Tips and Help for MARS Editors
The following information is intended to help MARS website Editors perform various maintenance tasks such as adding photos, uploading files to the Archive and more! You will need to be logged in to the MARS WordPress. It is useful to launch an additional web browser of a different type that is not logged in to MARS. For example, if you logged in to MARS with a Chrome browser, also launch a Firefox browser that is not logged in to MARS. This useful for testing your MARS website editing (it’s what the public will see after you Publish).
Suggested File Naming Convention (Format)
- File name should be descriptive, may contain a date or sequence; and should not be longer than 20 characters.
- Use only alpha-numeric characters [ a..z A..Z 0..9 ], dashes [ – ] or underscores [ _ ]
- Periods and spaces are okay but not recommended. Short and concise file names are easier to recognize and use later.
- If files are to be used in a series, such as an album of photos, use sequence numbers in the naming.
- Do not change the file extension (.PDF, .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .xlsx, docx, etc.)
- Examples: Picnic2022photos_01.jpg, Picnic2022photos_02.jpg, HIke20230305_01.jpg, BOD-meeting-20230228.pdf
- If file names contain a date, common file listing tools automatically sort files nicely if the date is formatted numerically as: YYYY-MM-DD, where YYYY is year, MM is month (01-12) and DD is day (01-31).
Add new photos or reuse existing photos in a post or page
Note: These instructions also apply to other file types, such as PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, etc. If reusing files that have already been uploaded and exist in the Media Library), skip Step 1.
Step 1 – upload new photos
- See File Naming Convention above
- Dashboard > Media > Library
- Click on an existing folder or create a new folder. Do not use the All files folder or the default Unorganized folder.
- If uploading a new file (does not already exist in Media Library), click the Add New button (at top, next to Media Library).
- Drag and drop file(s) into the box or click the Select Files button. After uploading, your file(s) are ready to be used anywhere in the website.
Step 2 – add photos to a Post, Page or Event (calendar)
- Navigate to the desired page (Dashboard > Pages), post (Dashboard > Posts) or event (Dashboard > Events) and select from several different photo/image-related block tools (see Slideshow tool below) to add an photos. Find and select your photo(s) in the applicable Media folder.
Create a photo Slideshow in a page
- See Adding new photos… above
- Navigate to the desired page (Dashboard > Pages) and click Edit
- Add a new block by clicking the “+” in the desired page location and select Browse All
- Search for or scroll and select Slideshow
- In the Slideshow block, click Media Library (file should already be uploaded), which launches Create gallery.
- In the Create gallery popup, under Filter media, click the No folder selected button.
- In the Select folder popup, select the desired folder.’
- Select one or more photos by clicking the image. Deselect a photo by clicking the checkbox.
- After selections have been made, click the Create a new gallery button (bottom right of screen).
- Now in the Edit gallery popup. Photos may be rearranged by dragging and dropping, new photos added (click “Add to gallery”) or deleted (click “X” in image)
- Also in the Edit gallery popup, click an image to individually enable the editing the caption at the right side of the popup, if desired. Note: the Caption is the only viewable item at this time, due to our WordPress Theme constraints (Title and Description will not display).
- When finished editing the gallery, click the Insert gallery button at bottom right.
- Choose how your Slideshow block is displayed using the settings at the right side of the page.
- Your Slideshow may be edited at any point by clicking Edit at top left (when the Slideshow block is selected).
- Click the page Update button to save your changes.