The new Outpost-42 Gallery, accessible via the link in the Resources subsection (and, if you are logged in, from the 'Personal Gallery' link next to your username under the page banner), is a feature-packed tool with which members can organise photographs and other media into albums, and use them to share with members, friends, and post images on the forums.

The basic functions are relatively easy to get the hang of, but a number of more advanced functions are also available and should prove useful on the forums.

I'll progressively work through to the more advanced functions, but, first, some terminology.

The Galleries can be used to arrange photos and other multimedia files. Each photo will be stored along with auto-generated thumbnails and medium-sized versions of the image. Photos automatically have associated with them meta-data, which includes file and image information as well as EXIF data created by the camera at the time the photo was taken. Additionally, photos can have a title, a description, and keywords. Comments and ratings can be added by other forum members reviewing the photos of other. The maximum size for a photo is 1MB, and the maximum size for a multimedia file is 2MB.

Photos are arranged into Albums, which can have allocated to them a title, description and representative thumbnail (the default thumbnail, if a specific one is not allocated, is the last file uploaded). Examples of albums might be a specific event, a specific prop or costume, or a collection of items. Albums can be set to be visible to the member who created it, to members of their usergroup (e.g., NZ 501st members) or the general public. You can even password protect photo albums so that only people you share the password with can view them.

A photo can belong to multiple albums, but it must have a primary album (e.g., you can upload a file of yourself attending an event into an event album, but also have it appear in you costume-specific album, with having to upload it a second time).

Albums are arranged into Galleries. Each person has their own user/individual gallery - there are also shared Outpost-42 galleries, which include ones reserved for the maintenance of the Outpost-42 website.

Getting started - create an album.

Before you can upload a photo, you must create at least one album in you user gallery. From your gallery homepage, click on Create/Order My Albums. This button can also be used, obviously, to arrange the order of your albums at any time. A window will open that will be empty when you start, but which will later list all of your personal albums. If not already selected, select My Category as the category from the drop down box above the album list. The album list will change accordingly.

Click the New button. An album with the default name New Album will appear. Edit the album name in the text box below the album list. Click Apply Modifications, then Continue once the album creation confirmation message appears.

You can further refine the album details later (add a description etc), but at this point you are ready to upload photos to it.

Getting started - uploading images.

Most of this step is fairly self-explanatory, but there are a few additional features worth highlighting.

In the main menu at the top of the home page is the Upload files button. Click it! You can upload images, movies, documents etc, either from you own computer, or, if you already have them online somewhere, directly from a URL. It's obviously best not to be uploading images from other websites, but if it happens to be from SWNZ, particularly if it's your photo (obviously) or a photo of you...feel free to add it to your album.

When uploading files, you need to keep working through all the steps, otherwise you will lose your work - i.e., if there is a Continue button at the bottom of the page, the process is not actually complete.

So, first browse your local hard-drive for the file, or cut&paste the URL into the appropriate section of the upload page, and hit Continue. You will then get either a confirmation message or an error message for each file. The main reason you'll get errors is if the file is too huge....1MB limit for photos, and 2MB limit (at present) for movies. Hit Continue again, assuming everything is ok. Now you start entering information about the photo. The only compulsory field is allocating the photo to a pre-existing album (from the drop-down box), but it is worth adding in the other information. The keywords section helps with the searching of files, but also, when viewing a photo, will help jumping between related files...when a picture is viewed, keywords are shown as clickable links, which lead through to other photos that also have the same keyword(s). When the information is entered, as much as you feel you need, hit Continue again and you should get a confirmation message. The cycle will repeat if you have uploaded multiple files.

That's basically it. You can add an already uploaded photo into multiple albums, but that's a more advanced trick that I will get to explaining shortly.

Managing albums.

If you click on the My Gallery button on the homepage main menu, you'll bring up a list of all your albums (along with the standard selection of 'random' and 'most recent' thumbnails, drawn from your albums only this time). Clicking on the album thumbnail will bring up that album (will show you all the images as thumbnails), but clicking on Properties next to the thumbnail will let you do some useful things with the album. The Properties page has useful built in help links (click on the little question mark icons (IMG:http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/images/help.gif)), so I don't need to explain everything here. The album thumbnail section is helpful...it lets you force an image to be the representative thumbnail for the album (the default is the last image uploaded)....test the images from the drop-down box and they will show up in the preview pane above.

There are 3 parameters relating to Visitors...ignore these as although visitors (people who aren't forum members) can view images, they can't otherwise interact with these forum galleries.

There are 2 action buttons on that properties page... Update Album and Submit Changes. Don't get them mixed up as I have already done...the former relates to all the useful stuff above it, but the latter relates only to Reset Album options.

