Remote Control
"Link Manager" Help Manual
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Table of Contents:
Introduction:
The purpose of the Remote Control Link Manager is to
make it easy for you to copy images, sound files and links to
other pages into the body of your template pages - where ever you want.
The Link Manager also provides an easy method for uploading text, .pdf and
other pages and images into a special "owner" directory.
The Link Manager makes it easy for you to select a target frame for a
linked page. You can select left, center, right, top or bottom alignment for
your images and in the case of sound files (midi) you can select whether to
play once or continuously.
The "owner" directory is accessible by all of your web
pages. Therefore you can copy a link to a .pdf file into the
middle of a description about a special item. Or an image. On any page
(contents frame not recommended)
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Selecting a File
link:
All of the files that you have uploaded via the Link
Manager are listed in the selection box located in the upper left part of
the Link Manager. Just select the file name you want to link to and the link
will be displayed in the line just below the selection box. The link
characteristics associated with the file are also displayed. The link is ready
for you to copy or edit and you'll see a second selection box on the next line
for your use.
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Copying a File
link to your web site:
After you have selected the link you want to copy, use the selection box that
now appears on the line below the link to choose "Copy Link".
Depending on the type of link you want to copy, you'll either see a copy of the
link highlighted at the bottom of the page or a new selection box, offering
several copy options. In either event, there will be a line near the bottom
of the window, explaining what occurred when you selected "Copy
Link".
.gif and .jpg image links offer several copy options because you may want to
use a custom size, depending where you intend to use the link.
In all cases, the copy process will put a copy of the link onto your computer's
clipboard automatically so that you don't have to do it manually.
Put your cursor at the place where you want to paste the link into
your page. Hold the control key down and press the letter v on your
keyboard.
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Editing a
File Link:
After you have selected the link you want to edit, use the
selection box that now appears on the line below the link to choose an edit
task that is appropriate for the kind of link you want to edit and follow the
on screen instructions. The latest version of Link Manager makes it very
simple.
If you are editing the alt text or caption fields that are included
with .gif, .jpg or Virtual Tour images, you'll see a "Script Prompt".
Simply type the text you want to appear. The same will be true when you want to
specify width. Following are the kinds of edits available for various link
types:
| Link
Type |
Edit
Type |
Edit
Format |
|
| .gif or .jpg
image |
alt
text |
Text via
script prompt |
| |
alignment |
Select
Box |
|
| Virtual
Tour image |
caption |
Text via
script prompt |
| |
alignment |
Select
Box |
| |
width |
Numeric via
script prompt |
|
| Audio/Midi
file |
Play |
Select
Box |
|
| Mpg
file |
No edit type |
None
|
|
| Page files
(.html etc) |
Target |
Select
Box |
The effects of your edit will show up automatically and you can copy it for
your Remote Control editor.
Follow the steps described in Updating a Link if you
want to make your editing changes permanent.
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Updating a
File Link:
Editing a File Link changes its link characteristics
until you close the Link Manager window. The editing process also changes
one of the grey buttons in the upper frame so that it reads "Update
Link Manager". Click that button if you want your editing changes to
remain after you close the Link Manager window. This changes the link record on
the server.
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Uploading a
File:
Choose "Upload File" from the file selection
list box located in the upper left of the Link Manager page. This will
load the page which controls the file upload system. You can upload a
variety of files that will be available for linking as soon as the upload
transaction is complete.
Click the browse button to locate the file on your computer. Then,
double click the file name you want to upload and click the Upload
button(see here re duplicate file names).
The file upload system will transfer a copy of the file to your owner
directory and set the default values in the Link
Manager page.
Special instructions for uploading Real Audio/Video files are here. Special instructions
for uploading "Virtual Tour" images are here. Click here if you need to
upload a large number of files in 1 upload transaction.
Click here for information about
allowable file size and
types or here for file name rules.
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Deleting a
Link/File:
Select the link you want to delete from the drop down
list that appears in the upper left of the Link Manager.
Click the "Delete" button.
The text in the field labelled "LINK code:" will display ~~~ in
front of the file name and the "Delete" button will be changed
to read "Restore"(in case you change your mind before
updating Link Manager).
Click "Update Link Manager". This will delete the link
and the file associated with it.
Note: You cannot restore a link or its associated file after
clicking "Delete" and updating Link Manager. If you want the
link back, you'll have to upload the file again.
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Default
Values:
Following are the default values for all files uploaded with
Link Manager's file upload system (you can change the default values for
any file known to Link Manager by editing and updating its permanent
link data):
Directory Location: All files are loaded into the owner directory by
the file upload system. See here for information
about duplicate image names.
