Troubleshooting tips

If you cannot find the answer to your questions please get in touch.

The topics covered on this page are:-

• Audio recording
  
• Designing your portfolio background
• Formatting text on portfolio pages
• Photo box and text colours
• Photo galleries
• Photo size and type
• Toolbar for editing text and making links
• Video size and type
• Viewing portfolios - software needed

Audio recording
You need a microphone and recording software on your computer. Audio is an advantage over video in that it takes up much less space and is quicker and easier to download.

Designing your portfolio background
You are advised to start with one of the templates available in the sample styles page, however once you are set up you can then change this to the blank template in the sample styles page and then go into the customise layout and style page. Here you are provided with options for all areas of the portfolio.
First choice is the alignment option. This will affect where your second text box will appear. If you choose the centre option the second lot of text will appear below the first lot and below any photos or video.

Formatting portfolio pages
There are limits at the moment to the formatting of the portfolio pages and the positioning of the photos, videos and audio clips.  As the website develops we plan to provide more flexible options for this.

Photo box and text colours
The colour of the outer photo box is the same as the colour of your background. Photo title text is the same as the text link colour.
The colour of the photo inner box is the same as the background menu link hover colour. The colour of the text is the same as the link hover colour.

Photo Galleries
There are 4 options provided on the information section of each portfolio page. Make sure that you choose the gallery type you want to use when you are typing in the text for the page. This option is not available on the photo page.
Gallery 1 - This option may be used for up to 5 photos per page. It shows a large photo image with a title above and description below. The photos are presented vertically down the page.
Gallery 2 - This option may also be used for up to 5 photos per page. It shows 5 thumbnail photos which enlarge when clicked on with a title above and description below.
Gallery 3 - This option can be used for up to 16 photos per page. Tiny thumbnails are shown which enlarge when clicked on. A titles is shown but this does not provide space for a description.
Gallery 4 - This option can be used for 10 +? photos. The thumbnails are medium sized and when clicked on the photo pops up large in a window with a title and description.

Photo size and type
Photos should be in JPEG format and compressed to not much more than 500KB or about 600 pixels for the longest length.
Your galleries will look better if all the photos in any one gallery are approximately the same size.

Video size and type
Video clips should be compressed to about 5MB. They can be in any of the most popular following formats including .wmv, quicktime or flash. Recent comments show that flash (or .fla) is the best format because nearly all computers can download this format without any trouble. However it is at present not possible to ensure that all computers will be able to play all videos.

Viewing portfolios - software needed
Successful viewing of portfolios depends on several variables such as your browser, the speed of your connection and the software on your computer.
The site has been designed to work equally well on a Mac as a PC.
The minimum requirement is a relatively up to date version of your internet browser, Mozilla Firefox is the best option. You also need either Windows Media Player or Quick Time software to view the videos and hear the audio successfully.