The Soaring Cafe offers offers a very media rich environment with plenty of photos and a variety of way to display them.

Instructions are provided below for uploading photographs to the Soaring Cafe.  Photos can be used in articles, on the front page image bar, in galleries and in our slideshows.  Click a link below for detailed instructions:

• Uploading a photo to be used in an article (a post)
• Uploading photos to a Soaring Cafe slideshow
• Uploading a photo for the Home Page Image Bar
• Uploading photos to create a gallery

There are several different images libraries in the underlying WordPress engine and database that make up SoaringCafe.com and these can be very confusing.  For any image to be displayed anywhere on Soaring Cafe, it must either be uploaded to the site so that it can be referenced or already exist somewhere on the internet so that it can be referenced via it’s URL.

The most basic image library is the native WordPress Media Library.  Images need to be in the Media Library for use as thumbnails for articles (posts) and for the Home Page image bar below the four article sections.   The links above describe how to upload images to the Media Library.

Next, Soaring Cafe uses a plugin called NextGen Gallery for producing the various slideshows, such as the Home Page slideshow, and gallery pages like the one here.  Both of these capabilities are accessed through special “shortcode” elements which are placed on the post being created.  We describe the use of these shortcodes here.

Finally, the images used in the Classified Ads are in their own library managed by the Classifieds plugin.

Uploading a photo to be used in an article (a post)

Photos must first be uploaded to the Media Library before they can be used in a post.  This is easily done from the WYSIWYG editor for creating a post (help for creating a post is found here).   The post editor looks like this:

WYSIWYG Editor (click for larger image)

The Image Library buttons are at the top.

Media Library Buttons for Uploading and Inserting media elements

The first button is the add image button.  You will see the following after you click this button.

Use this dialog box to upload images.

Generally, you will select the “From Computer” tab and upload images to the Media Library.  Select the files from you computer with the Select Files button and upload.  When the images complete the upload, WordPress will have crunched four versions of the image:

• a thumbnail
• an image with a max height or width of 300 pixels
• an image with a max height or width of 600 pixels, and
• a full size image

You can select any of these sizes for insertion into the post with either a left, center or right justification setting.  Note: only the left and right setting will wrap text around the image as center will always be above the current line.

You can edit the picture settings by clicking on the picture and then clicking the small picture icon.  You can also delete the picture by clicking on the picture and then clicking on the delete icon.

Sometimes, if you are not happy with the picture settings, it is simply easier to delete the picture and re-insert the picture.  To do this, click on the Upload/Insert icon above the WYSIWYG editor and there will now be a new tab labeled Gallery which is the pictures you have recently uploaded.

Finally, there is also a tab for inserting images from the NextGEN Gallery.  These pictures behave differently than described above when inserting and use the NextGEN Gallery shortcodes.

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Uploading photos to a Soaring Cafe slideshow

Use the following to upload photos to the Soaring Cafe for display in one or our many slideshows.  This upload process will automatically send an email to us notifying us of the new photo for our review and approval.  It is very helpful if the photo has a descriptive filename like “The Grid on Day 2 at Chilhowee.jpg”.  Also, provide a description in the box below to include a short description, the location, and the photographer.

Simply select the image from your computer by clicking the button below, fill out the description box, and click the upload button.  That’s all there is!  Repeat the process for as many images as you would like to upload.

[ngg_uploader id=13]

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Uploading photos to create a gallery

Galleries and slideshows offer a nice way to display photos for an event, by a photographer, or as a collection.  Creating galleries and slideshows requires you to use the features provided in the NextGen Gallery plugin found in the WordPress dashboard.  There are two methods for uploading photos to the a NextGen Gallery.

The first method is simple an allows anyone to simply upload images through the Public Uploader in the instructions found here.

The second method is a little more complicated but allows photographers the ability create and manage their on galleries for sharing with other Soaring Cafe readers.  The steps are outlined below.

1. Sign into the site.  To do this, you must have a login.  After you register, simple email us with a request upgrade your account from subscriber to author.
2. Go to the Dashboard by either
   1. Clicking on the Login Tab and clicking the Dashboard link
      

      Login Tab (upper right of your browser)

   2. Clicking your name in the upper left and clicking on the Dashboard link
      

      Dashboard Bar (upper left in your browser)

   3. Or following this link:  http://soaringcafe.com/wp-admin/
      
3. Once you are in the Dashboard, click on the Gallery Menu item in the left column.
   
4. Several more menu items should now be available.  Click on the Add Images/Gallery link.
5. Now, click on the Add Gallery / Images menu.
6. You will need to create a gallery if you do not already have one.  To do this, click on the Add New Gallery Tab and create a gallery.
7. You have two options for uploading photos.  You can upload large images and Soaring Cafe will crunch them down for you to a reasonable size.
   1. Click on the Upload Images tab and select the images to upload.  Be sure to select your gallery before you press the Upload Images button.
   2. Or, click on the Upload Zip File tab.  This is great because you can zip up you images and choose only one file from your computer.  Note: it cannot be more than 10Mbytes big.  If you have more, simply break up the file.
8. Now that you have the images in a gallery, you can click on the Manage Gallery menu item and then click on your Gallery and see all of the photos.
9. Finally, once you are in your gallery, edit the Alt & Title Text / Description fields for each picture.
   

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