Here are the steps that I used to create Lurch's Gallery (see
Lurch's Truck Gallery). I hope you find this thread useful.
In general, I used three big steps to create the above gallery.
1. I created (offline on my laptop) all the content I wanted to put into the gallery and then uploaded that content (verbiage and photos) into a new gallery in the Stovebolt Gallerys.
2. I immediately edited that gallery in order to resolve links to my photos. This cannot be done until after the photos are published. I'll explain this further as I describe the process below.
3. When I was finished resolving everything, I clicked on the
Change Post button to re-publish the gallery with all the corrections in place.
Since the general public will be able to read my original post in that gallery with unresolved image links in it, I put the following message at the top of the verbiage to hold off (hopefully) getting comments about unfinished business that I already knew about:
[b][u]THIS POST IS BEING EDITED. I WILL DELETE THIS NOTICE WHEN DONE.[/u][/b]
If you envision having a long dissertation (like this one), I suggest that you plan to do steps two and three above in one sitting. This will minimize the amount of time the first draft of the post is seen by the public.
Before I get into the details of the process, I want to point out that there is a good document that has a lot of great suggestions about creating Gallery threads. Here is a link to it:
Gallery Guide Not all the steps below are necessary to successfully add images to a post, but these steps can be adapted to a variety of situations.
My hardware and software setup is as follows:
- HP laptop that is running Windows 10.
- I use a mouse. Never could get the hang of a touch pad.
- For browsing the internet (aka getting to Stovebolt.com), I use Mozilla's Firefox.
- To navigate and organize stuff on my hard drive, I use the Windows File Explorer.
- For composing the text for my post, I used WordPad (free within Windows)
- For composing the captions for my photos, I used NotePad (free within Windows). I could have used WordPad for the captions too, but I want to have WordPad side-by-side with Notepad on my screen so I can easily see the text of my post next to the captions of my photos.
Here's the high-level steps I used:
1. Clearly define the goal of the thread that will be created. In my case, it was to be an overview of the 25+ years that Lurch has graced my life.
2. Make a plan to achieve that goal. My plan included:
- Creating a folder on my hard drive where I put all the photo and text files needed for my Gallery Forum initial post. I create all my working folders under the Windows Downloads folder, which makes it easier to do backups of all my stuff. I just drag and drop the Downloads folder onto my portable hard drive to save a copy of all my files. See the first photo below or click here File Explorer screen shot.
- Researching things I want to link to in my post (and get their web addresses), such as other stories and photos that live online elsewhere that pertain to the text of my post.
- Thinking about what the gist of the text of my post should say or what topics to cover.
3. Create everything that will go into my initial post in the Gallery Forum thread. This means doing all the work of gathering photos, composing my text, and coordinating the text with the photos. The individual steps were:
3a. Searching and selecting photos that spanned that time frame. Keep in mind that for Gallery Forum threads, only the first post can add images and the limit is 25 files. A regular post in one of the other Stovebolt forums allows a maximum of 10. I put the chosen photos into my work folder. which I named LurchGalleryForumWorkPics.
3b. Putting the chosen photos in the order that I want, including renaming the photo filenames. In my case, I wanted the photos in chronological order. To get the photos in the order that I wanted for dropping into the Attachment Manager, I renamed them 1-xxx.jpg, 2-xxx.jpg, etc..
I tried to use descriptive text for the xxx, which helped me when composing the text for the post. For example, 4-LurchHalloween1996.jpg (notice there are
no spaces in the filename - important for working properly online).
3c. Compose the content (text) for the initial post in the Gallery Forum. This is the narrative that goes along with the images. For this exercise, I resized and positioned WordPad, the File Explorer, and NotePad on my screen so I can see and work with all three together. See the second photo below or click here
WordPad, File Explorer, and NotePad together on screen.
Consider that MANY MANY people are going to read your post's text. I strongly suggest that you create a story, instead of 'this is my truck and this is what's in it'. Talk about how you found it (or how it found you), how your vision of it became clear, and what work you did towards making vision a reality. How have you shown the truck? How have people at shows responded to your baby? All these thoughts make for great reading! Be bold and entertaining!
When I compose a long piece of text, I first do a 'mind dump', without regard for spelling or grammar. Just get my thoughts in print. Then, I put my editor's cap on and rework all the verbiage to say what I want it to say, to be in the order that I want, and to present the verbiage the way I want it. Basically, craft the message.
I spent many days of on-and-off working to create this post. for example. One advantage of composing the text offline in WordPad, instead of in the Full Editor, is that you can work on it, save your work, walk away, and come back to it without the pressure of doing the whole thing in one shot and then publishing it. You cannot 'save' your work in the Full Editor. Just create and publish.
