DMWebZing

OVERVIEW

In order to use the ad spaces feature on your tier site, you must first decide whether or not you want to use a JavaScript code or if you want to enter your own image to appear in this space. This is widely determined by who is advertising on your site.

AD DIMENSIONS

If you have a company that wants to advertise on your site, you can either have your advertising agency create a JavaScript code, or you can insert one image in each space.   The dimensions that you will use are 300x250px for the sidebar box, and 728x90px for the bottom banner.

DASHBOARD

log in to the admin panel.  From the main dashboard, please go to the left hand menu, and find appearance> theme options. From the theme options menu, scroll down until you find “advertising & meta.”  This is the area that you need to look at and change in order to have fully functioning advertising spaces on the side, bottom or both spaces of your website.

JAVASCRIPT CODE

If you choose to have the agency create a code, simply put the appropriate code in the “JavaScript code for advertising” text box.  Be sure to save your changes by scrolling all the way to the bottom of this page and click the blue “save changes” button.

INDIVIDUAL IMAGES

If you choose to have individual images made, please note that you may only put one of these in each area. Once you have the images, upload them using the media upload section (left side menu, media> add new) and follow the directions until you are given the image link. Copy this link and return to the theme options page. Find the advertising & meta space once again and paste the link to the image in the “advert image” space. Then paste the URL for the site you want the ad to link to in the “advert link” space.  Again, be sure to  save your changes by scrolling all the way to the bottom of this page and click the blue “save changes” button.

KEYWORDS

If you would like to add additional key words to your site to enhance the visibility of the ads, you can use the home page meta keywords section to do so. Simply enter in each word, and click the “save changes” button.

PDF Searching

A new feature on the tier sites is the ability to search within .pdf files. This is a very exciting enhancement which is unavailable in the web marketplace! When you search your site using the search bar shown below (may look slightly different depending on the colors selected for your site), you will get results from both your site’s pages and posts text content, as well as from .pdf files attached or linked to your posts/pages AND .pdf files that you’ve uploaded to the media folder EVEN IF they’re not attached to any post/page. This will help the viewer find exactly what they are looking for.

PDF results are attached to the normal result of the first page, which means that if a .pdf file is included in the search results, the first page will show more than ten entries. For instance, if (13) PDF files are included in the search results, then (23) search results will be shown on the first page.  First the PDF results, then the page/post results.

How to add a .pdf File to the Media Library

In order to add a .pdf file to your site, you must treat it the same as any other form of media and make use of the media library or the media upload buttons (both shown below).  You can add new media to the library using the “Add New” link in the left menu. Or, if you are in the Media Library page, you can click “Add New” at the top left.  When you click “Add New,” you will see the following menu. Click the “Select Files” button and a window will appear asking you to select files from your computer. Choose the media files that you would like to upload and wait for them to load.

Once the files have loaded, you will see the following menu allowing you to change certain aspects of the file, such as the title, alt text (text shown in case it has been blocked from display for some reason; also used for search engines), caption, and description. You can also choose not to alter any of this information. Click “Save All Changes” when you are done and you will be directed back to the Media Library.

Inserting a .PDF Into A Page or Post

If you are creating a page or a post, you will see some icons above the text area. The icons highlighted in the screen shot below are the media icons, which you will need to click to add pdfs or other forms of media to the page or post.

When you click one of the icons, an upload window appears. To insert a .pdf, click the first icon, and you will receive a menu very similar to the “Add New” menu that you just read about. You will also see some different tabs at the top of this screen. Note that the only way to insert a .pdf from this menu is if you have yet to upload the .pdf to the media library. Click select files and follow the prompts to insert a .pdf.  If you have already uploaded a previous .pdf to the site, you will need to move on to the next step.\

Inserting a Previously Uploaded .pdf from the Media Library

If you have already uploaded a .pdf, you will not be able to access it via the buttons in the step above. What you will have to do is click on the media library, and find your .pdf. Copy the link to the .pdf and use the following steps to insert it into the post.

Start by going back to the media library, and copying the “Link URL”.  Once this has been copied, you may now go back to the post or the page and insert this link. To do this you will need to paste the link as text or type the phrase you would like to make into a link, then highlight what you would like to transform into a link, as shown below.