Page files (.htm/.html/.pdf/.txt): The default target for page files is
the frame which appears as the main frame in your published Remote Control
web site (to the right of the contents frame).
Image files: The default alignment for all images is
"center"
Sound files (midi): The default loop value for all .mid files is
"FALSE". This means that the file will play once and stop each
time the web page is loaded.
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Questions and
Answers:
This section contains frequently asked questions and
answers about Link Manager. We will add to it as we receive new questions
of general interest and develop authoritative answers.
Why would I want to use
Link Manager?
Link Manager just makes it easier to copy and paste
links into your web pages. It also contains features that make it easy to
modify links.
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What do you mean by
"targetting"?
"Targetting" tells the web browser where to display the page
that a viewer wants to see. It is one of the most powerful features of the
advanced technology available to Remote Control customers because you can
direct the viewer's web browser to use a new window to display a page, or
virtually any part of the existing window.
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What targets can I
select?
You can select targets that will replace the contents of the existing
window completely (_top), all of the existing window below
the banner frame (index_target2), the part of the window that is to
right of the contents frame (index_main_target2) or you can even create a new
window (_blank). _self loads the linked page into the frame which contains
the link.
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What is image
alignment?
Image alignment tells your browser how to relate image placement to text
on the web page. Align=left signals the browser to place the text
as close to the left side of the image as possible. Align=right does
the same thing in the other direction. This feature means that text can
flow around an image without having to use additional HTML coding for
tables or other page elements.
The default setting, "align=middle" is useful when you want
text to begin at the center point of the image, looking from top to
bottom. Settings of "align=top" and "align=bottom"
provide similar results.
Click here to see examples of each image
alignment.
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How can I test the validity of a link I want
to use?
When you insert a link from Link Manager into your Remote Control editor
and click "Update", we put a special copy of the link
information into the editor. So when the page returns from the Update
process, it will include the link. If the link is to an image or sound
file, you'll see or hear the results.
If the link is a pointer to a page, it will appear just as it will
on your published page. Just click on the link and the page will
replace the main frame in your editor if it is valid (targetting
information is ignored in the editor).
Choose any page you want to edit from the contents frame and you can
resume editing or "Publish".
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Are there any pages that I should not copy
and paste links into?
You should not copy and paste links or use any HTML coding in your Keyword
Editor. Links or other HTML coding will likely cause problems for Search
Engines and could even prevent a viewer's browser from displaying your
site at all.
You should not use links to "Virtual Tour" images in your
contents, banner, custom link or showcase listing pages. They won't
display properly because of space limitations on those pages.
Some pages contain fields where you should not use links or other HTML
code. We have attempted to label all such fields with "No
HTML".
Be careful when considering the use of links in the banner or contents
pages. Unless you have some reason to have the link replace the banner or
contents pages, do not use the targetting option "target=_self".
The same thing will happen if you use "No Target" for banner
links.
You also have to be careful with image size with the banner and contents
pages. The width of images you want to link into the banner should not
exceed 420 pixels and the height should not exceed 100 pixels. The width
of images you want to link into the contents page should not exceed 130
pixels. There isn't any suggested limit on height; your own taste is the
best judge.
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Can I use Link Manager for links to pages or
images that are not on my site?
Not directly. You can copy and paste a link that has the image alignment or
targetting info you want to use but after you paste the link into your editor
page, it will be necessary to replace the directory and file information with
the full URL of the page you want to link to. Two examples follow:
<a href=http://www.ezusa.com/rc-linkmanager/index.html
target=_self>Linked text</a>
<img src=http://www.ezusa.com/rc-linkmanager/image.gif
align=left>
Note that off-site links need the full url to direct the viewer's browser
to the right location.
If you're linking to an off-site page file, be sure that you use a link that
has one of the targetting options that includes "target=". Do not use
"No Target".
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Can I combine
links?
Yes, you can combine page and image links so that the image itself is
the link to the page you want to show. Here is an example:
<a href=http://www.ezusa.com/rc-linkmanager/index.html
target=_self><img border=0
src=owner/banner_test.jpg></a>
You can see that we replaced the link text with the link to the image.
Note: you cannot combine page links and sound links. Sound files are
embedded and do not have any visible appearance on your page.
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Can I upload multiple files in 1
upload transaction?
Yes, you can upload multiple files in the same upload transaction though it's
a bit involved and probably not worth the effort if you have fewer than 5
to do at any one time. But if you need to upload a large number of files, such
as for a Power Point presentation, it can be a real time saver (requires
use of a utility to make zip archive files such as WinZip ©). Click
here to see how.
