SharePhotos.us Help

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• Definitions
  • As a user, you have
  • a unique userid like "joeblow123" for login
  • an email address; an address may be shared with another user, but separate addresses are better
  • a name like "Joseph Blow, III" or "Joe Blow" to identify your photos, albums, and comments
  • the ability to upload and view your own photos
  • the ability to view photos that other users have uploaded
  • the ability to create albums to organize photos that you or others upload
  • the ability to invite guests to view your albums and photos and those of other members of your groups (see below).
  • A guest is a person you invite to view photos and albums of users in specific groups to which you grant them guest access. You can grant guest access to any group of which you are a member, but not to other groups, even if you have guest access to those groups.
  • You can upload photos of any resolution and image size you like, subject only to some file size and total storage limitations that are yet to be determined.
  • You and your guests may add comments to photos; your comments will be tagged with your name; your guests comments will be tagged with "guest of your name" and a name that they register with SharePhotos.us.
  • You can create albums to group your photos and those of other users into collections that are meaningful to you; through your albums, your guests can see a selection of other users' photos. You may nest albums to help organize large collections of photos.
  • You may share photos with groups of users, or make them visible to you and administrators only.
  • Membership in groups is controlled by group managers. The creator of a group is automatically a manager of the group, and may choose additional managers.
  • The creator of SharePhotos.us is the primary administrator, and can designate secondary administrators. Administrators can see information that is not visible to ordinary users, and can see all photos and albums, even if they are not shared with any groups. This is necessary to allow administrators to fix problems and to control the website. Administrators may delete comments, photos, guests, albums, or even user accounts for content or actions that the administrators deem objectionable.
  • Keep in mind that SharePhotos.us is a hobby-level software project; security cannot be expected to meet the standards of commercial products.
• Sign up as a new user (please do this just once)
  • Press the "Log in / Sign up" button at the right of the menu bar at the top of the page.
  • Read the information on the "Log in / Sign Up" page
  • If you have previously signed up for a SharePhotos.us account, please press the blue "Log in" button, even if you have forgotten your userid or password. The login page will help you get logged in, and the administrator will help if you get into trouble.
  • If you have never before signed up for a SharePhotos.us account, please press the green "Sign up" button at the bottom of the page.
  • Provide a userid that will identify you when you login, but will not be visible to other users. SharePhotos.us does not use your email address as your userid because your email address might change over time.
  • For most Western users, your given name is your first name and your family name is your last name. If you are from another part of the world, you may write your family name first. SharePhotos.us supports both conventions; select the button to indicate how to print your name. (In lists of user names, sorting is done first on family names, then on given names.)
  • Provide an email address where SharePhotos.us can send you messages as part of your account setup. You can change this in the future if you wish, but it must be an account to which you have access now. This may be shared with other users, but separate addresses are better.
  • Enter a password for your account. Anybody who knows your userid and password has full control of your account, so keep the password private!
  • Confirm your password by typing it again. If you copy/paste a mis-typed password, you will have to reset it later.
  • Select the "I'm not a robot" checkbox. If the reCAPTCHA mechanism wants you to prove you are really a person, it may make you do more.
  • Press the large blue "Create my account" button at the bottom of the form.
  • SharePhotos.us will send you an email containing a link that you must follow to activate your account. These emails sometimes take a while to arrive, so please have some patience. If no activation email arrives, select "Log in / Sign up" in the menu bar, click the blue "Log in" button, and click the link to request a new activation email. If you mis-typed your email address, you will have to click the "DELETE" link and recreate your account.
  • When you click on the link in the activation email, SharePhotos.us logs you in and takes you directly to the page selected by Users / Request or change group access in the menu. You will be presented with a list of all the user groups that have been set up by other users; click on "Ask to join" or "Request guest access" for any groups that make sense for you. You will become a member or guest of a group only when one of the managers of that group approves your membership. It is possible to be a member of no groups at all, but the whole point of SharePhotos.us is to share photos with other people!
  • If you were invited to signup for SharePhotos.us, you should see that you have automatically been granted guest access to one or more groups. If membership in any group is more appropriate than guest access, you may click on "Ask to join" and wait for a manager to approve your request.
