Make an exhibition

An exhibition is a public web page built from your research. It is a scrolling page of sections that can hold text, quotations, images from your library, manuscript leaves with deep zoom, recordings with transcripts, maps, chronologies, tables, charts and a list of sources. You build it in Publish, and visitors read it at an address under your public handle, such as pangur.io/m-riordan/the-camisard-prophets/. Exhibitions are not offered on every account or deployment.

This page explains how an exhibition is put together and then walks through making a first one. Every kind of block is described in Exhibition blocks, and passwords, addresses and taking a page down are covered in Publish, protect and take down an exhibition.

How an exhibition is put togetherCopy Anchor Link

An exhibition has a title, an optional subtitle and introduction, and an ordered list of sections. A section is one chapter of the page, with an optional title and a kicker, which is the small label above the title such as "Part I". Each section holds blocks, and a block is one typed piece of content: a paragraph of text, a quotation, an image, a map and so on.

The draft and the published snapshotCopy Anchor Link

What you edit in Publish is the draft, and visitors never see it. When you publish, Pangur freezes the draft into a snapshot: it renders the text, formats the list of sources, copies the media files into its publishing store and records the result. The public page serves only the latest snapshot.

This has two consequences. First, editing the draft after publishing does not change the public page, which changes only when you choose Publish again and a new snapshot is made. Second, the public page never reads your library. A document panel keeps the copy of the document taken when you attached it, a table or chart keeps the rows taken when you saved it, and the list of sources is formatted from the library's data at the moment you publish. Later changes in the library reach the page only when you update the block, where the block allows that, and publish again.

Your handle and the public addressCopy Anchor Link

A handle is the name in your public address. Your public page, at /{handle}/, shows your name, your picture and the About you text from your profile in Settings, followed by a list of your published exhibitions. Each exhibition is at /{handle}/{address}/, where the address (or slug) is made from its title. You need a handle before you can publish, and each person has one. Because handles are shared with organisations, a handle that anyone has claimed is taken.

Exhibitions in an organisation's project are published under the organisation's handle instead, which the organisation's admins choose (see Publish under an organisation's handle).

Which project an exhibition belongs toCopy Anchor Link

An exhibition is made in the project you are working in, and the Publish list shows that project's exhibitions. In a personal project an exhibition belongs to its author alone. In an organisation project it belongs to the project, so members with the viewer role can read it and editors and owners can change it, as set out in Project members and roles.

Making your first exhibitionCopy Anchor Link

This walk-through makes a short exhibition with a section of text, a quotation and an image, previews it and publishes it. You need a project with at least one work that has an image file stored on it.

1. Claim a handleCopy Anchor Link

Open Publish. If you have no handle yet, the top of the list invites you to choose one and shows where your public page will be. Type a handle and choose Claim.

A handle can be up to 40 characters, using lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens, and must start and end with a letter or number. Some words are reserved, such as the names of Pangur's own pages, and Pangur tells you when a handle is reserved or already taken. You can also set your handle later in Settings, under your profile. Once you have one, the list shows your public page's address.

2. Start the exhibitionCopy Anchor Link

Type a title into New exhibition title and choose Start. The new draft opens in the workspace, in the current project, with the status Draft.

The workspace has the Outline of sections on the left and a canvas in the middle that shows the page as visitors will see it. While there is nothing on it, the canvas asks you to add a section in the outline.

3. Add a sectionCopy Anchor Link

In the outline, type a title into New section and choose Add. Click the section on the canvas to select it, and a row of buttons appears for the blocks you can add: Text, Heading, Quote, Image, Gallery, Audio, Video, Document panel, Manuscript leaf, Chronology, Map, Table from a dataset, Chart and Sources.

4. Add text and a quotationCopy Anchor Link

Choose Text. A text block is edited in place on the canvas, so type the paragraph there, using Markdown for emphasis and links. The block saves itself and shows when it has.

Choose Quote and type the quotation and its attribution. Text, heading and quotation blocks can be turned into one another with Convert to… on the block's toolbar.

