Using the Gallery to Upload Pictures for Articles

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The FFI Gallery software provides an easy means to upload pictures to the FFI server, and then use those pictures in your articles. This article describes how to use your Gallery account to upload and manage your pictures.

Table of Contents

You should read this article in it's entirety before using the Gallery system. Once you've read this article, you may wish to come here periodically to look up some specific information. You can use the following links to easily navigate to the section you want to read.

Introduction
Copyrighted material
Logging in
Managing your Gallery account
Uploading Images
Linking To An Image

Introduction

The Gallery software is not part of the PostNuke software system. It is a completely separate software package, installed especially for uploading and managing the pictures we use on the PostNuke site. Many of the pictures you see on the site, including the picture of Abraham Lincoln on the left side of the page, have been uploaded to the Gallery.

If you've used the FFI forum, then you know the advantage of having our own Gallery system. Many forum members will frequently include images in their posts. However, because the forum doesn't permit them to upload pictures to the server, they have to link to pictures which already appear on another website. Often, the pictures they link to are removed from the other site, leaving an empty box in the forum post.

Obviously, we don't want these kinds of problems with articles on FFI. If someone includes an image in their article, we want the image to remain visible as long as the article remains visible.

Allowing people to upload any kind of file to the server poses a security risk. An unscrupulous user could upload a malicious file, like a virus, to the server, and then link it to his article in such a way as to infect the computers of visitors to this site. Even worse, they could upload a malicious program that could harm the server, or compromise it's security. The Gallery software system not only makes it easier to upload and manage pictures on the server, it also provides an extra layer of security because it can analyze the files you upload and verify that they are simply pictures, and do not contain any other type of potentially insecure data.

Anybody can link to a picture which has been uploaded to the Gallery. However, in order to upload a picture you must have a Gallery account. We don't permit anonymous users to upload pictures because of the potential for posting offensive images (like pornography), or posting copyrighted pictures which we don't have permission to publish.

Some FFI authors already have accounts on the Gallery. Most currently do not. We don't automatically create Gallery accounts for each author unless they specifically request it. Often, an editor will simply upload an author's pictures to one of the general purpose albums on the Gallery.

If you don't have a Gallery account, and would like to request one, you can either send a private message to Editor on this site, or send an email to ffieditors at yahoo dot com.

Copyrighted material

Before uploading any images to the Gallery, you must ensure that the image is free of copyright, or that the copyright owner has granted permission for you to use their image. If we receive a complaint from the copyright holder that an image in the Gallery is being used without their permission then we will remove the image immediately. We don't want lawsuits from photographers.

Logging in

There is a link to the Gallery in the main menu on the left side of the PostNuke site. Just click on "Gallery". It's probably easier to open the Gallery in a new browser window. This will allow you to easily switch between your article on the PostNuke site and your images in the Gallery. To do this in Internet Explorer just right-click on the "Gallery" link and select "Open in new window..." from the pop-up menu.

In the upper right corner of the Gallery screen you'll see the following link:

If you click on this link you'll see the following form:

Fill in your username and password, and then click on the "Login" button to log in.

Managing your Gallery account

One you've logged in you'll see the following link in the upper right corner of the page:

Click on this link to access your account settings. You'll see a page similar to the following:

Here you can change the name or email address associated with your account. If you'd like to change the password for your Gallery account, find the following link in the upper left corner of the page:

Click on this link. You'll see a page similar to:

Enter your existing password, then enter the new password (you need to enter the new password twice, just for confirmation). Click on the "Change" button to submit your changes.

Upload Images

Click on the link in the upper left corner of the screen to return to the main menu page.

Now, look for the album called FFI Website Graphics (the one with Abraham Lincoln's face next to it). To the right of this is a list of sub-albums for this album. You must select which of these sub-albums you wish to upload your image(s) to. Bear in mind that you might not have permission to upload to many of these sub-albums. For example, unless you are an administrator on the Gallery system, you probably won't have permission to upload to a sub-album which belongs to another author. If there is a sub-album with your name on it, then that's the sub-album you should probably upload your images to.

Click on the link for the appropriate sub-album.

If you have permission to upload images to the sub-album you selected, then you'll see quite a few options in the menu at the left side of the screen. If you do NOT have permission to upload images to the sub-album then the only option you'll see is .

To begin uploading your image(s) you should select the link.

You have three options for uploading images to the gallery. These are From Web Browser, From Local Server, and From Web Page. The default setting is From Web Browser, which let's you use your web browser to upload images directly from your own computer. The From Local Server option is not of much use to most people, because it requires the image to already be loaded onto the server. The From Web Page option let's you upload an image directly from another web site.

You can select which of these methods you want to use by clicking on the appropriate link at the top of the screen. We won't describe how to use the From Local Server option, because this isn't practical for the majority of people.

Uploading From Web Browser

If the From Web Browser option is not already selected, then click on the From Web Browser link at the top of the screen. You'll see a page with four pairs of boxes similar to the following:

You can use these boxes to upload up to four images at a time.

Use the File box to enter the location of the image file on your computer. To make things a bit easier, you can click on the Browse button, and use your operating system's File Selector to locate the file and insert the filename and location for you.

Use the Caption box to enter a brief description of the image. The Caption you enter will be displayed next to the picture when people view your sub-album on the Gallery system. The Caption is not automatically displayed when you link to your image in your articles on the PostNuke site.

Enter the information for the image(s) you want to upload (up to four at a time). You should be able to use the default settings for the remaining options on this page. When you're ready, click on the Add Items button at the bottom of the page, and your images will be uploaded to your sub-album.

Upload From Web Page

Important: You MUST ensure that you have appropriate permission to use the images from the web site you select. We do not want any copyright violations!

If the From Web Page option is not already selected, then click on the From Web Page link at the top of the screen. You'll see the following box:

The purpose of this box is for you to enter the URL of the web page containing the image(s) you want to upload to the gallery. Once you enter the URL, then you should click on the Find Files link. For example, if I enter "http://www.yahoo.com" and click on Find Files then I get the following display:

You can select or unselect individual files from the web page by checking or unchecking the box next to the image URL. You can check or uncheck all by clicking the (Un)check All box.

Select the images you want to upload from the web site. You should be able to use the default settings for the remaining options on the page. Click on the Add URL's button to begin uploading the images.

Linking To An Image

Note: You do NOT have to be logged into the Gallery in order to get the URL's for an image and use them in your article.

Click on the link in upper left corner to return to the main menu page. Click on the link for the sub-album containing the image you wish to link to.

Next to the thumbnail image you should see a link. (Gallery admins should choose this option from the drop-down menu next to the image thumbnail.) Click on this link. You'll see a page similar to:

The URL links for the image are displayed in two formats; HTML and BBCode. The HTML links are appropriate for use in your articles. The BBCode links are appropriate for use in posting the image on the forum.

You can select the HTML formatted URL link by highlighting it with your mouse and then copy/paste it into your article, just as you would copy any other text.

Please use relative URL's when entering your image tags in your article. You can do this by removing the "http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/" portion of the URL. For example:

<img src="gallery2/d/270-2/abul_k1.jpg">

...is good, while...

<img src="http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/gallery2/d/270-2/abul_k1.jpg">

is bad. Using the full URL will mean that your links will be broken if we move the site to another domain name.

If you have any questions about using the Gallery which were not answered in this article, please send a PM to admin and let me know!