Click the menu item that is shown highlighted in red in the above image. This is the hyperlink button that will create a link out of any image or text you have previously highlighted in your page or post. To remove the hyperlink, click the button to the right, which is the remove hyperlink button, looks like a broken chain link.

After you have clicked the hyperlink button, a menu will appear, as shown below. Fill out the fields accordingly and be sure to paste your .pdf link url into the field marked, “Link URL.”  Once you click “Insert,” you should see that the text you have highlighted is now a link.

 

 

 

How will the .pdf be found in a search?

You do not have to do anything for the .pdf to be listed in the search results. This is an automatic function. A .pdf file should be indexed when it is uploaded through any of WordPress’ standard means, such as using the “Add New” link under the “Media” section or by clicking the button to add a media file to a post.  It may take up to 48 hours for a file to be indexed by this new feature.

In order to use the MP3 Player on the Tier 2 sites, you must access the settings found on the left hand side of the site’s dashboard. This menu is shown below. Click on MP3 jPlayer link and it will bring up a menu.

Technical Settings

This is the only menu that you will use to control the MP3 jPlayer settings. The first option is to decide on what the initial volume of the music will be. Consider your audience. Consider what type of music it is. Thinking about this ahead of time will allow you to better adjust the starting volume for your listeners. You may also change the way that the music starts: You can click autoplay to have it start as soon as the page loads, repeat to have the track repeat after the first time playing, start with playlists showing (which allows the viewer to see all of the songs you have uploaded), and display an MP3 link which allows the user to download the track.  Be very aware of whether or not you have the rights to play the song on the site and to have others download the song.

Below these click-able options, you will find another choice of how large you would like the player to be. This is something you may want to experiment with in order to know what is the most effective size for your site. You should leave the option to show players in index and archive clicked (the bottom option). This allows others to go back and listen to your track.

Color Schemes

The next set of options are to change the color settings on the player. There is a pull-down menu shown that gives you options on switching to pre-designed players. Choose the player that you would like to use from this pull down menu. If you would like to create your own color scheme, please click on “Show Colour Settings.”

Changing to Custom Colors

If you choose “Show Colour Settings”, you will get menu seen below. Experiment with it first to see all of your options. Also, go to the Theme Options page (IF you have access to it) to see the hexadecimal colors currently assigned to your site.  This will give you a head start on getting things just right.  The fastest and easiest way to color your player is to use the pre-designed options, but this is just something else that you can use to customize your player to the max.

Library/Setting Folders

The next section is for the library. This refers to your main media library. This will show you the MP3s that you have loaded, and will give you the option to upload more.

The section right below library is the Folder or URL menu. You can use this menu in order to create folders to store your music, and gives you the information on how to create playlists.

More Options

In the next section, you will discover more options. This is where you decide to number the tracks, animate sliders, and encode the URLs and file names.  You can also set the maximum height for the playlist and set alphabetical orders for the songs. Please keep the box next to “Allow mp3′s from other domains on the players’ playlists” checked. You can also choose to hide the .mp3 extension.

Setting Margins

In the Margins section, you will choose how much empty space you would like to be around the actual player.

Pop-Out Player

If you choose to use a pop out player, you can check this section. A “pop-out” is when the player comes out in a separate window, not embedded into the site. You can also use this area to play around with the pop-out player’s size. You can change the button that launches the pop-out player to say whatever you’d like through this menu as well.

Template/Activating Settings

The template section is not something you will need to touch. Please do not change the settings in this area, as this may break the codes in the program.  Leave the box checked next to  “Remember Settings if Plugin is Deactivated.”

 Once you are finished updating all of these settings, click the “Update Settings” blue button.

Calling a Player in a Page or Post

After all the settings in the Mp3 jPlayer area are set how you would like them, you can “call” or show the mp3 player in different ways. You may want to use this in a post or in a page. You can find the list of codes in the MP3 jPlayer menu by clicking the “Show Help” link directly below the title, as highlighted below.

By clicking “Show Help” you will now see a large list of codes that you will use to insert the MP3 Player into your posts or page.

For example, to add a single file player, you will need to type the code: [[mp3j track="myfile.mp3"]].

