You can upload many images onto SmartSpace to use on your website. All the images uploaded are available through the secure SmartSpace domain name which helps speed up the loading of images and other pages.
Creating Albums
- To create an Album and upload images go to Control Panel > Content Manager > Upload Images.
- You create Albums when uploading the first image to go into the album.
- Images must be loaded into an Album - either make a selection from any existing albums or create a new album by naming the album in the field.
- You can change the name of the album later.
- You should not use the following names unless you are using it for specific purposes as laid out below in Favicons and Special Albums.
- Any Albums created are private by default as are all images loaded into them.
- Albums can be viewed by the public as a Gallery, but first the Album must be marked as public and the images you want the public to see must also be marked as public.
- After creating the Album and uploading the images, you can edit the Album and mark all the pictures as public by ticking the appropriate boxes.
- Go to Manage Albums > Edit Album and edit the album as necessary.
- If making an Album public, you should give it a Name which is short but descriptive as the public may see the name of the Album.
- You can make individual pictures private by editing the individual pictures.
- Manage pictures by going to Manage Albums > View Pictures > Make picture selection.
- Any picture can be viewed with a direct link whether or not it is made public. The public selection only applies when viewing in a Gallery.
- Public Albums (Galleries) can be viewed on your website in a number of configurations.
- They can be viewed as standalone content or attached to content pages or product pages.
More on Uploading Images
Only web friendly image formats can be uploaded onto SmartSpace using the Image Upload tool. Because load times vary, be patient - it may take some minutes for an image to upload.
- Only images with the .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif formats can be uploaded.
- All images with minor exceptions (see below) will be renamed when uploading.
- You should establish some kind of naming convention so that images are easily identifiable later.
- As default, images are resized when uploaded to ensure download times (when embedded on your website) are not excessive.
- You can override image resizing for images which must be of a specified size (e.g. website headers are usually well over 900 pixels wide).
- Four versions of all images are created when uploading;
- 700x700px max, 1000x700max or normal size (album name directory),
- 400x400px max (preview subdirectory),
- 200x200px max (medium subdirectory),
- 100x100px max (thumbs subdirectory).
- Although there are times when you can select the image you want to use, the website will usually automatically select the version it needs.
- The name of the image can be changed at a later date (the name on the server remains the same).
- Images uploaded directly from digital cameras may sometimes be too large to upload. The size limit for uploading images is 5 Mb.
- If the final size of an image is more than 100kb it is too large to be loaded into an internet page. Delete the image.
- As a guide, an image which is originally about 1mb, will result in a resized uploaded image of about 50kb.
- Images which are uploaded as their original size should be optimised for the web before uploading (most popular image editing programs have a "save for web" option).
- Images can be attached to content in a variety of ways. (See below for more.)
- Although it is possible to embed images in content using the formatting tools, it is often better to use the preformatted attachment tools which present images in a professionally formatted manner.
- Images embedded in content can sometimes have unintended results - so tread carefully when using this option.
Favicons and Menu and other Icons
SmartSpace allows you to totally personalise your website template.
- Favicons are small icons which appear in all modern web browsers near the address bar and often on browser tabs.
- The SmartSpace Top Menu can be converted to icons instead of text.
- The Titles album can be used to upload page titles as images.
- The system can automatically replace the title of content with a selected image.
- Only one version of the image is uploaded and used on the website.
- The Buttons album can be used to upload replacement Buttons onto the website.
- The system can replace normal Buttons with custom Buttons.
- Only one version of the image is maintained on the website.
Attaching Images to Written Content
Images attached to content can be numbered to appear in certain places on your website. Different templates handle some attached images differently so read the relevant template manual to get the most out of your website.
- Attached images numbered "0" will only appear on the front page of your website where supported.
- Attached images numbered "1" will only appear in some link panels where supported.
- Attached images numbered "2" will only appear as a top background image for a content page where supported.
- Attached images numbered "11" or greater will appear in the body of your content with a clickable link to a gallery to see the full sized image(s).
- Some Front Page images will fade or scroll in and out when more than one image is attached to the content when numbered 0 (depends on the template).
- When deleting an image from Content, the image remains in the database and loaded on your server (only the attached link is deleted).
- Images can be attached to Content as a complete album - select a public Album when saving or editing content.
- Your Content - Image attachment tool will provide more information on image numbers where other uses are designated for images in the template framework.
Managing Images
- Manage individual images by going to Control Panel > Content Manager > Manage Albums > View pictures (selected album).
- Click on the image to edit or view details.
- You can do the following when editing images;
- Change the name (the server name remains the same),
- Add or change tags (tag search is not yet supported but will be soon).
- Delete an image.
- A reduced size image is available on the manage page, but a full size image can be viewed using the available link.
