…Mostly so I can remember what the heck I did later.
So there’s this recipe I kept meaning to write up. I can’t lug the desktop computer down to the kitchen, and I’ve basically switched over to doing work on the iPad.
Turns out writing up the recipe was as fast as cooking it, so I could do both at the same time.
Needed apps: Pages (there’s also a desktop version of this which may have the same template). Something to transfer files over to one’s desktop computer (like Dropbox) or to the web (like FTP Client Pro).
- In Pages, I chose New and the Recipe template.
- I filled in and erased the text.
- I snapped an iPad camera photo and plugged it into the image placeholder by clicking on it and choosing Camera Roll.
- When done, I chose Share and Print. Then…
- Open in Another App
- Choose PDF
- Choose App: FTP Client Pro
- Upload
- Rename to something without spaces in it.
At this point I had the PDF uploaded to my website’s server. That’s the “Printable Recipe” link on the lens.
Alternatively, at the “Choose Another App” stage I could’ve chosen Dropbox and uploaded the file to my Dropbox. It then would’ve been accessible in the cloud via any of my computers with Dropbox installed. From there I could’ve uploaded it to my web server like any other file. But FTP Client Pro saves a step.
I then wrote nearly all the lens on the iPad, copying the instructions from my Pages file to the Recipe module. (I used a Big Arrow Link to point to the PDF version uploaded to my server for the printable version because it looks better than Squidoo’s printable. Also, clickouts.)
Unfortunately, for the lens photo, there’s still no way to upload a graphic on iPad: you have to go to a traditional computer and upload the photo there. (I just sent a suggestion to SquidHQ to work on this.)
Everything else is incredibly easy to do on iPad.
I use Pages on the iPad and love it, but I always make my lenses on the desktop PC. It’s so much faster. Also, not only can you not upload a photo on the iPad on to Squidoo but you can’t rearrange the modules either which might not affect Giants using their own templates, but it does mean no one else can do it.
I do so love Pages.
And yes, I know, the no-rearranging-modules problem with iPad makes composing lenses on iPad nearly impossible, but if I were crazy I could pre-craft everything in pages, then load it into Squidoo modules by adding them one at a time, whereas there’s no kludge to get around the inability to load an image. I can make hubs on iPad, however!