Here’s an Idiot’s Guide (as in written by, not intended for) to using the photo galleries on the website.

Getting started

Before you can add photos to the gallery you need the appropriate permissions. Before you can be given those, you need to register on the blog. So, if you haven’t already done that then go and do it now!

What about the permission thing? Anyone who has already signed up should have been given permissions to create albums within the Malawi 2008 gallery. If you’ve only just recently signed up then I will get notification of that and I’ll assign appropriate permissions. If that hasn’t happened within a few days, get in touch.

OK, so you’re signed up and have the appropriate permissions. What next?

Creating an album

Log in and go to the Malawi 2008 photo album.

Once you are there you will notice a drop-down box at the top right.

Select ‘Add Album’ and you will then be presented with a form to fill in with the details of your new album.

The album name is important. This is the name of the directory on the server so it has to be simple - no spaces, no funny characters. Stick to something like ‘johnmalawi08′ or similar. The album title though is something a bit more meaningful - ‘John’s photos’, say - as this will be what people see.

The rest of the information is optional and can always be added later if you want.

When you’re happy, click on the ‘Create’ button and your album will be created on the server.

You will then have a screen of settings associated with your album.

You shouldn’t have to change anything on this page but be aware of it as you will need to visit it again later. You could use it to increase the maximum size of the images in your album but please be aware that increasing this from the default 800×800 max will limit the number of photos you can upload. The default settings will allow around 200 photos per user. (There is a 30M quota in place.)

Having created your album you will want to add photos to it, so read on to find out how to do that.