To make a playlist (multiple file) player, type the code: [[mp3-jplayer tracks="myfileA.mp3, myfileB.mp3, myfileC.mp3"]]

Make sure that all of the files you have referenced have already been uploaded to the media library. Please note that the media library that you use for all of your images is also where you need to put your music files to be referenced. The MP3 Player does not create a separate library.

 

“Media”, in terms of this training post, is any file not displayed as a webpage.  Media can be a picture file, PDF file, audio file, or any other kind of file.  There are many ways that you can upload, insert, and display media. The easiest way to manage all of the media for your site is to go to the “Media” menu on the left hand side of your dashboard, seen below.

Media Library

When you click “library”, a menu opens up where you can see a list of all of the media files (images, files, audio, etc.) which you have uploaded to the site through this library.

You can sort the files to make managing them easier. Right under the “media library” title, you can see clickable items to sort your media. You can choose all (default), just images, just audio, or unattached, meaning media that has yet to be linked or otherwise attached to a page or post.

Underneath these options, you will see two drop down menus. The first is for bulk actions. These are actions that you can apply to one or many media items by checking the box to the left of each and selecting an action, then clicking “apply.”  Next to this option is another filtering option, where you can choose to show all dates or choose which individual month you would like to display.  These dates represent the date/month when the file was added to the media library.  Click filter after you have selected your choice. Above this area and to the right, you can also search the media files by file name.

This menu shows the file name, who uploaded the photo (the “author”, or who was logged in and performed the upload), what the file is attached to (which posts or pages), if the file has a comment, and on what date the file was added.

Adding New Media

You can add new media to the library using the “Add New” link in the left menu. Or, if you are in the Media Library page, you can click “Add New” at the top left.  When you click “Add New” , you will see the following menu. Click the “Select Files” button, and a window will appear, asking you to pull files from your computer. Choose the media files that you would like to upload, and wait for them to load.

Once the files have loaded, you will see the following menu, allowing you to change certain aspects of the file, such as the title, alt text (text shown in case it has been blocked from display for some reason; also used for search engines), caption, and description. You can also choose not to alter any of this information. Click “Save All Changes” when you are done. You will be directed back to the Media Library.

Inserting Media Into A Page or Post

If you are creating a page or a post, you will see some icons above the text area. The icons highlighted in the screen shot below are the media icons, which you will need to click to add images or other media files to the page or post.

When you click one of the icons, an upload window appears. To upload an image, click the first icon, and you will receive a menu very similar to the “Add New” menu that you just read about. You will also see some different tabs at the top of this screen.

• “From Computer” allows you to choose files on your local hard drive to upload to your site for use. It will be copied in to your Media Library.
  
• “From URL” asks you to insert the URL of a photo from another site. “Gallery” is a collection of previously added images from that same post or page.
• “Media Library” shows all of the images that have been uploaded to your site in general.
• “NextGen Gallery” allows you to insert a Gallery (for more information see our previous blog post on the NextGen Gallery).

Once your file has uploaded or chosen, it will show you more options that look like the following menu. This is where you adjust all of the settings of the file and decide how it should be aligned, if it should link somewhere or to something, what its title should be, alt text you may want, if it should have a caption, and what size (in pixels) you would like it to display.  (NOTE: the site’s content area is  580 pixels wide, so take that in to consideration if you modify the width of an image.)  This may take some getting used to if you are not familiar with using images on the web. Practice is recommended.

The social plugin is actually a plugin for social bookmarks. This means that viewers can share your blog post or website page on different social networking sites which they subscribe to.

When you are in your dashboard, you can access the social bookmarks feature by the menu on the far left-hand corner of the screen. You will see the menu below, called “Social”.

Managing Options

On the menu is “Options”. If you click this, you will see the following menu, which gives you all of the options on how to manage your social bookmarking tool.

The first option is whether or not you would like to open links in the same window or a new window. We recommend to open in a new window, so that the viewer still has your site open in a separate area, and will not have to spend a lot of time to return to the page.

The next option is the display title. This is what you want it to say above the social bookmark area in your posts. We suggest that you mention something in this title about sharing, so that they know by clicking on the icons, they will be asked to share the post on another site.

The tooltip title is what will show when the mouse hovers over an icon. You can change this if you like.

You may also choose to change how many lines your links show on. If you have many icons, this might be a good idea to ensure that they show up alright, but if you are just using a few icons, then you may not need to change this from 1 line.

