Lesson 8:  How to Upload Files

 

Overview:  Adding team information, schedules, rosters and scores is great, but there are several other ways that a Team Reporter can help make the website more interesting and more informative.  One handy way to do just that is to upload files such as Word documents, Excel files, PDF files, digital photo files and graphics such as logos or clip art. 

 

In this lesson we will look at how to upload a Word document such as a tournament bracket.  The same process would apply to uploading a photograph or a logo.  As you will see, one of the keys to successfully uploading a file to the website is identifying which of the three categories that League Lineup supports (Images, Files or Graphics) your file fits into.  

 

1. Select "File Upload" from the Admin Menu.  This will take you to a page called "Multi-File Upload Manager"  shown at the right.  Please note at top of the page is "File Optimization Information" with the option to check a box that says "Bypass File Optimization."  Leave that box unchecked for now.  The purpose of File Optimization is to reduce the size of large photo files so that the pages with photos will load faster. 

Note:  the first time you go to file upload page, you may need to click on an Active-X control called "XUpload Upload Control.  Just follow the prompts on your screen to install the uploading software.

 

 

2. Select Upload Type.  See the drop-down selection box next to "Step 1 - Select Upload Type."  This is the trickiest part of uploading -- selecting the correct choice for the type of file that you want to upload.  But if you mess up, you can always do it again. 

Basically, there are 3 types of file "categories" or types that League Lineup supports:

Images - such as logos, clip art and drawings.  These would typically be files that end with the extension .gif or .tif. 

Photos - digital photo files that end in the extension .jpg.

Files  - probably a better category name here would have been "Document," since "Files" is not very descriptive.  These are document files such as Word, Excel, pdf files -- in other words text files.

Select the category from the drop down list that best describes the type of file you want to upload.  In this lesson, we are going to upload a Word document, so select "Files" from the list.

 

  

3.  In order to upload a file it must be saved on your computer in a location where you can find it.  Let's say that we want to upload a Word document called "elkhorn round robin" that we will use as part of our Tournament information about that upcoming tournament.  (See Lesson 9)  Let's also assume that you received the document in an email message and saved it on your computer's hard drive in your "My Documents" folder.  At this point, you would click on the "Select" button in the Upload Manager.  This will open a new window that displays the files on your computer.  Look at the folder name at the top of this new window to confirm that you are in the My Documents folder.  If not, select My Documents from the list on the left side of the smaller window.

 

 

 

4.  Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the list of files in the small window to move horizontally through the files in the My Documents folder until you find the file you want.  Once you find it, you can either click it once and then click the "Open" button, or you can double-click it.  Either method will cause the file name to appear in your Upload Manager window as show below in #5.

 

5. Check the name of your file in the Upload Manager window to make sure that you have the file that you want.  If it is not the correct file, you can click on the file name to highlight it and click on the "Remove" button to delete it from the Upload Manager (doing so will not delete it from My Documents.)  At this point, you haven't uploaded the file yet; you have just selected the file that you want to upload.  If this is the file that you want, click on "Upload."

 

 

6.  After you click "Upload," a green progress bar will show the progress of the uploading process.  When the upload is complete, the green bar will disappear, and you will return to an empty "Upload Manager" window.  If you had wanted to upload multiple files, you could have gone through the file selection process several times to add several files to the Upload Manager window before hitting "Upload" to upload them all at the same time.

When you are done uploading, scroll down to the file list below the Upload Manager window to find the file that you just uploaded (I've highlighted it in blue in the window at the right.)  If for any reason, you need to delete your file, you can check the "Delete" box next to the file name and then click on the "Delete" button at the bottom of the page. 

 

 

7.  The files that appear below the Upload Manager window are files that have been uploaded by ALL BaseballNebraska.com users.  These files are important to the person who uploaded them so please be very careful not to delete any files other than those that you uploaded.  Files may have similar names so be careful!

Speaking of file names, it would be a good idea to keep a record somewhere of the names of the files that you uploaded and what Category the file was uploaded to:  Image, File or Photo.  Better yet, it would probably be a good idea to include your name somewhere in the file name before you upload it so that you can readily find it in the future, such as "elkhorn round robin (mayfield)." 

  

8.  If you want to upload a logo or a photo file, the process is exactly the same, however, you will need to select the appropriate Category for each type of file from the drop down list in Step 1 of the Upload Manager process as shown below.


 
Step 1. Select Upload Type:    
9.  OK, so now you have uploaded a file.  Great.  Now how do you make it visible or available to your users of the website? 

10.  Let's imagine that you have uploaded photo files of each of your players because you want to add a photo of each player when you create his player page as briefly discussed in Lesson Six, Frame 4.  You would select "Players" from the Admin Menu, select your division and team from the drop down and then select "Add Player" on the right side of the screen.  In the "Player Editor - Add New Player" please note that there is a "Photo Filename" drop-down selection list.  When you click on the down arrow, a list of all of the photo files on the system will pop up.  You would select the photo file for the ballplayer that you are adding to the roster.  Note: before you upload player photos, please give each player photo a name that includes the name of your team and the player's uniform number so that you can easily find your players' photos among all of those on the system.

 

 

11.  Several other pages that you will work with on the website have similar methods for displaying a graphic, a photo or a document for the readers.  For example, when you create Tournaments in the next lesson, you will learn how to create a link to a tournament information document such as the tournament bracket.  Or, when you create the Team Home Page that we talked about in Lesson 2, there are similar methods to add a team photo or a team logo that has been uploaded. 

Remember at the beginning of this lesson when I said the tricky part of uploading was figuring out which Category (Image, Photo or File) to use when you upload a file?  This becomes important when you actually use the uploaded file on a page like Players, Tournaments or Teams.  For example, on the "Add New Player Page," when you click on the drop-down arrow to select a player's photo, the system will only display files that have been uploaded to the Photo category.  So, if you weren't paying attention and uploaded the photo to the Files category, the photo won't be on the drop-down list.  You'll scratch your head and say, "hey, where'd that photo go that I uploaded?"  The answer is that it's on the system, but you can't get to it unless you're on a page that asks for you to upload a "File," i.e., a document, not a photo.  So, you'll need to go back through the process and upload the photo again and select the Photo category this time when you upload it.  Likewise, if you're creating a Tournament, the system will allow you to create a link to an uploaded File, so if you uploaded your Word document to the Photo or Image Category, you're not going to find it on the drop list of uploaded Files.  Keep in mind that if you make a mistake, just delete the original file that you uploaded to the wrong Category, and then re-upload it to the correct Category.

As you can see, uploading files is a little more computer-ish than most of the things that we've done, but uploaded files greatly add to the interest, appeal and information-sharing capabilities of the website.  It's not all that hard, and you will get better with practice.  I hope that you will take some time to master this technique, especially for roster photos, team photos, sponsor logos and tournament brackets, as these will add a lot to the site.

End of  Lesson Eight

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