File Uploading & Linking

The "Files" module in madCMS allows you to upload files onto the live website. You can then provide a link to these files on your Page, or in the case of images, have them appear embedded in the page content.

This two-step approach may seem a little clunky at first,but once you get the hang of it, it becomes fairly painless for a small to medium website. You can use this function to upload a lot of images (creating a sort of Gallery page), but I wouldn't recommend it - for that you need a Gallery module!

This is an example of a link in a webpage referring to a file that has been previously uploaded: Example file - click to download me!

This is an example of an uploaded image file appearing in a webpage:

You will notice that the image is aligned to the left and this text is appearing on the right of the image. Also, the image has a border around it.

Thes are, to a great extent, controlled by the "look and feel" stylesheet for the live website.  Later on, we will go into more detail about how to control the appearance of images on you page, but for now, this shows a simple example.

Uploading a File

So, let's start by learning how to upload a file. Click on the "Files" tab on the madCMS menu. This will display an alphabetical list of all files that have been uploaded to you live website. If you are starting with a fresh installation of madCMS there probably won't be any files there!

The default listing is by the name of the files, but you can also display the type of file by clicking on the "Files by Type" tab. Image files typically have a .JPG filename extension, while MS Word files have a .DOC or .DOCX filename extension, etc.

To upload a new file, click on the "Upload File" tab to display the upload screen.

Browse to the location of the file (for example on your PC or thumb drive) and click the "Upload this file" button. 

When madCMS upload a your file, it will check the filename for spaces and replace these with underscores (eg: a file named "black dog.jpg" will be renamed to "black_dog.jpg"). You will notice that there are file size and type limits, but these have been set to suit typical requirments for a website.

Good File Naming Habits

Managing the files on your website will be much easier if you develop some good file naming habits. Sure, you could call a file "rt.doc" or "67890.jpg" but that won't mean much to you when you a looking through a list of files like that. Try to give short but meaningful names like "location_map.jpg" or "entry_form.pdf".

Previewing

To preview files that have been uploaded, click on the Preview icon (the little magnifying glass)

In the example below, the image being previewed is the sample image shown at the top of this page.

Deleting Files

To delete a file, simply click on the red cross. You will get a popup asking if you are sure you want to delete, but once a file is deleted, it's gone. There is no undo and if you want it back you will need to upload it again (and possibly insert/link it back into your webpage.

Linking Files and Inserting Images

To

Thoughts...

I'd rather be mad with the truth than sane with lies. (Anonymous psychiatric patient)