Frequently Asked Questions

1. Uploaded all the material you want to be published using the Extranet.
2. Click the publish changes button. This is the only way that the administration can know if you are finished fiddling around at the Extranet.
3. Go through all apply-screens (The legal-stuff-screen is just the first of several ones!)
4. Make sure the automated quality control was happy (or fix errors!)
5. Wait! (From a day to a week, or more, depending on the Moderators current workload)
6. Once you are published you will get an e-mail brifing all decisions and changes to your place at Elfwood, along with the URL adress to your page.

• File Formats (About JPG's and GIF's)
• Scanning and rescaling

• Paint Shop Pro
• The JPEG PNG GIF Optimizer for Windows® 95/98/NT
• The WinFiles for tons of other options!. The GIMP is also a very good program, easily comparable to Photoshop!

Not all HTML tags are allowed. We have a special page that list the possible HTML at elfwood, go read it here!

1. (any!) ads can kick us out of our current situation to somewhere that we have to pay for bandwidth and computer hall space
2. an external image has unknown copyright permissions; Elfwood, and particularly Thomas can get sued for copyright issues even if the image isn't on our site - we want to avoid that, since even the suit itself would destroy the site
3. ... an external image that doesn't load can "hang" the page so it's not viewable at all, mostly due to table issues and Netscape
4. ...the web page design can be too far from what the designed intended (this isn't very much of a problem, since the original design isn't that much anyway - although blinking stuff isn't that fun)

• The easiest is to use the people list. Use the browsers built-in page search (usually ctrl+f) to find yourself!
• If you are in the art area, you can use the free text art search to find your page. Just enter your name, or part of it, (If your name is Brian Mcneal O'Conner, you could search for Mcneal). The search engine searches for names, just as well as art descriptions.
• If you are in the Library, go to the library and use the library specific search page, and search for your name in a similar manner. If you used a faked name that you can't remember, we can't help you (you know, faked names are not allowed...).

• Either, they were uploaded faulty or the upload got broken in some way. In that case, please try to resubmit them to use. (See other questions in the FAQ for more info on uploading)
• ...the most common reason, though, is that they aren't correct and proper JPG's or GIF's. If a file is simply renamed '.gif' or '.jpg', the Extranet accepts them as proper images, even if they doesn't contain a real jpg- or gif-image. The paint or scan program MUST be used to save JPG or GIF, otherwise it won't work. In some rare cases, the programs save faulty images that can't be read by other programs -- then use some other program to create the files.

1. ... they haven't been built yet. Please give us some hours to let them be created...
2. ...caches; typical of this is that the index picture look warped. The caches can be in your browser or at a proxy. Please read the appendix A, "about the cache problem", at the bottom of this page, for more details.
3. ...the images doesn't load, or at least not for the index generator. Check by loading them yourself (by clicking below the index map).
4. ...something messed up in the index map generation. There has been a such problems from time to time (some images may crash our programs). [rare]

It might be flushed if you do shift+reload (press and hold shift while clicking reload) (or if it was ctrl+reload).

Another good trick is to load the *image*, not the page, and then do the reload (just reload or as above). In Netscape, you can load the image by right-clicking on the image - I'm talking about the thumbnail map here - and then selecting "View Image (index.jpeg)". There should be something similar in Internet Explorer.

This happens because your browser found your new page (with the new images linked), but didn't care to update the pictures on the page (including the thumbnail image). But on the page, there is a new size mentioned (<img ... width=17 height=42>, if you know HTML), but it doesn't get along with the old image, so it gets squeezed or dragged out.

It could also be the other way around, you have the o

1. Make sure you have written the text in HTML.
2. Make sure the story has a start <body> and a corresponding end </body> tag - without these, your story will be zero bytes.
3. Make sure the story is saved in plain text format. If you have saved it in word (.doc), word perfect (.wpd) or any other binary format, we can't use/process it.

Appendix A - "The Cache problem"

The cache is the part of your internet browser that remembers recently visited pages and pictures, in order to speed up your surfing. Unfortunately, it often remembers too much, which includes old Elfwood web pages and Image maps. In most web browser, like internet explorer and netscape, there's a clear cache function (browse around in the menus of your program until you find it!). 

The easiest way to get a *new* page, though, is to hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard while you click in the 'reload' button in your browser!
You can also add a "query" to your URL, and thus go around the cache. Try adding "?abc" to the URL, like this: http://www.elfwood.com/faq.html -> http://www.elfwood.com/faq.html?abc (It doesn't matter what it says after the "?" )