TNG: How to upload media

The previous article on how to import media is useful when you just want to bulk load images into TNG from your TNG subfolder:- no titles, no descriptions, no links to individuals.  Those follow-up steps would be done separately. But what if you want to transfer images from your home computer to your TNG site and also be able to tag them at the same time with the titles, descriptions and people links?  This is what “Upload Media” can do for you. Note: The ability to import and to upload media is restricted to administration privileges.     Let’s get started.  First, you have a number of images stored away on your home computer.  Just check that the images are where you expect to find them, that they are of a size and file type you want, and that you know of who or what is in each image, because you are going to be able to assign them to people and places. Then decide what collection best suits the images.  Have a review of the article on What is media? if you are not sure.  Also check in the collection folder to be sure you won’t have duplicate file names with the images to be uploaded into that collections folder.  TNG will rename your new uploaded files if there is a potential conflict.  For example, an uploaded file with name conflict could become “granddad(2).jpg”, along with the original “granddad.jpg”. So log in as administrator, go to Administration and click on the Media tile.  Click on the “Upload” tab. Your first choice is picking a collection.  Select the collection that should house your images that are about to be uploaded to TNG.  I am going to upload a few photos of my grandfather, so my Collection = Photos. Then select a tree, or not.  You do not have to select a tree, but if you expect to have a lot of images in your TNG, this helps keep the display of images more manageable.  I will be selecting Tree = Benedict. Ignore the “Folder” text box for now; that will be discussed in a future article. Okay, we are now ready to bring granddad into the TNG site.  We do that with the “Add files…” button. Shown above is a file browser window, opened on top of the TNG Upload Media page.  Note that I have selected my collection and tree.  Then by clicking on the Add files… button, I can see choices of images on my home computer.  You might have to select the correct computer subfolder to find the images you want. There are a few shortcuts to selecting multiple images.  You could click on them one at a time, click the Open button, then go back to the Add files button and do it again.  Or, you can click on the first image you want from the subfolder, and then hold down the control key (Ctrl on a PC) and click on the other images until all are selected.  Then release the control key and click on “Open”. Most browsers (not older Internet Explorer) will also allow you to drag and drop files from another window directly onto the white area in the middle of the Upload Media screen. If successful, you should see your images appearing in the Media Upload screen, as below. All looks good at this point.  So now you can delete a file that shouldn’t be uploaded at this time; use the Cancel button to the right of the image.  If you want to upload only one image now, click on the Start button to the right of that image. At the bottom of the screen, you can associate all of the images with an individual in your family, which is my situation: my grandfather, Peter George Benedict.  I will set Tree = Benedict, Type = Person and ID = I4.  Note the search button if you need to look up the individual. Now we are ready to upload the files.  Go back to the top of the page and click in “Start upload”.  You should see the upload progress bar on each image.  When the upload completes, you should see something like this: Note that I have already typed a description into the box for the first photo.  You can do the same for all uploaded images.  Click the Save button as you complete each description.  The Media Links button allows you to link the images one-by-one to different individuals.  But I selected grandpa’s images this time, so I want to link all of them to him.  I go to the page bottom and click on Select All.  All the section boxes get selected, and I could de-select them one by one, if so desired.  I could also delete the images from this page (the image files are not deleted from your TNG subfolder). Now that all the images are selected, I check the page bottom to be sure the individual’s ID number is correct, that all the images are selected, then I click on “Link to selected”.  Done. Just to verify it, I’ll go back to the public-view of the individual page for Peter George Benedict, scrolling to the bottom.  And there he is.  If you hover your cursor over any of the thumbnail images, a pop-up window will show a larger version.  Or you can click on the thumbnail to see the image in an individual page. Have fun uploading your family and viewing them.  Next, we are going to explore Collections.