  • If you want to add a photo that will appear with your name in user lists, select Account / Settings in the menu and click "Choose File" under "Select a profile image". Choose a photo file to use and click "Save changes". (How you choose a file depends upon your brower, whether you are visiting SharePhotos.us on a Mac or PC, or tablet, or smartphone.
• Log in as a returning user
  • Press the "Log in / Sign up" button at the right of the menu bar at the top of the page.
  • Press the blue "Log in" button to go to the login page.
  • If you remember your userid and password, enter them in the corresponding fields on the page. If you select the "Remember me on this computer" checkbox, you may not have to log in very often, but automatic login will not always happen. Press the blue "Log in" button to log in.
  • If you do not remember your userid, select "Forgot userid". On the resulting page, enter your email address and password and press the blue "Send userid reminder" button. If you don't remember your email address, click on "Contact administrator" to start an email to the administrator. You will need to describe the situation and ask the administrator for assistance.
  • If you do not remember your password, select "Forgot password". On the resulting page, enter your userid and press the blue "Send reset email" button. SharePhotos.us will send you an email that contains a link to let you reset your password. That reset email may take a couple of minutes to arrive, so please be patient. If it does not arrive at all, please check your spam or junk mail folders.
• Find other users’ albums and photos
  • See / search all users in one of your groups
    • Select Users / <groupname> from the menu to go to the "Members of the group" page.
    • Scroll to see all the users in the group, or type a search string into the "User name search string" box and press the large blue "Find" button.
    • Select a user whose photos you want to see.
    • Select album names to navigate to a folder that interests you, or search for albums or photos:
      • Select check boxes to choose albums from the right column to search.
      • Press the blue "Find albums" button to show the "Match album names" search string box, or press the blue "Find photos" button to show the "Match comments and photo names" search string box.
      • Type a search string of letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
      • Press the blue "Find matching ..." button to start the search, which can take a while to run.
    • You can "Find photos" after using "Find albums" search to narrow down the albums to search.
  • See / search all users in all of your groups
    • Select Users / Find users from the menu to go to the "Find users in your groups by name" page.
    • Scroll to see all the users, or type a search string into the "User name search string" box and press the large blue "Find" button.
    • Select a user whose photos you want to see.
    • Select album names to navigate to a folder that interests you, or search for albums or photos:
      • Select check boxes to choose albums from the right column to search.
      • Press the blue "Find albums" button to show the "Match album names" search string box, or press the blue "Find photos" button to show the "Match comments and photo names" search string box.
      • Type a search string of letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
      • Press the blue "Find matching ..." button to start the search, which can take a while to run.
    • You can "Find photos" after using "Find albums" search to narrow down the albums to search.
  • View or search for albums in one of your groups
    • Select Albums / <groupname> from the menu to go to the "Top-level albums shared with the group" page. If any members of the group have shared any albums, their top-level shared albums will appear in the right column.
    • You can select album names to navigate to a folder that interests you, or you can search for albums or photos within the set of albums shown in the right column:
      • Select check boxes to choose albums in the right column to search.
      • Press the blue "Find albums" button to show the "Match album names" search string box, or press the blue "Find photos" button to show the "Match comments and photo names" search string box.
      • Type a search string of letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
      • Press the blue "Find matching ..." button to start the search, which can take a while to run.
    • You can "Find photos" after using "Find albums" search to narrow the set of albums to search.
  • View or search for albums in all of your groups
    • Select Albums / Find albums from the menu to go to the "Find shared albums by name" page.
    • The initial display shows no albums because the search string is empty. To find albums, type a search string into the "Album name search string" box and press the large blue "Find matching albums" button. A search string may contain letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
    • When the search is complete, there should be a list of albums in the right column. (The list will be empty if no album names match your search string.) You can select album names to navigate to a folder that interests you, or you can search again for albums or photos within the set of albums shown in the right column:
      • Select check boxes to choose albums from the right column to search.
      • Press the blue "Find albums" button to show the "Match album names" search string box, or press the blue "Find photos" button to show the "Match comments and photo names" search string box.
      • As before, type a search string of letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
      • Press the blue "Find matching ..." button to start the search, which can take a while to run.
    • You can "Find photos" after using "Find albums" search to narrow the set of albums to search.