Next is the option to display the social links on posts, pages, both, or none. Decide what may be best for your particular site. Think about where in the site the viewer may read through the article, and remember that the more areas that these buttons are placed, the more the viewer will be able to share your page with others.

The next area allows you to select which pages will have to social bookmarks, and which will not. The menu gives you exact directions on how to select and deselect the pages.

The last part of the menu deals with the Ajax interface. This is an animation-like menu that will appear. On DMWebzing,com, we use the Ajax interface, that you will see at the end of this post. If you click on “share this page,” a menu will scroll down with your social bookmark icons within. If you do not wish to have this animation, do not use the Ajax interface.  The other two options deal directly with this interface, so if you are using it, please explore these options and see what settings best suit your site.

Always remember to click the blue, “update options” button at the bottom of the page, or all of your new settings will be lost.

 

Bookmarks

If you click “bookmarks”, you will find an entire list of social networking sites. Use this list to click on and off which sites you would like to have a bookmark link to. Remember that after you select all of your sites click the blue update button on the bottom.

About

The about section is important if you would like to find out more about this program. It shows a link to the website of the developers, as well as a list of frequently asked questions. This is a good place to go if you feel lost even after reading these instructions.

 

 

 

 

If your site’s posts or pages have any comments enabled, then it is always a good idea to monitor what people are saying and to be able to manage those comments.  You will find that the easiest way to view all comments is to go to your site’s dashboard, look on the left hand side of the screen where it has a menu for Comments, seen below.

Managing Comments

If you click “all comments,” you will be directed to a menu that has a list of every comment on your site. Seen below, this is your gateway to managing your comments.

Here you can see all comments, pending comments (comments that have not yet been approved), approved comments, spam comments (caught by your spam filter), or trash comments (comments that you have personally deleted).  By default, any comments submitted by site visitors must be “moderated” by the site admin – you.  This means that you need to approve, deny, etc, these comments.  NOTE: Many comments are spam, and others are actual comments or inquiries by people actually interested in your business.  It is up to you, as the business owner, to peruse the comments and determine if they should be publicly displayed, replied to, or deleted.

In order to do this, you can apply certain actions to comments by checking the box to the left of the comment, and then using the drop down menu called “bulk actions” to choose what you would like to do with the selected comment(s). After you select an option, click “apply” to make the changes. This same menu is also below the list of comments. This just makes it more convenient to use if you have a long list of comments to go through. You can also choose what comment types are in the list by using the drop down menu called “Show All Comment Types”.  Click “filter” afterward to make the changes.

Spam Filter

The next item on the comments menu is “spam filter”. This is extremely helpful on any website where anonymous visitors are allowed to comment. You will be surprised at how many spam comments come through websites on a daily basis.  The spam filter we use is called the “TanTanNoodles Simple Spam Filter”. When you click on “spam filter” you are directed to a menu that contains all of your spam filtering information.

The first bit of information will tell you how many comments have been filtered. On this example image, you will see that 116 have been blocked.

The next sentence explains that if someone makes a comment that does not comply with the set filter rules, they will immediately be rejected.

The website for the filter program is listed here as well, a good place to go if you have a burning desire to learn every pieced of this program.

Captcha Verification

The next section of this menu is the “captcha verification”. This is the little window that pops up with strange letters and numbers, and asks the visitor to verify that they are a human, like the example here:

Enabling the “reCAPTCHA” box will allow visitors of your site up to two chances to correctly type the captcha verification.  Leaving this option unchecked will allow spam to more easily get into your site.

Filter Rules

The next section is for the “filter rules”. This is where you can set how many links people can have in their comment, as well as disable users with blocked comments from posting more comments. Under “banned patterns” you can put items from html here that you will not allow in the comment. If you are unfamiliar with how this works, please leave it as it is. The last part of this section is the “banned words list”. This is where you can write words that may appear a lot in your spam comments. It is advised to put profanity and other inappropriate words in this box. Remember, this is to make your life easier in the long run, and so that you can quality control your site.

After all settings are changed, remember to save them by clicking “save rules” at the bottom of the screen.

Your website comes equipped with a ready-to-program contact form. To access this form, please go the contact form menu on the left side of the screen, pictured below.

After you have clicked on “Contact” you will be prompted with the message shown below.  Note that you will only see this message if you have never had a contact form saved on your site.

