Instructions for uploading graphics from the CD-based site

As far as I can tell, every image that was on the web site is on the CD. John Elberfeld can supply copies of the CD - just ask.

I recently found several ways to locate pictures (my computer sometimes stops working in one program, so I have to find another way in order to keep going without rebooting.) Here is more than you ever wanted to know about locating and loading images.

Each image must be uploaded, one at a time, from the IMAGES directory that was originally on the CD. There is NO ORDER what so ever to how the images are stored in the IMAGES directory.

So far, every link in a file to an image has been a valid link. Someone has to locate the image file in the IMAGES directory that was on the CD and upload it, though. The images are NOT online until someone uploads them.

Often the fastest way is to click on "Upload file" in the left navigation column. Click on Choose File. Navigate until you are looking in the Images directory. Type or paste the name of the file in the search box in the upper right corner of the Upload screen. Just wait a minute or so and the file will appear. This method does NOT like hyphens in a name. You can enter just the part of the name without a hyphen and the program will find it.

If you want to locate an image in the IMAGES folder, you can use the Windows "Search" option, which can be slow. IF you copy all the IMAGES folder onto your hard drive and if you search just the images folder, it is faster. It will tell you the folder inside the images folder to look in for the image.

Another way is to look at the "Properties" of a graphic. (Right click on the graphic in the CD-based biography, choose "Properties.")

You will see something like: file:///C:/Users/my%20pc/Documents/AHT%20DEV%20DISK/mediawiki/images/8/8a/1861FortSumterFlag.jpg

You will have to click in the first part of the line and then scroll through to see the rest of it.

The key piece of information is the 8a in front of the file name. That means the image is in the IMAGES folder 8, and inside folder 8, it is in 8a. You can upload it from there. This is the same information you get when you do a search in Windows.

If you are looking at the biography file from the CD, you can right-click on the biography text and then choose "View Source" - this will give you the HTML code my back-up program used to generate the page, not the MediaWiki code. You will see tons of garbage, but if you scroll to the name of the graphic file, you will see something like "<img alt="" src="images/8/8a/1861FortSumterFlag.jpg" width="114" height="71"" - this is an alternate way to learn the graphic is in folder 8a in the images directory.

You can also get to the file by going to UPLOAD, then paste the file name into the upper right hand search box. You have to first make sure you are looking in the entire IMAGES folder. If you try to type the name in, the program only gives me time to type the first few letters before it starts searching.

All the search processes sometimes stop working until I reboot the computer, which can be frustrating - which is what is happening to me right now.

Also, file names are CaSe SENsiTive! Flag.JPG is considered a totally different file from Flag.jpg, for example. The name of the file must match the name in the link exactly.

Contact John Elberfeld at [email protected] if you have questions.