  • View or search for photos in all of your groups
    • Select Photos / Find photos from the menu to go to the "Find shared photos by filename or comments" page.
    • The initial display shows no photos because the search string is empty. To find photos, type a search string into the "Filename or comment search string" box and press the large blue "Find matching photos" button. A search string may contain letters, numbers, and white space, using "%" to match any string of characters.
    • When the search is complete, there should be a list of matching photos in the right column. (The list will be empty if no photo names nor comments match your search string.)
    • You can reduce the number of matching photos by searching for an additional string. (A new search for "box" after a search for "red" matches only photos whose names or comments match BOTH words.
    • Click on a preview image to open another browser tab or window (according to your settings) showing that photo in greater detail. Close that tab or window to get back to the list of matching photos.
    • Select photos in the right column to include them in a preview page or slideshow. See the 'Preview' and 'Slideshow' entries in this help documentation for more information.
    • Press the blue "Find photos" button to show the "Match comments and photo names" search string box.
• Use photo preview pages and slideshows to view full-window photos
  • From your Home page:
    • click on the names of albums that contain other albums to work your way to a page that shows one or more albums of photos, or
    • use Albums / Find albums to generate a page that shows albums that may contain photos, or
    • use Photos / Find photos to generate a page containing photos that match search criteria.
    A page that shows one or more albums of photos will include a blue Show photo preview page button and album selection checkboxes near the album names. A page that shows matching photos will include photo selection checkboxes near the small images. Select the albums or photos that you want to enlarge to full-screen size.
  • Press the blue Show photo preview page button to generate a preview page with medium size preview images of all the chosen photos. These images appear on a gray background.
  • Click on any preview image to view that photo enlarged to fit your browser window. You can choose the color of the background on which the photo appears, and you can control whether any photo caption appears by using the Photos / Settings page described in another of these help topics.
  • When you are viewing a photo that you selected from a preview page, you can navigate forward and backward through the set of photos, display or hide information about each photo, and start auto-stepping forward through the set of photos. This auto-stepping process is also referred to as a slideshow.
    • Press the space bar or click on the image to show or hide information and navigation controls. The information includes the photo filename in a translucent bar at the top of the window. Unless you requested a photo preview page after running Find photos, the name of the album containing the photo appears in the same translucent bar. If the owner of the photo has added comments for the photo, the first of those comments will be displayed in a translucent bar at the bottom of the window as a photo caption.
    • If the photo information is onscreen, there are several links or hotspots on the page. These will be described below in detail, along with keys that you can press to take the same action as clicking with a mouse or tapping a trackpad or tablet or phone screen.
    • Press the N (next) or right-arrow key or click on the large gray ❯ link near the right of the window to go to the next photo in the set. If there is no following photo, there will not be an active ❯ link; pressing N or right-arrow will bring up an alert box to tell you that you are already viewing the last photo. On a touchscreen device like a tablet or phone, you can "swipe left" to move to the next photo: touch the screen, move your finger to the left, and lift your finger off the screen.
    • Press the P (previous) or left-arrow key or click on the large gray ❮ link near the laft of the window to go to the previous photo in the set. If there is no previous photo, there will not be an active ❮ link; pressing P or left-arrow will bring up an alert box to tell you that you are already viewing the first photo. On a touchscreen device like a tablet or phone, you can "swipe right" to move to the previous photo: touch the screen, move your finger to the right, and lift your finger off the screen.
    • Press the G (go) key or click on the large gray ► link near the middle of the window to go to the next photo in the set and start auto-stepping through the set of photos. If there is no following photo, there will not be an active ► link unless you have used Photos / Settings to specify that slideshows should wrap from the last photo of a set to the first. If there is no ► link, pressing G will bring up an alert box to tell you that you are already viewing the last photo. There is no "swipe" action to start auto-stepping.
    • Press the C (comments) key to display all the comments on the current photo, or click the Show / Edit comments link at the bottom of the screen when comments have been left on the photo (even if there is no caption comment left by the owner), or click the Add the first comment link if there not yet any comments at all.
    • Press the ESC (escape) key or click on (ESC – close) to close the tab or window showing the photo to go back to the album preview page.
