Submitting content

Registered users can currently submit the following:

• News
• Articles
• Classes
• Classifieds
• Events
• Links
  
• Photo albums

Registering

You can register here or via the "Login form" section on the left. You will have to provide a valid email address and answer a skiff related question (this will help prevent spammers). To complete the registration you will be sent an email with a link that you will have to follow.

Submitting news, articles and classes & classifieds

The procedure for submitting news, articles, classes & classifieds is the same: they are just put into different categories. The submission page is accessible for registered and logged in users via the "User Menu" or via the "Add" link on the appropriate page.

The submission page requires you to choose the category & title and then presents you with 2 editors - 'Intro Text' and 'Main Text'. For longer articles it's worth putting in a summary in 'Intro Text' and the main article in 'Main Text' as this provides a 'read more' link which makes it easier to scan the list of articles and choose what you want to read. For short pieces of news, etc the 'Main Text' can be omitted.

Once you have written your content, click the large save icon to submit it. All content 'owned' by you (i.e. stuff that you have submitted) will have the edit icon: next to it, allowing you to revise and update it.

Unfortunately, you cant copy pictures into the editors, you can only create links to pictures that are already on the site. However, you can submit pictures via the gallery and then link to them via a url using thetoolbar icon. More information on how to do this is available in the photo submission section below.

Unfortunatly you cant currently delete even your own content so if you need to you'll have to ask me. 

Events and links

These are hopefully relatively straight forward and accessible via there respective links in the "User Menu": I haven't tested them much however so as ever, let me know of any problems. 

Photo Albums

You can add photos via the User Menu or from the gallery section of the website. You will first have to create an album to put your photos in and then use "Add Items" to add the specific photos.

There are various ways to submit photos but the easiest is probably the 'upload applet' (hint: it's on one of the tabs), This allows you to select a bunch of photos and set them uploading at once. You can also submit individual photos in the 'from web browser' tab but this will probably prove cumbersome. There are other more convenient ways to upload photos if you are willing to set it up, via 'Gallery Remote'. There are various applications that support the 'Gallery remote' protocol allowing you to do slick things like upload directly from the Windows XP photo publishing wizard that pops up when you plug your camera in - I've not tried any of this so ymmv, but let me know how you get on.

The gallery can deal with resizing photos and creating thumbnails etc. although if your photos are huge you may want to make them a bit smaller so they dont take forever to load (big photos can be nice, however as they allow people to print them if they want).

Linking to photos:

To link directly to photos in the gallery (i.e. from an article you have written) you need to get the address (url) of the image. To do this, find it in the gallery, choose an appropriate size (I'd recommend something pretty small - 300/400pixels wide or so) and get the properties of the image (right click, properties on most PC browsers). You should be able to copy the direct url from the images properties. I know it's cumbersome, sorry.

General guidelines 

• Only submit suitable content: this is the Scottish Skiff website and consequently content should be relevant - never copy photos and text from other websites, consider submitting a link instead.
• When writing articles please try and use the the predefined styles: paragraph, headings 1-6, etc. rather than making your title bright green, 36points, bold, italic and underlined. This helps stuff look consistent.
• Respect copyright! Particularly relevant for photos

Confused?

Dont worry - just speak to me. Ideally if you use MSN Messenger, add me (quiffhanger (at) hotmail.com [dont email the address though, I dont check it]) and I'll try guide you through the process as you do it.