SmartSpace provides special tools only available to Graphic Designers to save time in building websites.
The SmartSpace bulk image transfer system is available to Graphic Designers who use SmartSpace to store files (those who have a SmartSpace website have up to 5GB online storage space as part of your subscription).
How Bulk Image Transfer Works
1. Save all your images to directories on your computer, the structure of which will match the SmartSpace website;
- e.g. You may wish to create three albums for the website myspecialwebsite.com,
- Create a unique directory on your computer eg. myspecialwebsite
- Save your images into relevant sub directories under the [myspecialwebsite] directory,
- See the special information below on directory namespaces for naming conventions.
2. Upload your new directory to your SmartSpace site (not the client website) using sftp.
Upload the entire myspecialwebsite directory and its contents onto your SmartSpace site via sftp (your logins will be in your Global Site Details page) usinf Filezilla or similar ftp program.
Because SmartSpace needs to record all the images in a database and manipulate them in other ways, you cannot upload it directly onto the target site.
3. Transfer the Image Files
Go to Manage > Content Manager > Transfer Files;
- Insert the Path of the selected directory,
- It might be something like ourwebsites/myspecialwebsite (do not use a slash at the beginning or the end of the path).
- Please remember that you need to put in the path of the parent directory of the individual sub-directories that will appear as albums on the website
- Select the website you wish to transfer to, from your website list, as the Transfer Target.
- Click Get Files,
- The system will get all the files and directories under the selected directory.
- The will be shown in each of the sub-directories
- Click on any selected Directory (anywhere in the action bar).
- Complete the form - you must at least insert an Image Name (it is prepopulated with the file name),
- If you are using the images for a gallery, you may wish to include a Caption,
- Tags may help in the future for image searches (not supported at present).
- Click Process Files to send the files to the selected website under the Images directory.
- Continue the process for each directory until all are done.
- You can switch to the new website by selecting the target website in the Website List - top left.
Namespaces and Naming Conventions for Directories
Sub directories are converted into Albums by the SmartSpace system.
- SmartSpace sets aside some names to use for special functions. If you use these names it will automatically activate special SmartSpace features;
- menu - files in this album will automatically get converted to icons in the top menu if it is an exact match to the menu item and in .png format (e.g. home.png),
- titles - files in this album are used for content titles in both text and gallery,
- buttons - this special album is for use with the estore and other areas where custom buttons are enabled,
- icons - special small images and sprites used in various places on the website
- NOTE!! These albums do not change the name of the file on transfer, and only one copy is made (no thumbnails and other subsizes) as these images will only ever be used full size.
The "graphics_ " Namespace
- You can now also upload special site graphics by prepending graphics_ to an album name (e.g. graphics_borders);
- The graphics_ namespace acts like the albums above - direct copy and no sub sizes,
- All images in the albums with the "graphics_" prefix, will automatically replace files on the server with the same name, without warning or indication.
All other album (directory) names get the following treatment;
- File name gets converted into a unique name based on the original name e.g. myimage.png will get converted into something like myimage_6374.png,
- This prevents the accidental overwriting of images.
- Three more copies of the images are made and stored in the SmartSpace system upon transfer (for use in previews etc.), in default sizes:
- Max 100px x 100px
- Max 200px x 200px
- Max 400px x 400px.
- You can change the default sizes by resetting the Album Preferences (se below) at Content Manager > Settings(tab) > Gallery Settings
- This feature is handy especially when different sized images are used automatically in album and image content and products
- There is no resizing of the original images in the file transfer system, so please ensure images are properly web optimised and sized correctly.
- When images are uploaded one at a time in the Image Upload page, it does resize the uploaded images if selected
Resizing Images
- You resize the thumbnail images to a different size either before or after uploading;
- You cannot resize images in albums which do not have multiple sized images,
- In Content Manager > Settings(tab) > Gallery Settings you can specify the sizes you want the three thumbnail images to be,
- Insert the new sizes in the Thumbnail Sizes field and Update the settings,
- All new images uploaded into the system will be resized according to the new sizes,
- You can resize images already in the system by going to Content Manager > Manage Content > Resize Images,
- Record the name of the directory you want to resize (e.g. usually images/imagedir),
- Click the Get Files Button,
- Process the selected directory,
- Repeat as necessary with selected directories.