    • Press the O (original) key or click on the (O – open original) link to open the original photo in a new tab or window. The original version is nearly always higher resolution and higher quality, making it better for saving and printing. You can zoom and pan within that image, and you can save or print the photo, all as your browser allows. When you are done with the new tab or window, you must use your browser to close it. There is no keyboard command or link on the page to close the window.
    • Press the R (remember) key or click on (R – remember) to copy the photo to your LOOSE PHOTOS album. You can later copy photos from your LOOSE PHOTOS album to any other album you own. This remember mechanism is the easiest way to construct a custom album of photos that you like. page.
  • A photo preview page has a blue Start slideshow button that you can select to begin showing all the photos in a new tab or window, starting with the first. The Photos / Settings page controls whether the slideshow stops after the last photo or wraps around to the first and shows all the photos again. The settings page also lets you choose the color of the background on which the photos are displayed, how long each photo should appear before auto-stepping to the next, and how long to display captions for photos that have them (or whether to hide all captions).
  • A photo preview page also has a blue Resume slideshow button that restarts a slideshow that you have interrupted by pressing ESC or closing the tab or window in which the slideshow was running. If you press Resume slideshow before a slideshow has run on the given set of photos, it has the same effect as Resume slideshow.
• Adjust settings for photo background color, captions, and slideshow timing
  • Select Photos / Settings from the menu.
  • The first numeric field sets you control how long each photo appears when stepping automatically. The time for each slide begins as soon as the browser requests the slide. If network traffic causes the photo to appear slowly, it may not be onscreen for the full time you request.
  • The second numeric field lets you control whether the caption (and in some cases, the album name) is displayed for each photo, and how long the text should appear before vanishing. A time of 0.0 seconds prevents the text from appearing at all. The caption time control applies when stepping automatically or manually from one photo to the next.
  • The third numeric field lets you control the background color for photo pages. "0" makes the background black (the default), 100 makes it white, and values in the middle choose various gray levels. Experiment to find a value that appeals to you.
  • You can also specify whether you want automatic stepping from photo to photo to end at the last photo of the set you are showing, or wrap around to the first photo. Wrapping lets you run a continuous slideshow; stopping lets you use a slideshow to view a set of photos without having to step manually through all of them.
• Print or save a photo
  • Navigate to a photo that you want to print or save
    • Follow the instructions in "View other users’s albums and photos" or "Photo preview pages" below until SharePhotos.us is filling a browser tab or window with the photo you want to print or save.
    • The version of the photo that appears on the screen now is too low quality to print well, so you need to get to the actual photo that was uploaded to SharePhotos.us.
  • Get a version that is suitable for printing or saving
    • Press the spacebar or click on the image to show information about the photo. In the information bar at the top right of the image, you will see "(O – open original)".
    • Click on "(O – open original)" or press "O" on the keyboard (the letter, not the digit zero) to display the original version of the image in a new browser tab or window. The original version is nearly always higher resolution and higher quality, making it better for saving and printing.
  • Print or save the photo
    • The details of the next step will be different on different platforms (PC web browser, tablet, or phone).
    • Use your browser to print the photos or save it to a file on your computer, or to wherever your device saves photos. (On an iPad or iPhone, you will usually save it to the Camera Roll.
  • Dismiss the tab or window containing the high quality version
    • The tab or window holding the high quality image has no controls that can be made to appear by clicking the image or pressing the spacebar on the keyboard. Nor can you dismiss the window by pressing ESC on the keyboard.
    • Use your web browser's own controls to dismiss the tab or window that opened to hold the high quality image.
• Comment on a photo
  • View a photo
    • Follow the instructions in "View other users’s albums and photos" above, or "Photo preview pages" below until SharePhotos.us is filling its window with a single photo.
  • Display existing comments on the photo (if any)
    • Press the spacebar or click on the image to show information about the photo. If there are already comments on the photo, will see and should click the link "Show / Edit comments". If there are not yet any comments, you will see the link "Add the first comment".
    • OR press the "C" key to display comments without the other information about the photo. You should see a link for "Add new comment" or "Add the first comment".
  • Add your own comment
    • Click on "Add new comment" or "Add the first comment". You will be directed to a page that shows existing comments on the photo (if any exist) and lets you add one of your own.
