location...

In Scalar, pages host texts, media items, and interactive elements. Pages can be linked together, tagged, and organize in order to guide your readers through your Scalar book.  Create a New Page Start a new page by clicking the + symbol in the upper right icon bar in your book, or visit the dashboard by clicking the wrench icon, navigate to the Content tab, and click the “Add new page” button.  Begin by choosing a title and description for your page. Just as we thought about naming our media items uniquely and descriptively so that we can find them easily, we also want to thoughtfully choose titles for our pages, and decide on a naming convention that will help us group related items through keyword searches. This can be as simple as including the chapter tile, or theme, or numbering pages that are about the same topic:  Chapter 1: Making a Scalar Book, Chapter 2: Telling a Great Story Chapter 1a: Making a Scalar Book,...

Media Start your scalar project by importing media. Because of the way the Scalar interface is designed, you cannot upload new media objects while you are using the page builder tool. While of course you can add media to your project at any time, it can greatly streamline the process of constructing your Scalar book if you have media objects ready when you are ready to build your page. You can bring virtually any kind of media into your Scalar project, including images, audio clips, videos, and even websites themselves.  Uploading and Importing Media Objects When you are logged into the Scalar dashboard, you will be able to import media either by clicking on the import media icon in the top right corner (box with an arrow icon) or by navigating to the dashboard (wrench icon) and selecting import media from there.  It is possible to import media from various places around the web, including online archives like museum collections, and images and videos...

Getting Started with Scalar Use this tutorial and the instructions below to acclimate yourself with the Scalar interface. The Scalar 2 User Guide is another helpful step-by-step resource that is linked throughout these lessons. Log in The first time you log into a Scalar site, you will be asked to choose a username, enter your email address and password (of your choice), and a registration key. The registration key will be provided to you by your instructor along with the link to the class Scalar project.  Once you have registered we will be able to add you as a user and author for the class book. QuickStart: Registering an account and creating your first book QuickStart: Creating a new book after registering The dashboard  When you enter the Scalar dashboard for the first time, you will be prompted to switch over to the updated dashboard. Click the link in the yellow box at the top of the page to access the most recent interface.   In the dashboard you’ll...