5. Add an imageCopy Anchor Link

Choose Image. Blocks other than text, headings and quotations open in an inspector on the right of the canvas. Use Find the work it belongs to to choose the work, then the image file stored on it. Fill in Alt text (what the image shows, for screen readers), and a caption and a credit if you like. Tick Open full size on click if visitors should be able to open the full image. Then save the block.

Only files stored on a library item can be used, and if the work has none the inspector tells you so.

6. Arrange and previewCopy Anchor Link

Select a block to move it with Move up and Move down, or to remove it with Remove. Removing a block cannot be undone. Sections are reordered with Move up and Move down in the outline. Rename section beside a section turns its title into a box; type the new title and choose Save, or press Escape to leave it as it was. Delete section removes the section and its blocks after asking you to confirm. The published page does not change until you publish again.

Choose Visitor view to see the page through the same renderer the public page uses, built from the current draft.

7. PublishCopy Anchor Link

Choose Publish on the canvas bar. If the exhibition has no images, recordings or videos, it goes live at once and its status becomes Published. If it has media, the status is "Publishing…" while Pangur copies the files, and the page goes live when every file has been copied.

View live opens the public page, and your public page at /{handle}/ now lists the exhibition.

Publish on the canvas bar publishes a new exhibition for anyone to read. To publish it with a password, use Settings instead, as described in Publish, protect and take down an exhibition. Once it is protected, Publish again on the canvas bar keeps the password.

8. Change it and publish againCopy Anchor Link

Edit the draft as before. The public page does not change until you choose Publish again.

Shaping the page with GenerateCopy Anchor Link

Generate on the canvas bar rearranges the blocks you have made into a designed page. A model reads a short excerpt of each block and returns an arrangement, and Pangur then assembles the page from your original blocks, possibly adding headings and connecting text, and sets the page's colours and type. Generate does not change the content of your images, quotations, maps or other material blocks, and it does not add new ones.

The new arrangement is applied at once, and Pangur keeps the previous one as a version. The kept versions are listed under Earlier versions at the foot of the outline, newest first, each with the time it was made and its number of sections. Restore puts one back after asking you to confirm, and the page as it was before the restore is kept as a version too.

Generate uses your daily model allowance, and when the allowance is spent Pangur refuses with a message saying so. If the model fails, Pangur may arrange the page a section at a time, or arrange it from your blocks without a model, and tells you which it did. Generate is unavailable on a draft with no blocks and no introduction. Allowances are explained in Models, assistants and who pays.

Building an exhibition from AskCopy Anchor Link

Ask can compose a whole draft exhibition from a set of sources. When Ask proposes Build an exhibition from these sources and you confirm with Compose it, or when you choose Generate on an answer, Pangur reads up to eight of the named works in full and a model writes the exhibition's narrative from them. It can place images and recordings from your library, and it takes map coordinates from Wikidata rather than from the model. Works beyond the first eight are used from their details and a passage.

Composing takes some minutes and uses your model allowance. The draft appears in Publish when it is ready, with a button to open it there, and nothing is published. If composing fails, Pangur tells you.

The difference between the two is that Generate rearranges blocks you already have, while composing from Ask writes a new draft from sources.

Exhibitions on other surfacesCopy Anchor Link

Pangur for Mac shows the web workspace unchanged.

The iPhone and iPad app lists exhibitions, starts new ones, claims a handle, adds, renames and deletes sections, and edits text, heading, quotation, manuscript leaf, chronology, typed map and sources blocks, as well as existing images. Other blocks open the web editor. The app can publish, take down, share the public link and delete.

Assistants connected over MCP can create a draft exhibition and add sections and blocks, but they cannot publish, take down, apply a design or delete. They cannot add images or other media either, because those need a file registered in Publish. The compose_exhibition tool gives an assistant instructions for composing a draft with its own model and does not run Pangur's model (see MCP tools).

The command line lists, shows, publishes and takes down exhibitions with pangur exhibitions, but cannot create or edit them (see the command-line reference).