• Upload your own photos and share them with others
  • Create a group to control sharing, unless an appropriate group already exists
    • If a group already exists for the users with whom you want to share photos already exists, stop here.
      It is not helpful to have more groups than necessary, and all users can see all group names.
    • If you want to create a new group, select Users / New group from the menu to go to the "Create a new group" page.
    • Type a name for the new group into the "Provide a new group name" box. Unlike album names, group names cannot use any special HTML formatting, but all characters are legal. You can rename the group later if you need to, but try to choose something descriptive.
      All users can see all group names, so please use inoffensive names!
    • Press the large blue "Create new group" button.
  • Create a new album unless you want to add new photos to an existing album
    • You do not need to create a new album if an appropriate album already exists!
    • Select Albums / New from the menu to go to the "Create a new album" page.
    • Type an album name into the "New album name" box. Ordinary single quotes / apostrophes (') are automatically displayed as single curly quotes in album names, but other special characters require more work on your part. (You can include HTML formatting tags and codes if know how to use them.)
    • Select the check boxes for any groups with whom you want to share this new album. If you don't mark any check boxes, the album will be private.
    • Select album names to navigate to where you want this new folder to appear. Mark a round 'button' to choose the destination album.
    • Press the large blue "Create new album" button.
  • Upload photos
    • Select Photos / Upload from the menu to go to the "Upload photos to an album" page.
    • Click on 'Choose Files' under "Select photo files to upload". Choose one or more photo files; how you choose a file depends upon your brower, whether you are visiting SharePhotos.us on a Mac or PC, or tablet, or smartphone.
    • Select album names to navigate to where you want this new folder to appear. Mark a round 'button' to choose the destination album. If you do not choose any destination album, the photos will appear in your top level LOOSE PHOTOS album.
  • Invite guests to view your albums and other photos
    • Select Users / Guests & invitations from the menu to go to the "Invite new guests and manage invitations" page.
    • Under "Grant invited guests access to these groups", select the check boxes for any of your groups to which you want to invite your new guest(s).
    • Type your new guests' email addresses into the "Email addresses ..." box, separated by commas.
    • Press the large blue "Send invitations" button.
    • SharePhotos.us will send invitation emails to all valid addresses, and will remove them from the list. Invalid addresses will trigger an error message, and the bad addresses will stay in the list so you can correct them and try again.
• Collect favorite photos in one place, including your own and those of other users
  • Create an album to hold your custom collection, unless you have already done this step
    • You do not need to create a new album if an appropriate album already exists!
    • Select Albums / New from the menu to go to the "Create a new album" page.
    • Type an album name into the "New album name" box. Ordinary single quotes / apostrophes (') are automatically displayed as single curly quotes in album names, but other special characters require more work on your part. (You can include HTML formatting tags and codes if know how to use them.)
    • Select the check boxes for any groups with whom you want to share this new album. If you don't mark any check boxes, the album will be private.
    • Select album names to navigate to where you want this new folder to appear. Mark a round 'button' to choose the destination album.
    • Press the large blue "Create new album" button.
  • Then borrow photos from another user or copy yours into the new album
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot borrow or copy photos into an album that contains albums; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Photos menu, choose Borrow to go to the "Borrow (copy) photos into albums" page or choose Copy to go to the "Copy photos into another album" page. Borrowing is just copying another user's photos; you can copy your own photos through the Borrow link, but the Copy link eliminates the need to select your own account from the list of available users.
    • If you chose Borrow, click on a user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums. If you chose Copy, you will immediately see your top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the photo(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected photos(s).
    • Photos are displayed in the right column with the owner name (if the photo is not your own), the photo filename, and the caption (if there is one).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source photos until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source photos as you with, then press the blue button, which will contain the text Copy selected photos if the source album is yours, but will contain Borrow selected photos if the source album belongs to another user.
    • The photos you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosen destination album. You may change the order of photos later with Photos / Rearrange.
  • Or borrow albums from another user or copy yours into the new album
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot borrow or copy albums into an album that contains photos; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Albums menu, choose Borrow to go to the "Borrow (copy) albums into albums" page or choose Copy to go to the "Copy your own albums" page. Borrowing is just copying another user's albums; you can copy your own albums through the Borrow link, but the Copy link eliminates the need to select your own account from the list of available users.