Creating A Table

From here, click “create the table” link.  You will see a new page appear with a variety of options. The first area (in a brown bar) shows the code that must be added to the page you would like to have the contact form appear in. To do this, create a new page and, in the text area, simply paste that code. When your site is viewed, that page will display the contact form. The only way to view the contact form on the page is through the live site. In the editing window, you will only see the code.

The Form

The area which says “Form” is right below the code area. By default, this gives you very few pieces of your contact form. If you would like to change these areas or add more, click “generate tag,” which is on the right side of the form menu. This is a pull-down menu that features a bunch of options for you to add to your contact form.

When copying your new codes over to the contact form, it is wise to stick with the same layout and conventions as the default information. Fortunately, this is pretty simple…  You can see the way the code flows: a “p” inside angle brackets, the title, if you require one, then a break moving to the next line, and then the code generated by the “generate tag” drop down menu, then finishing with a “/p” inside more angle brackets, which closes the area of text. Please stick to this format.

How it will Contact You

The next section of the form is the “Mail” section. This is where you enter the information of who the form will be sent to (via email) and what it will contain. Make sure that any additional parts of the form that you have added are also included in the Message Body section. When creating a new tag, you are prompted at the bottom of the menu to insert the tag into the Mail Message Body section below.  If you forget to add the tag to the Message Body or other Mail fields when creating tags, you can do it at any time by adding the tag NAME inside square brackets wherever you need the resultant information displayed.

The “Mail 2″ section is just like the first Mail section, but is used if you would like the information to be sent as a copy to a second party, such as the person who filled out the contact form. To enable this setting, check the box at the top of this menu that says “Use Mail (2)” and format it however you wish.

Other Information

At the very bottom of the menu, you will see a section called “Messages”. When you click “show” you will see another menu appear. This is where you change the wording of different notification messages.  We do not recommend changing this area since the messages displayed are industry standard.

Also, please do not type anything into the “Additional Settings” area.

 

The calendar menu is located on the left hand side of your dashboard. Under this menu, you will see three menu items. We will explain each of those and a basic overview of how to use the calendar.

Manage Calendar

The first menu option is “Manage Calendar”. When you click this, a menu appears. This is where you can go to add an event, or manage existing events. In order to add an event, you must first fill out all of the required information, and click “Save”. Once you have done this, you will get a confirmation message.

In the image below you can see the confirmation message alerting you that the new event has been created successfully. You will also now have a table below where you can manage the events you have already created.

Manage Categories

The next menu item is “Manage Categories”. Once you click this, you will see another menu. This menu is used to add and manage categories for your events. Please note that these categories are separate from other categories on the site, such as the post categories. To add a category, name the category, and then you can select a hexidecimal color to distinguish each category. Hex colors are web-based color choices and can be found using a hex color code map. A good, free service for selecting hex colors can be found here: <http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-colors.html>

Calendar Options

The last option on the Calendar menu is “Calendar Options.” When you click on this, a new menu will appear, allowing you to control the display of the calendar when put into a page. This has an area several display options, such as how many events to show, etc.  NOTE: Do NOT edit the Custom CSS (Stylesheet).

Inserting a Calendar

When the calendar is set to all default settings, it will look like the calendar below.  To insert a calendar into a page, please type: {CALE*NDAR}  (but remove the asterisk) anywhere one the page, and it will show up there.

{CALENDAR}

NOTE: This article is provided for your convenience, but D’Mention Systems is not responsible for its content since the Gallery is not a product of D’Mention Systems, but is provided as an add-on benefit to your website.

On the left hand side of your dashboard, you will find a variety of menus. One of those menus is the “Testimonials” menu, pictured here:

Testimonials & Add New

The first option on this menu is “Testimonials”. If you click this, you will see the window below. This is how you add a testimonial. Testimonials are used on the site in a couple of different ways. The first thing that you will notice once a testimonial is added is that it appears on the /testimonials/ page already on your website. Also, you may activate the testimonials widget on the sidebar (see “Testimonial Widget” below), which will choose random testimonials from your group and display on the side of whichever pages that sidebar is activated on. The testimonials page is used to see all of your testimonials in one location.

