Here are a few tips you might find useful while browsing the Files section of this site.
Sort the List
When you first enter the Files section, a list of the recently uploaded files that you can access will be displayed folders so to quickly find all the folders for the person who told you about this site, at the top of the window search for "Folders" within "-- Any Group --" then click the magnifying glass button and a list of all of the folders that you can access will be displayed. Now click the
Owner column heading and scroll down until you find the folders created by the person who told you about this site then click one of the folder names to open that folder. This might be easier than trying to find something in the Directory because not all of your friend's folders may be grouped together under one parent folder. Also note that clicking the
Owner heading again reverses the sort order.
Use the Search Feature
Unlike most sites, doing a search on this site really works. If you know anything at all about a picture, try entering that one word, like "Vegas" or "Hans", in the search box, then click the
Go button and a few pictures will most likely be displayed. Now click
[info] below the picture that interests you and the Directory will automatically open the folder containing that picture. Now click that open folder and all the pictures inside it will be displayed. This is just another way to quickly traverse the Directory.
Sometimes a file will be found where nothing in the name matches your search criteria. This is because something in the file's description or comments matched instead, which you can verify by clicking the [info] link under the picture.
Blow it Up
Click on any picture, or on
[view] below it, and it will be displayed at its full size in its own separate window. For you lucky few who have really big screens, try enlarging two or more of your favorite photographs, especially of friends and family, and arrange the windows so you can see all of them at once. Nice!
Sit Back and Relax
Open a folder and click
Slideshow at the bottom of the picture index and let your browser do the work of displaying every photograph in the folder one at a time for about 2 - 4 seconds, depending on your connection speed. For dialup connections, let it cycle through all the pictures first, then start it over from the beginning by clicking the first button at the bottom of the slideshow window then the middle button for a smoother presentation. Change the size of the pictures by closing the slideshow window, then resize the main browser window and click the folder again to refresh the picture index, then restart the slideshow.
Quickly See What's New
Open up the dropdown list in the search area where it says "Any File" and select "Recent Files" then click the
Go button and the last 50 pictures that were uploaded will be displayed, beginning with the most recent one. Remember to click
[info] to discover the name of the folder containing a picture.
Poke Around
Please take a few minutes to check out some of the other folders and you may be pleasantly surprised. At least one of the flash files in the
Funnies folder is bound to put a smile on your face and all of the photographs in the
Nature folder were intended to be desktop background pictures, including the pictures in the subfolders. The
Sunsets and
Waves
folders are especially nice. So don't be shy about downloading something you like because tomorrow it may be gone.
Suit Your Style
You don't have to settle for the rather plain looking appearance of this web site, which I admit, is much too utilitarian for most people, because one of the features of this application is the ability to create custom themes or stylesheets. As new styles become available they will appear in the
Styles menu above and if you have cookies enabled, you can switch to the theme of your choice and the next time you visit, it will remember your preference.
Unleash Your Browser
Let your browser use cookies and javascript. Yes, a long time ago, there were some problems, particularly with early versions of Internet Explorer, but all the latest browsers do a fabulous job of preventing any malicious behaviour by manipulating cookies and javascript. Just take a minute to visit the web site of the browser of your choice or change its preferences to automatically check for new versions and download any updates. It's extremely simple to do and it's free.
However, if you are using Internet Explorer, there is still one very annoying javascript problem that has not been fixed yet, which is those horrible popup advertisements. But disabling javascript is not the way to solve this problem because there are many less draconian solutions available to you.
Ask for What You Want
Having trouble viewing pictures? Flash isn't working? Would you rather have a grey background? Want the original full size photograph instead of the scaled down version?
Nothing on the Internet is mysterious or magical. There is a person behind everything that happens so if you are not completely happy with anything, you should really let them know because if you don't then it won't get any better. That's not to say that if you do complain, it will get fixed right away or exactly the way you want it to be, but I can assure you that everything we hear about, we remember.
So on every page of this site, you can easily tell someone what you think by simply clicking their username, like "admin" or "Dagwood" or "Technical Support", and sending them an email. This is especially important for the owners of the files who receive no other feedback. If you did not login and would like a reply, just be sure to replace the "guest@benwillies.com" reply address with your own email address, which will not be stored anywhere in this site, even the logs. And besides, even if a record of it was kept, you can rest assured that no email address will ever be revealed to anyone under any circumstances, unless a court order compels it.
And please do not hesitate to contact the Webmaster for help or for more information or instructions.
