How to to do STUFF guide

[Sammi]

Please find here a list of useful Hints & Tips for the use of the site. We hope you find them useful. If anyone has any questions or suggestions for this list, please get in touch.

How to create a new thread on the forum

• First, check to see if there is an existing thread that covers what you want to ask or that answers your question.
  
  
• Assuming no, decide which of the boards we have is the most appropriate for your thread; if you're not sure ask one of the team for advice.
  
  
• At the top of the page underneath the board title, you will see a number of options. Click on NEW TOPIC and a new window will open. Write your post, remember to make your subject relevant to what you want to share or know.
  
  
• When you're finished,click on PREVIEW to see if the post is as you would like, and make edits if you need to, then once you're happy, click POST, and you're done.
  
  

How to upload pictures to the Gallery

• As a new user, the first thing that you have to do is create a personal album. You do this by selecting Create/Order my Albums from the drop down menu in the 'My Profile' option in the Gallery (NOT the forum). You're free to call them what you want, then add a brief description of what will be in the album. You can have as many albums as you like, and can edit them as you see fit.
  
  
• Now you can upload a picture, select 'Upload file'.
  
  
• You need to select an Album to put the file in, which is your personal album that you created earlier.
  
  
• Click on browse to select the image you want to upload. We recommend JPEG images at 70 – 80% compression having a width and height of no more than 2460 pixels or thereabouts. Maximum file size is 8MiB.
  
  
• Give your picture a title, all that's needed is a brief description of what it is.
  
  
• File description is where you go into more detail about the picture. You can include up to two img tags in this if you want, but they must be noticeably smaller in size than the image itself.
  
  
• Select a category from the drop-down list: Lamps, Lanterns, Gear, Miscellaneous, or Off Topic.
   
  
• Fill in the rest of the fields if you have the information, other members appreciate seeing this, so please do so if you can.
  
  
• There is no daily upload limit at present, but please do not go overboard on the number of images that you upload at any one time.
  
  

If you have any problems, contact one of the team and they will try to help you.


How to reduce the size of files

Sometimes the size of files that you wish to upload are too big for the site to handle, so it is necessary to compress the size of them. There are various utilities out there that will do this for you, but the one at Optimizilla is very easy to use, you just have to follow the on screen instructions, choose how much compression you want and download the result back to your machine, then try the upload again.


How to make links on the forum

When you want to insert a link it is as simple as clicking on a button.(The picture of a little chain)

• At the place where you want the link to appear click on the button to bring up the url tags and type or paste the text of the link that you want, e.g. https://trad-lighting.net into the pop up box and add the text that you want to be displayed, if you want.
  
• More emphasis can be given by nesting underline/italic and bold tags before you insert the text, but in order for them to work properly you have to use them in the order U, I and B.

How to make Links in the Gallery

This is a bit more involved than making links on the forum and requires a bit more concentration. This method can also be used in forum posts if you want to.

• To make a simple link such as https://trad-lighting.net simply type the link text, not forgetting the http:// or https:// prefixes.
  
  
• To display Trad-Lighting use:
  
  
  Code Select Expand
  [url=https://trad-lighting.net]Trad-Lighting[/url]*Note: You can copy and paste the above example as an easy tool and edit it*
  
  
• More emphasis can be given by adding bold tags, as in this example: Trad-Lighting
  
  
  Code Select Expand
  [url=https://trad-lighting.net][b]Trad-Lighting[/b][/url]*Note: You can copy and paste the above example as an easy tool and edit it*
  
  Other tags such as Underlining and color can also be used. Please also be aware some tags do not work in the gallery although they do in the forum.
  
  
  How to reduce the length of links
  
  Overly long links tend to break, we do not want to see a link that can run to several lines. If one is seen, it will be ediited, but we would prefer not to need to do that.
     
  eBay auction links usually have a lot of extra information in them that is not needed to display the listing. So all of the extra information after the item number doesn't need to be in the link that you paste into the comment or post.
  
  Other links that need to be shortened can be done through websites like TinyURL, follow the on screen instructions to make the shortened URL, and you even have the option of creating a custom one.
  Other applications are available.