Pictures FAQ/Help
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Figure 1: The Pictures Nav Menu. Note: the images displayed here could differ from those shown on your screen, due to the different themes available, but the content in these boxes should remain the same.
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| Main Directory: | |||||||||
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Upon clicking on the Main Directory menu option on the Nav Bar, you will see a page that displays a Menu on the left and the Picture Categories on the right. This menu is similar to the menu on the top of the page (see above), except that this menu block has an added Search field, in case you want to search for pictures from here. This menu block will be available in all the Pictures pages, and will look and work as the example menu below:
On the right pane, you will see a block containing the different Picture categories available, showing the pictures
inside those categories:
The example above shows the Category entitled "Category Name", with one Sub-Category under it, entitled "Logo". Next to the Sub-Category name, you will see a number in parenthesis, indicating how many actual pictures there are under that Sub-Category. If you click on the Sub-Category link, you will be taken to a page that shows all the pictures in that Sub-Category. A block will be displayed, showing the header with the Site's title, the Sub-Category name, followed by the number of pictures in the sub-category being displayed, like this: Category: Sub_Category (# Pictures - count includes private pictures) Depending on how the picture was added to the site, this block will show either a thumbnail view or the full image of that picture in question. If the image file was added to the database after your last visit, then a image flag will be displayed next to the picture's Title, just under the header, followed by the Date added and the picture description. If there is more than 1 page to display the image index for that Sub-Category, you will see the paging options at the bottom of the block, stating the page number you are in and the number of total pages to be displayed. You can navigate through the whole picture collection for this Sub-Category this way. The last link you see is the "Add a Picture " link, to submit your own pictures to the database. If you click on either the picture Title or the picture itself, the system will take you to the picture's own page. The page to which you arrive shows all the details of the picture you clicked on. Following is some of the information displayed along with the picture itself:
Picture Rating: When you click on the "Rate this Picture" link, a small window will be displayed, showing the following: Rate this picture
The above block is self-explanatory. You can rate and add a comment relative to the picture you just saw. Reporting a bad link: Clicking on this link will open a small window, returning a message like the following:
Bear in mind that this message is sent to the site administrator(s), and it carries the picture's link faulty information, together with the username of the person who actually reported the bad link, for logging purposes.
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| New Pictures: | |||||||||
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Selecting this menu option will display a list of pictures that have been added to
the Pictures section within the last week. The page will display the last seven days
with a number enclosed in parentheses next to the name of the day. If the number is not zero, then a
picture has been added on that day. The New Pictures list shows the day
the item was entered.
The Details displayed are:
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| Popular Pictures: | |||||||||
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Selecting this menu option will display the top-10 pictures, ordered by hit count. You will also see the details under the pictures. When you click on the items you can switch to the details page and vote/rate the pictures too.
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| Top-Rated Pictures: | |||||||||
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Selecting this menu option will display the top-10-rated pictures. You will see a hit count number along with date added, rating and votes given to the picture in question. When you click on the items you can switch to the details page.
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| Submitting New Pictures: | |||||||||
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To submit your pictures: One way to add your pictures to this site is writing the web address (or URL) of a picture that is currently being hosted on another website, different or foreign to Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy. For instance, if you know that a picture resides (is located or hosted) in a website called http://www.website.com, and that picture's address is http://www.website.com/photos/my_photo.jpg, then you would enter that URL (web address) into the URL field. Make sure the address of your picture starts with the http:// prefix. This option has one advantage: since the picture itself is hosted or "lives" in another website, different to Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy, that picture will not "waste" any available (and valuable) disk space on Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy's server, while it will be displayed on Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy and keep being hosted on the other server (the other website's server). The disadvantage is that the picture depends on the good performance of the other site for it to be properly displayed on Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy. 2). Uploading your pictures from your hard disk: The other way to add pictures to the site is to literaly copy a picture that you have saved in your hard disk and "paste it" on Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy's server hard disk (we will call this process "Uploading a Picture"). To upload a picture from your local disk, press the button next to the field entitled "Upload Image:". This will launch a dialog window that helps you select your picture in any folder in your computer. Select the image you want to upload, and press the Open button (or simply double-click the file desired). Once you have selected your file, its location or path (in your disk) will be inserted into the Upload Image field. The allowed extensions for your picture are .gif and .jpg NOTE: Make sure that your picture is less than 1000 KB. This is for obvious reasons. If we were to allow pictures larger than that (weight in KB), we would rapidly fill our servers with picture files too big and heavy, which would result in making the site slower when displaying these images. IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that the 2 methods for submitting an image to the site are exclusive, meaning that you have to use either one or the other. If using Method #1, then don't enter anything in the "Upload Image" field. Conversely, if you use Method #2, then don't enter anything in the "URL" field. If you are using method 1 (External Reference to Pan-Somali Council For Peace and Democracy), and you know that the picture you're adding has a thumbnail image, and you know the location (URL) of that thumbnail image, you can enter its URL into the Thumbnail URL field. If you leave this field empty, the picture's actual URL will be used in place of the thumbnail (somehow having both functions: Picture & Thumbnail in one). Make sure you leave the http:// prefix intact if not using this field. You can enter any Copyright information related to the picture you're submitting. Remember that many pictures or photos that are published on the Internet have certain Copyrights granted by default, while you should give credit to the author of the picture, if you know it, or the site's name from which you have "harvested" the picture. This is not a required field. Finally, check the "Private" checkbox if you want your picture to only be available to you. What this means is that only you (and the administrator) will be able to see this picture, and that it will not be displayed to other people in the general collection or Gallery. Once you have finished with all the picture's information, press the button in order to send it for approval, before it's actually authorized by an administrator to be published. You will be notified by Email when your picture is authorized and gets added to our database. All images submitted will undergo the authorization process, again, for obvious reasons.
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| Search Pictures: | |||||||||
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You can use the search area on the left menu by entering your search term or terms into the Search box and then click
the button to search through the Pictures section. Pictures with
matching text will be shown in the display box on the right.
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