Something to keep in mind about WordPad and NotePad is that they are very basic word processors that do not have many bells and whistles. One function in particular that is missing in both is a spell checker. Luckily, the Full Editor on the Stovebolt site DOES have a spell checker (incorrect words are underlined in red) so you'll get the chance to correct typos later in the process.
When I create the text in WordPad and get to a point where I want to reference a photo, I:
3c1. Jump over to the File Explorer and choose the photo I want to reference in the main post text
3c2. Rename the photo's filename (right click on photo, then choose Rename)
3c3. Jump over to NotePad and create the caption for that photo (do a Save As.. to save my work)
3c4. Finish writing about the photo in WordPad, including directions to the reader about which photo to look at. For example, I'll say something like what I did in 3c. above. Notice that I said which photo to look at (the second one) and I ALSO provided a link to that photo so the reader can just click on the link to see that particular photo inline without having to scroll to the bottom of the page at that particular moment. Ease of use and retrievability in action!
Here is the actual draft text for that photo reference above "See the second photo below or click here (LINK TO 2-WordPad-FileExplorer-NotePad-OnScreen.jpg)." The verbiage inside the parenthesis is a note to myself to insert the link at that point and which photo to link to. I'll talk about creating these links later.
See the third photo below, which is a screen shot of WordPad open with the draft of this post's text or clink here
Creating Text in WordPad.
3d. Save your work (ctrl-s)
often when working in NotePad and WordPad.
3e. Re-read your text and check it against your photos to catch any mistakes. I find that it is easier to do this checking if you walk away from the work for a while, do something else, and then come back to it with a fresh perspective. Sometimes, I leave a draft of something overnight and come back to it the next day.
3f. After you are satisfied with your main text, the photos that you've chosen, and their captions, it is time to put all this onto the Stovebolt site. In this example, I'm describing how I created a truck gallery in a Gallery Forum, so I navigated to the Gallery Forum (in this case, '16-'35) and started a new Gallery. See the fourth photo below or click here
New Gallery button circled.
4. Get your post text from WordPad into the Full Editor on the Stovebolt site.4a. When you start a new Gallery, you are put into the UBBThreads Full Editor. Before actually work on the new Gallery, resize your browser window so that it can sit on your screen side-by-side with the File Explorer and NotePad windows.
4b. Simply copy and paste all the text from your WordPad document into the Full Editor window.
Ctrl-a will highlight all the text in the WordPad document and ctrl-c will copy it all to the Windows Clipboard. Then, place your cursor in the Full Editor box and do a ctrl-v, which will paste your entire text into the editor.
This is SO much easier than creating a lot of text from scratch in the Full Editor! ;-) Especially a long narrative like this one.
4c. Now you'll see all the misspelled words or phrases underlined in red, so you can correct them. If you place the cursor in front of the suspect word and then right click on the word, the spell checker will give you possible correct spellings. Click on the one that you want or go look up the correct spelling on the internet. Use a dictionary? What's that? ;-)
4d. When you are satisfied with the text of your post, you are done with the text in WordPad, so you can do a final Save (ctri-s) and close WordPad.
4e. Go through your text in the Full Editor and make bulleted lists and ordered lists where you need them.
Also, check your spacing between paragraphs. White space is important for readability and ease of understanding. WordPad sometimes does funny stuff with spacing that needs to be fixed in the Full Editor. You don't want your text to be a big gray blob that causes the reader's eyes to glaze over.
4f. Resolve (or insert) links where you want to point to stuff that is out in the online world somewhere. Use the Insert Link icon (the world with a chain link).
At this point in the process, you cannot resolve the links to your own photos. They have to be published first. I'll talk about that later.
5. Put your photos or images into the Attachment Manager. 5a. Click on 'Image Manager' at the left bottom of the Full Editor to open the Attachment Manger. I know, why didn't they use the same words for the same thing? Sigh.
The Attachment Manger window appears and you're ready to add some images to your Gallery. See the fifth photo or click here
Attachment Manager window.
Notice in the photo that you can easily see (and get to) the File Explorer (with your photos or images showing) and NotePad (with the photo captions) that are sitting on your screen off to the side of the browser window.
Before I describe getting the photos into the Attachment Manager, here are some observations about how the Attachment Manager behaves (or doesn't).
- The caption that you want for a particular photo MUST be put in the Caption box in the Attachment Manager BEFORE you drag and drop EACH photo file on to the Attachment Manager window. Captions cannot be added or edited after you put the photo file in the Attachment Manger.
- The first photo you put in the Attachment Manager will be used as the picture that represents your truck's gallery. In my case, I chose a first picture that I wanted to represent my truck but was not necessarily in the chronological order of my 'story'.
- The photos are stored in the Attachment Manger in the order that you put them in there.
- There are two ways to get a photo into the Attachment Manager: drag and drop, or navigate to the image file on your hard drive and select it.