There's one very useful parameter on that page that requires explanation in particular...Album Keyword. This isn't a keyword in the same sense of the keywords that you apply to images, but rather a label or anchor that is used for attaching 'virtual' photos (i.e., photos that already belong to another album) to that album. This album keyword/label needs to be unique (or bad things will happen), and needs to be one word (so separate multiple words with underscores). Basically, if you add the album keyword into the photo keyword of an already uploaded photo, that photo will appear in the related album (a single photo can be linked to many secondary albums in this way). I'll go into this in more detail later, or you can read the associated help file here.

Using album images in forum posts.

This is where the real utility of the galleries come into play. Fortunately, it's also very easy to do.

Select an image...any image - it doesn't need to be in one of your galleries for you to use it in a forum post. Just find by searching/browsing etc. Underneath the filmstrip (which shows the next and previous images in the gallery) there should be visible a whole lot of information about the selected photo (if there is not, click on the little info icon, (IMG:http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/themes/deathstar/images/info.gif) , above/left of the selected photo, and it will make the photo info appear). At the bottom of all the photo/file info are two selectable bbCode strings (in text boxes) - one is used to insert a thumbnail image, and one to insert a medium-sized image. Highlight/select and copy the appropriate string, and then paste it into the required position in your forum post (to state the obvious, the easiest way to do this is to have 2 browser pages/tabs open, one with the forum thread and one with the gallery).

If you use the thumbnail code, you will get something that looks like this:

(IMG:http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/albums/userpics/10001/thumb_Como12.jpg)

And if you use the medium image code, you will get something like this:

(IMG:http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/albums/userpics/10001/normal_Como12.jpg)

In both cases, when the image is clicked in the final post, the viewer will be taken to the gallery, where they can see the full-sized image (by clicking on the gallery photo to bring up a pop-up window), and can see related photos in the same album etc. They also have the opportunity to view/leave comments, and read any additional description belonging to that photo.

For clarity, here are some screen grabs that show:

1) where the "info" icon is to make sure that the pre-configured bbCode is displayed, and,
2) the 2 bbCode options that you can cut&paste into your post.

(IMG:https://dr-maul.com/Outpost42/forums/uploads/0944/gallerygrab01.jpg)

(IMG:https://dr-maul.com/Outpost42/forums/uploads/0944/gallerygrab02.jpg)

Since installing and integrating the forum gallery, it's been my intention to synchronise the stylesheet and navigation. In doing so, you might find that some of the links you previously used aren't where they used to be...these screenshots will help familiarise you with the layout...it's based on that of the forums, so should be easier to remember/work out.

Over in the top left region are all the forum controls that exist on the main forum page...these let you access the board rules, your control panel, the arcade etc. The only difference is that the search and help buttons now take you through to Gallery search and help features (whereas those on the forum relate to the forum, of course).

(IMG:https://dr-maul.com/Outpost42/forums/uploads/0944/gallery01.jpg)

Over on the left hand side, under the familiar banner, are the controls for logging in and out, and, if you are logged in, a convenient link through to your personal albums. Below that are links that will take you straight back to the forum homepage or the gallery homepage, respectively. The link to the Outpost-42 website remains on the right-hand side of that link bar, as it does on all forum pages.

(IMG:https://dr-maul.com/Outpost42/forums/uploads/0944/gallery02.jpg)

And, the final significant change is that the useful Upload file button has been moved over to the left-hand side of the gallery-specific links, in order to clean up that menu block.

(IMG:https://dr-maul.com/Outpost42/forums/uploads/0944/gallery03.jpg)

I've added a couple more custom links through to the forum gallery, in order to increase the ease of access. The first one is complete - if you are viewing the profile of a member, you can link through to their albums from the left-hand profile box..."Go to member's Gallery" should be visible beside "Find member's posts" and "Find member's topics" (you'll just get a blank album if the member hasn't set up any albums yet).

When you are logged in, you will also notice a link to "Personal Gallery" up by your username/logout control in the masthead. Currently, this takes you to the gallery homepage, but shortly, once I've finished the coding, it'll take you through to your own set of albums, from where you can easily upload more photos or start new albums.

Update: the "Personal Gallery" link up by your username, in the masthead, should now be functional.

It's nothing forum specific...just standard Windows copy & paste functionality: highlight the text in one of the text boxes with either the mouse and left-mouse-button, or put the cursor in the text box and hit CTRL+A. To copy, either hit CTRL+C, or right-mouse-click on the selection and select "Copy", then paste that clipboard text into your post (either CTRL+V, or right-mouse-click and select "Paste").

e-Cards.

I've configured and switched on the 'e-Card' feature in the Gallery.
...Look for this icon at the top right of any viewed image ---> (IMG:http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/themes/deathstar/images/ecard.gif).
Click on it to be taken to an electronic postcard version of that image which, by filling in the form presented, can be sent to any email address.

This is what it will look like when received via email, or viewed online: http://outpost42.dr-maul.com/cpg147/displa...GMiO3M6MDoiIjt9