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Can I upload Real Audio/Video and "Virtual
Tour" files via Link Manager?
Yes, you can upload "Real Audio/Video" and "Virtual
Tour" files to your
web site via Link Manager. Many of these are two part files that need special
handling so it is important that you follow the upload procedures
carefully.
Uploading Real Audio/Video files. Uploading Virtual Tour files.
There are some pages where you should NOT use "Virtual
Tour" images including the Banner, Contents, Showcase and Custom
Link pages. See here for details.
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Uploading Real Audio/Video files
After you have created your Real Audio/Video file, and opened Link
Manager's "Upload File" page,
select the "Real Audio/Video File" radio button. When you browse
for the file to upload, you
may see two files with similar names. One will have an extension of .ram and another may have the
extension of .rm. It is important that you upload the file ending in .rm.
Do NOT upload the .ram file. We will create the .ram
file as part of the upload process. This insures that the .ram file is
linked to the right directory.
Back to the "Upload" section
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Uploading "Virtual Tour image"
files.
Some Virtual Tour images end with the extension ".ivr".
There are two files that must be uploaded for this image type. One file name
ends with the extension .ivr while the
other ends with .jpg. The order of upload is not important.
After you have created the .ivr file and opened Link
Manager's "Upload File" page, select the "Image
File" radio button. After you upload the .ivr file and
update the Link Manager, you'll be able to see that the link text
contains provisions for selecting alignment and the use of a
caption.
We have used align=center caption=Caption for default values. You
can change these default values to meet your needs. An example of each
is here.
Virtual Tour images are usually large and require several
seconds to appear on the viewer's screen. The Remote Control editor
pages use representations of the actual image you upload. This expedites
down load processing so that you can edit your pages more
quickly. See examples here.
Back to the "Upload" section
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Where not to use "Virtual Tour image"
files.
The ability to control the size of "Virtual Tour images" is
limited to setting the width. They will not display properly on your Banner,
Contents, Custom Link and Showcase listing pages.
Back to the Upload "Virtual Tour Images?" section
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Can I upload a new image that has the same name as
one I've uploaded earlier?
Yes though we reccomend against this where possible because the chance
for making an error is high. This is because you must enter a
different directory name in place of the default(owner).
When you attempt to upload an image that has exactly the same name as one
you've uploaded earlier, Link Manager will alert you, and ask you to
overwrite the existing image or to cancel the upload.
Click "OK" if you simply want to replace the existing image with
a new version. Click "Cancel" if you don't want to overwrite the
existing image. You will be prompted to supply the name of the new directory
where you want to put the image.
Examples of valid directory names include: images, images-about, images-banner,
images-news and images-team.
Spelling must be exactly as shown above, including the hyphen if applicable.
All letters must be lower case. An example follows, using the directory
images-about:
<img border=0 src=images-about/adot_00ff00.gif align=middle>
Click "Upload" after changing the directory name. The upload
will succeed if you entered the directory name correctly. Otherwise
you will get an error message stating that you used a "Bad
Directory". If this happens, click "Cancel Upload". Then
click "Cancel" in response to the alert message.
Back to the Default or Upload Section.
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What size file can I upload and what kinds
of files do you allow?
We limit each file size to 5 megabytes.
Allowable file types at present
are: .htm, .html, .txt, .pdf, .css, .js, .zip, .gif, .xml, .wmf, .mid,
.jpg, .png, .ivr, and .rm (We add a .ram file for each .rm file you upload
so the .rm file will work correctly).
Please let us know if you need to upload a file type not shown above.
Back to the Upload section
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File name
rules
You can use letters, numbers, a dash(-) or underscore(_). Upper or lower
case is OK but no spaces or other special characters are allowed.
Back to the Upload section
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Resizing
images
Link Manager now gives you the ability to specify the size of .gif and .jpg
images that you have uploaded via Link Manager.
When you select a .gif or .jpg image from the list of files you have uploaded
via Link Manager, you will have the option to resize the image to whatever
width and height dimensions you want.
When you choose the Resize option for such images, you will be able to resize
it for use on your contents page, a showcase page or to make a custom image
with whatever dimensions you want. Just follow the onscreen prompts that
will appear.
After the resizing is complete, the resized image will appear. Simply click on
the image if you want to use it and a link to the specially sized image will
be copied to your computer's clipboard.
Resized images are made proportional to the width you specify unless you also
specify height. It is usually best not to specify height unless you have a
special purpose in mind
It is also important to note that Link Manager makes a specially named copy of
the image you want to resize. It does not alter the original image.
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