I use the drag and drop process. While the file is being copied into that window, a green status bar will show the progress of the copy process.
- If you decide that you want to insert a photo into the middle of the photos that are already in the Attachment Manger, you have to delete all the photos below that point in the list, put your new one in, and then re-insert all the other photos. Don't forget to re-insert the captions too.
- When you are done with getting your photos into the Attachment Manager, you MUST click on the DONE button. Do NOT close the window using the X in the top right corner. If you close the window without saying DONE, the Attachment Manager window will close WITHOUT saving your files and captions.
- The photos that you put into the Attachment Manager will NOT be shown on your screen until you publish your post. For example, if you Preview your post, the images will not be displayed. More about this later.
5b. Okay, now on to getting your photos into the Attachment Manager. As mentioned earlier, I start each photo's filename with a number so I can keep track of the order that they need to be in. Here's the process that I go through to get one photo into the Attachment Manager:
First Step. Highlight the caption for the photo (in NotePad), copy it to the computer's clipboard (ctrl-c), place the cursor inside the Attachment Manager's Caption box, and paste (ctrl-v) the caption into the box.
Second Step. Drag and drop the photo from your File Explorer window over onto the Attachment Manager window. You'll see a green progress bar while the file is being copied into the Attachment Manager. When the copy process has completed, the filename will appear at the bottom of the list that is generated under the Caption box. See photo number six below or click here
Attachment Manager with files in it.
Third Step. Keep doing steps one and two until you are done. Then, click the
Done button in the Attachment Manager. You will be returned to the Full Editor and you'll see the number of files (in parenthesis) that you put into the Attachment Manager. See the seventh photo below or click here
The Marked As Edited box, Attachment Manager with files, and buttons at the bottom of Full Editor.
6. Preview your post to see how it looks to you.Click on the
Preview New Thread button. If you change something in the Full Editor, you can preview it again to see the change. This is always an iterative process for me. ;-) See photo number 8 below or click here
Post and Preview buttons.
7. Publish your post for the first time. If you want to put links in your main text that reference the photos in the Attachment Manager, these photos have to actually be published before you can get their web address for the link. So, when you are satisfied with your overall main text in the Full Editor, click on the
Post New Thread button.
Your gallery is now LIVE on Stovebolt!! Congrats! If you have image links to finish up, though, there's still some work to do.
8. Get the web addresses of all the photos in the Attachment Manager. Now that your post is published, along with its photos, you can get the web address of each photo so you can create and resolve the links that you have in your main text. ;-)
8a. Right click on each photo and then right click on
Copy Image Link in the menu that appears. This action copies the photo's web address to the Windows clipboard. See photo number 9 below or click here
Copy Image Link.
8b. Place your cursor in your caption document in NotePad next to the photo's caption. Paste the photo's web address (ctrl-v) into the NotePad document. Then do a Save (ctrl-s).
8c. Repeat steps 8a and 8b for each photo until you have all the web addresses in NotePad.
9. Edit your post to create links to your photos. Click on the
Edit button and you will be put back into the Full Editor. The Edit button appears on a post you previously published. See photo number 10 below or click here
Edit post button.
Now you can resolve or create the correct links to your photos that now reside on the Stovebolt server and are in the gallery that you just created. For each link, here are the steps I used to create them:
9a. Place your cursor where you want the link to be in your text.
9b. Making sure you do not move the blinking cursor from its current placement, scroll to the top of the Full Editor and click on the Insert Link icon (the world with a chain link). See the first photo in the post below or click here
Insert Link icon circled.
A window will come up that asks you enter the URL (web address) that is the target of the link. See the second photo in the post below or click here
Insert web address window. Leave this window up and go to the next step in this process.
9c. Go to your NotePad document, highlight the web address of the first photo, and copy it into the Windows Clipboard (ctrl-c).
9d. Right click in the Web Address window and paste (ctrl-v) the photo's web address into the field in the window. Click
OK to close this window.
9e. Another window pops up where you put the title of the photo. Use just a few clear words that describes what is in the photo. See the third photo in the post below or click here
Create the title for the web target (your photo)9f. Repeat the four steps above for each link to a photo that you have in your main text of the post.
9g. Preview (click on the
Preview Changes button) your changed post text so that you can test all the links to the photos. See the seventh photo below or click here 7-AttachMgrFilesAndChangePreviewDeleteButtons.jpg.
9h. When you think everything is okay and complete, you ready to re-publish your post. Notice that the 'Mark As Edited' box is checked. If you do not want your post marked as edited, un-click the box. If you want to say it is edited, it is a good idea to put a reason for the editing, like fixing links or added info or whatever you want to say.
9i. To republish your post, click the
Change Post button at the bottom of the Full Editor.
Drum roll please!! Major Congrats!!! You're done!!Cheers, Dean
