Mastering Gather: The SiteWizard™ for Saturday 02/02

Adding images to comments can be a fun way to express yourself and your personality. However, images provided by hosting services like Photobucket, MySpace Graphics etc. are often very large and can lead to increased load/display time for comments...especially for members with slower internet connections.

Occasionally a smaller version of the image may be desired and can be just as effective in conveying your message. You can easily reduce the size of any image pasted into comments by making a simple change before posting.

How is this done?

Here is a sample image URL or web address used to display an image in comments:

<img src="http://glitter.com/glitterimage1.gif">

The above is the web address you paste into the comment box. The image then displays when you post the comment.

To change the size of this image, you simply need to tell Gather how wide you want the image to be. You do this by adding a short width command, width=

For example, width=250 will display the image with a width of 250 pixels, which is about 3/4 of the width of the comment box. You can easily add this command at several locations within the image URL. To illustrate:

<img width=250 src="http://glitter.com/glitterimage1.gif">

or

<img src="http://glitter.com/glitterimage1.gif" width=250>

That's all there is to it!

Tomorrow's Tip ...using images in your Gather image gallery!

"I would like to make a 'clickable' link in my article to direct members to my new group. Can I do this easily, and if so, how is it done?"

Creating a link in your article is very easy to do, and can be a great way to connect members to other content on Gather, like your new group. Outlined below is the method to use when creating links to other articles, images or groups. This will also allow you to create links to other websites outside of Gather, like Wikipedia, Yahoo, etc.

Please note though that this only applies to the creation of links within articles. Creating links from comments or mail messages requires a different technique.

1. Copy the URL (web address) of the group you want to link TO (this will appear in your browser's address bar). For example, the URL for the SiteWizard group is:
   
   http://www.sitewizard.gather.com
   
   
2. Begin editing, or creating your article.
   
   
3. Highlight the word, phrase, or image in the body of the article that you want to make into the link.
   
   
4. Click the 'link' button on the article editor toolbar (it appears as a small section of steel chain).
   
   
5. A small link window will appear.
   
   
6. Paste the URL you copied in step #1 into the new window, in the Link URL field.
   
   
7. Click 'Insert'.

If you could add one feature or link to the Gather home page, what would it be?