    • If you chose Borrow, click on a user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums. If you chose Copy, you will immediately see your top-level albums. Click on another user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the album(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected album(s).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source albums until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source albums as you with, then press the blue button, which will contain the text Copy selected albums if the source album is yours, but will contain Borrow selected albums if the source album belongs to another user.
    • The albums you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosen destination album. You may change the order of albums later with Albums / Rearrange.
• Manage albums
  • Rename an album
    • From the Albums menu, chose Edit to go to the "Edit name and group access of personal albums" page.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the album(s) you wish to rename.
    • Click on the Rename link for the album you want to rename; SharePhotos.us takes you to the "Rename album" page.
    • Change the album name as you wish, and then press the blue Rename album button. If you are familiar with HTML character codes and formatting tags, you may use them in album names. For example, you can
          use &mdash; to encode — (an em-dash, a long dash), or
          use <b>word</b> to make a word bold, or
          use <i>word</i> to make a word italic, or
          combine bold and italic, using <b><i>word</i></b> to make a word bold italic.
    • When you are done editing the album name, press the blue Rename button; SharePhotos.us takes you back to the "Edit name ..." page, where you can see the new album name in the right column list.
  • Change the groups that can view an album
    • From the Albums menu, chose Edit to go to the "Edit name and group access of personal albums" page.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the album(s) whose group access you want to change.
    • Mark check boxes for the albums whose group access you want to change. If you select no albums, the Set group access button will do nothing, and SharePhotos.us will generate a warning message.
    • Mark check boxes for the groups to which you want to grant access. Marking no groups at all for an album results in a private album, one that cannot be seen by any other users. SharePhotos.us lets you do that, but generates an 'error' message. (This is not really an error, but it is unlikely to be what you intended.)
    • Press the blue Set group access button.
  • Copy (link) some of your albums into another album
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot copy an album into an album that contains photos; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Albums menu, chose Borrow / Copy to go to the "Borrow albums or copy your own into other albums" page.
    • Click on your own name in the right column to view your top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the album(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected album(s).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source albums until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source albums as you with, then press the blue Copy selected albums button. This will not take very long because SharePhotos.us does not copy the photographs, it just creates a link to the original album. If you decide later that you don't want an album where you copied it, you may remove it with Albums / Release / Unlink.
    • The albums you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosent destination album. You may change the order of albums afterward with Albums / Rearrange.
  • Borrow albums from another user
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot borrow or copy albums into an album that contains photos; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Albums menu, choose Borrow to go to the "Borrow (copy) albums into albums" page or choose Copy to go to the "Copy your own albums" page. Borrowing is just copying another user's albums; you can copy your own albums through the Borrow link, but the Copy link eliminates the need to select your own account from the list of available users.
    • If you chose Borrow, click on a user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums. If you chose Copy, you will immediately see your top-level albums. Click on another user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the album(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected album(s).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source albums until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source albums as you with, then press the blue button, which will contain the text Copy selected albums if the source album is yours, but will contain Borrow selected albums if the source album belongs to another user.
    • The albums you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosen destination album. You may change the order of albums later with Albums / Rearrange.
  • Change the order of albums
    • From the Albums menu, chose Rearrange to go to the "Rearrange albums" page. There will be no albums to rearrange if your only album is your LOOSE PHOTOS album; otherwise, you will see your top level albums (other than LOOSE PHOTOS).
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the albums you want to rearrange.
    • If the right column contains two or more albums, there will be a blue Reverse button in the left column. Pressing that button will reverse the order of all the albums in the right column.
    • If the right column contains three or more albums, there will be a blue Rearrange button in the left column, and buttons and check boxes in the right column.
    • Mark check boxes for album(s) you want to move, and mark one 'button' to indicate where you want those albums inserted into the list.
    • Press the Rearrange button when you have check boxes and a button marked as you wish. All marked albums will be inserted (in their existing relative order) at the point you asked, and the page will be refreshed to show you the new order.
    • If you want to adjust a new ordering created by Reverse or Rearrange, select albums to move and a new destination and press Rearrange again.