To add a testimonial you need to fill out the appropriate information and then submit. “Name” refers to the name of the client or customer that wrote the testimonial, and “Website” refers to their website, if they have one. If they do not, you may leave that part blank.  At the top, you will see “Image”.  If you have a small, square image of your testifier, you may add it here.  Or you may use their Gravatar if you know their Gravatar-associated email.  Or you may select “No Image”.

This is also the same menu that you see when you click “Add New” under the testimonials menu.

Manage

The second option on the testimonials menu is to “Manage”.  Once this is clicked, you will see the menu below. This is where you will need to go if you would like to delete testimonials. It is also a nice place to see all of the testimonials at once, while staying within your dashboard.

“Add new testimonials” will take you to the “Testimonials” link discussed above.

Settings

When you click “Settings,” under the testimonials menu, you will see the menu below. This is where you may go to change the appearance of the actual testimonials page, not the widget. This allows you to decide on how big images should be, as well as how many testimonials appear on the page. NOTE: DO NOT adjust the Custom CSS.

Testimonials Page

A testimonials page is provided for you by default.  If it is accidentally deleted, you must create a new testimonials page on your site.  In order to do this, you must go to Pages > Add New. In the example, we have named the page, “Testimonials”.  (Because the testimonials page already existed, you’ll notice that the URL reflects /testominoals-2/.)  Use the code shown below on the page to display your testimonials and once you save, you will be able to see all of your testimonials in this one location on your site.

To see this page on your site, go to the actual site, not the dashboard, and the page should now appear. An example is below.

Testimonial Widget

Testimonial widget function allows you to place a widget into your site that randomly pulls testimonials from your collection and displays them on the side of the page.  Below is an example of a working testimonial widget.

In order to use this function, you will need to go to Appearance > Widgets. There you will see the “Testimonials” widget. Click and drag this to the location of your choice in the sidebar menu. You will then see that you can name the widget something else, decide how many testimonials to display in the widget at one time, and choose what page all of your testimonials are on. You do this in order to prevent the widget from showing up on that certain page. This is to ensure there is no unnecessary repetition. Once you click “save,” you are good to go.  NOTE: Do NOT adjust the Custom CSS.

NOTE: This article is provided for your convenience, but D’Mention Systems is not responsible for its content since the Gallery is not a product of D’Mention Systems, but is provided as an add-on benefit to your website.

The Gallery is a Tier 2 feature and there are many ways to utilize and display the Gallery.

Gallery Menu

You can access the Gallery by clicking on “Gallery” in the left hand menu of your website’s back-end.  (See below.)

Add Gallery/Images

Clicking “Add Gallery / Images” will allow you to upload any number of images into a specified gallery.  Please note that images cannot be uploaded without being assigned to a gallery and only one gallery at a time can be selected when uploading images. (See below). Also, take note that some images may be downsized, so be aware of the size of image that you are trying to upload. It is best to use 72 dpi images (web standard) to avoid any loss in image quality.

 If you have not yet made a gallery, simply click the second tab, “Add New Gallery”, name the gallery anything you like, and click “Add Gallery”. You will then be automatically taken back to the first screen, where you will be prompted once again to upload photos.

Once you add a new photo to the gallery, you will see that a confirmation message appears above the prompt window, which says that the photo was uploaded successfully.

Manage Gallery

If you go back to the Gallery menu on the far left side of the dashboard, you will see an option to “Manage Gallery”.  Click this and you will see a menu which lists all of your existing galleries. You will see that there are options to add new galleries, search through the images, as well as a pull-down menu of “Bulk Actions” that you may apply to one or more galleries.  Under this list you are able to delete albums, set a watermark on the album for added security, create new thumbnails, re-size images, import meta data, and recover from a backup.  You can apply these options to each album by checking the box at the left hand side of the album’s title.

Albums

Back to the Gallery menu, if you click “Albums”, you will be provided with a menu in which you can create albums, which are simply collections of galleries. For example, if you had five galleries from different events, you could make a general “Events” album and include all of those galleries without having to upload the pictures once again.

In order to do this, you must first create a new album, and the drag files from right to the left hand column to put other galleries or albums inside of the new album.  Once you are satisfied, click update, and this will save the settings of your new album.