  • Release (unlink) albums that you have borrowed or copied
    • IMPORTANT: You can release any album that you have borrowed from another user, but you can unlink an album of your own only if it is linked into your album hierarchy in more than one place. You may unlink such an album from any of its places in your hierarchy; there is nothing special about the place you first created the album. To remove an album that is not multiply-linked, your must delete it. Note that this differs from releasing photos; you can release photos that are not multiply-linked, but those photos are then copied to your LOOSE PHOTOS album, from where you can delete them.
    • From the Albums menu, chose Release (unlink) to go to the "Release (unlink) borrowed or copied albums" page. Your top level albums (that contain albums) will be listed in the right column. If any of those albums are borrowed or multiply-linked, they will have a check box to let you release / unlink them. Albums that contain photos will be listed if they are borrowed or multiply-linked.
    • Click on album names to navigate until you see the album(s) that you want to release or unlink. If you look into an album that contains no eligible albums and no albums of albums, the right column will be empty and its header will say "There are no (more) albums to release".
    • If there are albums eligible for release / unlinking, they will be listed with check boxes, and there will be a blue Release selected albums button at the bottom of the left column. Select the check boxes for any albums you want to release or unlink and press the blue button.
  • Delete one or more of your albums
    • IMPORTANT: Deleting an album is very different from releasing or unlinking one. You can only release or unlink an album that exists elsewhere within SharePhotos.us, but deleting an album removes it without regard for how many other users have borrowed it or how many places it appears in your album hierarchy. Deleting an album removes it from all the places it is borrowed or linked!
    • Because deleting an album has such significant consequences, SharePhotos.us makes it a little bit harder to do.
      • First, the "Mark or unmark all check boxes" control defaults to unchecked instead of checked.
      • Second, SharePhotos.us brings up an alert box asking you to confirm the deletion. Press "cancel" if you are not sure, otherwise press "OK".
      • Third, SharePhotos.us copies albums contained in a deleted album to the deleted album's parent album, and copies photos from a deleted album to your LOOSE PHOTOS album if they are not linked anywhere else in your album hierarchy. It is probably simpler to delete the contents of an album before you delete the album itself.
    • From the Albums menu, choose Delete to go to the "Delete personal albums" page. Your top level albums (other than LOOSE PHOTOS, which you cannot delete) will appear in the right column.
    • Click on album names to navigate until you see the album(s) that you want to delete.
    • If an album in you want to delete is not empty, consider emptying the album before deleting it.
    • Mark check boxes for any albums that you want to delete and press the blue Delete selected albums.
    • Press "cancel" or "OK" in the alert box that appears.
• Manage photos
  • Add or edit a comment on a photo
    • Navigate to a screen-size photo, from Home, or Photos / Find or any other way you like.
    • Click on the image or press <spacebar> to show the photo filename, previous / next links, and the caption, if there is one.
    • If there are no comments on the photo, you will see an "Add the first comment" link at the bottom of the screen.
      • Click that link (or press c or C); you will go to the "Add a new comment" page in a new browser tab or window.
      • Type text for your comment into the box and press the blue Add comment button. Your new comment will appear in the right column as the first comment for the photo.
      • Click the blue Back to photo button to close the tab or window and go back to the photo.
    • If there are already comments on the photo, you will see a "Show / Edit comments" link. Click that link (or press c or C); SharePhotos.us reveals a list of the comments on the photo with a variety of additional links.
      • If you select the "Add new comment" link, you will go to the "Add a new comment" page described above (in a new browser tab or window).
      • For a comment that you created or was created by one of your guests, you will see an "edit / delete" link. Selecting that will take you to the "Edit or delete a comment" page in a new browser tab or window where you can edit or delete a comment that you made.
        • You can edit the comment text in the box and press the blue Change comment button. Your modified comment will appear in the right column in its original position, but with its content changed as you requested. Then press the blue Back to photo button to close the tab or window and go back to the photo.
        • Or you can press the blue Delete comment button to remove the comment completely. You will be asked to confirm your deletion; click "cancel" or OK". You will be redirected back to the photo automatically.
      • You may also see a comment made by another user or by a guest of another user on one of your photos. In these situations, you are allowed to delete the comment, but you cannot modify it, so you will see a "delete" link but not "edit / delete". Selecting a "delete" link will take you to the "Delete a comment" page. Pressing the blue Delete comment brings up a confirmation; click "cancel" or OK". You will be redirected back to the photo automatically.