Tags

Under the Tags Section of the Gallery Menu,you can manage the tags that you would like to use on your photos. This menu gives you commonly used options for photo tags, as well as the option to create your own. “Slug” means that you can create a name for your tag that is more search friendly. This term must be in lower case with no spaces. You may use a dash instead of a space. For example, if your tag says, “Portfolio Images,” your slug would be “portfolio-images.” You also have the option to delete tags from this menu as well.

 Options

Back at the Gallery menu, you will see “Options”.  Click this, and the menu displayed will have a line of tabs along the top. The default displays the General tab. On this menu you are able to set your gallery path, delete images, activate your permalinks (meaning the link that goes to your gallery that will not change), create image slugs, select a graphic library, create RSS feeds for your images, and activate Javascript effects for the way your images display in your galleries.  You can also select whether or not related images should appear when someone is viewing another image.

The next tab to the right is for “Thumbnails.” Think of these as the mini-photos that you see in the gallery before clicking to enlarge. Here you may change what size your viewers will see them at, as well as the quality of the image. You would change the quality of the image to change the loading time of your page.  NOTE: Smaller images of lesser quality load much faster than larger with higher quality.

The next tab over to the right is “Images.”  You can use this area to change the size of your images, the quality, as well as turn on caching. This means that when someone accesses your page, their browser saves the image so that in the future, it will load faster.  NOTE: You should click “Clear the Cache Folder” when you change your image settings, so that the new images and or settings will appear for those who have a page already cached in their browser from an earlier viewing.

Under the “Gallery” tab, you can deactivate a gallery’s link, change the number of images per page, decide on the number of image columns, create slideshow settings, decide on slideshows vs. thumbnails, show the image browser instead of the slideshow or thumbnails, add hidden images, create Ajax pagination (which does not make the browser refresh for every photo), and change your image sorting options.

The next tab is called “Effects”. This is the menu where you can change the settings of how images appear in the gallery. You use the Link Code line to show your gallery in a page, with the specified effect. Please do not change the Link Code line. Try experimenting with different effects to learn exactly what they mean.

The next tab is the “Watermark” tab. This is where you can change the settings for your watermark. If you do not wish to ever use a watermark, this is not something you need to change or take time to learn. If you are going to use a watermark, you can use an image file or just text. The options are simple, and a preview is shown to the right so you know exactly how the mark will show up on your images.  NOTE: All images in the Gallery are effected by the watermark.

The last tab is the “Slideshow” tab. All of these settings control the look and feel of your slideshow. The best way to see how this works is to create a sample slideshow and change the settings until you are satisfied.

 Roles

Back to the Gallery menu on the far left hand side of your dashboard, you will see the “Roles” category. Click on this and you will be directed to a menu where you may adjust who has permissions to which areas of the galleries. For sites where there are many different users, this might be a good idea to ensure that only the proper users are able to change galleries and settings.

About & Reset/Uninstall

The last two parts of the Gallery menu on the left are rather unimportant for changing settings. The “About” category is where you can find more information regarding the creators of this gallery software, etc. The “Reset/Uninstall” category does just what you think it does.  Please do NOT visit the Reset/Uninstall page.

Inserting a Gallery Image, Gallery or Album

This gallery program uses certain codes in order to insert the gallery material into pages and posts. The following list are the codes that you may need to use in order to insert the proper displays and items into your site.

When writing a page/post, you can use the following tags:

For a slideshow : [slideshow id=x w=width h=height]

For an album : [album id=x template=extend] or [album id=x template=compact]

For a gallery : [nggallery id=x]

For a single picture : [singlepic id=x w=width h=height mode=web20|watermark float=left|right]

For a image browser : [imagebrowser id=x]

To show image sorted by tags : [nggtags gallery=mytag,wordpress,... ]

To show tag albums : [nggtags album=mytag,wordpress,... ]

To show random mages : [random max=x ]

To show the most recent added mages :   [recent max=x ]

 

Tips and Tricks

If you encounter an issue with the gallery slideshow restarting or having problems playing through, please take the following steps:

• Go to the dashboard, and edit the page that has teh slideshow. Click on the HTML tab (Next to Visual) and find the code that says [slideshow id=1]. Edit this tag so that is does not have <<strong>> or <</strong>>. If it does, delete both sides. This should fix the problem.
• Just to clarify: change <<strong>>[slideshow id=1]<</strong>> to just [slideshow id=1].