  • Copy (link) some of your photos to another of your albums
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot copy photos into an album that contains albums; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Photos menu, chose Borrow / Copy to go to the "Borrow photos or copy your own into other albums" page.
    • Click on your own name in the right column to view your top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the photo(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected photos(s).
    • Photos are displayed in the right column with the owner name (if the photo is not your own), the photo filename, and the caption (if there is one).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source photos until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source photos as you with, then press the blue Copy selected photos button.
    • The photos you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosen destination album. You may change the order of photos afterward with Photos / Rearrange.
  • Borrow photos from another user
    • IMPORTANT: You cannot borrow or copy photos into an album that contains albums; any one album may contain either albums or photos, but never both.
    • From the Photos menu, choose Borrow to go to the "Borrow (copy) photos into albums" page or choose Copy to go to the "Copy photos into another album" page. Borrowing is just copying another user's photos; you can copy your own photos through the Borrow link, but the Copy link eliminates the need to select your own account from the list of available users.
    • If you chose Borrow, click on a user's name in the right column to view their top-level albums. If you chose Copy, you will immediately see your top-level albums.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the photo(s) you want to copy. Click on album names in the left column to navigate to the album that contains the album where you want to copy your selected photos(s).
    • Photos are displayed in the right column with the owner name (if the photo is not your own), the photo filename, and the caption (if there is one).
    • You may navigate to the destination in the left column before or after navigating to the source in the right column. Don't bother marking the specific destination album or source photos until you have both columns as you need them, because selections are not carried from page to page as you navigate.
    • Mark one destination album and as many source photos as you with, then press the blue button, which will contain the text Copy selected photos if the source album is yours, but will contain Borrow selected photos if the source album belongs to another user.
    • The photos you copy will appear at the beginning of your chosen destination album. You may change the order of photos later with Photos / Rearrange.
  • Change the order of photos
    • From the Photos menu, chose Rearrange to go to the "Rearrange photos" page.
    • Click on album names in the right column to navigate to the album that contains the photos you want to rearrange.
    • If the right column contains two or more photos, there will be a blue Reverse button in the left column. Pressing that button will reverse the order of all the albums in the right column.
    • If the right column contains three or more photos, there will be a blue Rearrange button in the left column, and buttons and check boxes in the right column.
    • Mark check boxes for photos you want to move, and mark one 'button' to indicate where you want those photos inserted into the list.
    • Press the Rearrange button when you have check boxes and a button marked as you wish. All marked photos will be inserted (in their existing relative order) at the point you asked, and the page will be refreshed to show you the new order.
    • If you want to adjust a new ordering created by Reverse or Rearrange, select photos to move and a new destination and press Rearrange again.
  • Release (unlink) photos that you have borrowed or copied
    • IMPORTANT: You can release (or unlink) any photo, whether it is borrowed or one of your own, and regardless of how many places it appears in your album hierarchy. However, when you release the last copy of (link to) one of your photos, the photo will be copied (linked) into your LOOSE PHOTOS album, from where you may delete it at any time. SharePhotos.us intentionally makes it a bit harder to delete your photos to try to avoid accidental removal of photos that you want to keep.
    • From the Photos menu, chose Release (unlink) to go to the "Release (unlink) photos" page. Your top level albums will be listed in the right column, except for your LOOSE PHOTOS album. (You cannot release photos from LOOSE PHOTOS, you must use Photos / Delete to remove them.)
    • Click on album names to navigate until you see the photos(s) that you want to release (unlink).
    • Photos are listed with check boxes, their filenames, and captions for those that have them. Click on a photo to examine the photo in a new browser tab or window; close that tab or window to get back to the list.
    • Select the check boxes for any photos you want to release (unlink) and press the blue Release selected photos button.
    • Any of your photos that lose their last place in your album hierarchy will be copied (linked) into your LOOSE PHOTOS album to try to avoid accidental permanent deletion. You must use Photos / Delete to remove them forever.
  • Delete one or more of your photos
    • IMPORTANT: Deleting a photo is very different from releasing or unlinking one. You can delete photos only after you have removed them from your album hierarchy; deleting photos removes them from other users' albums, too.
    • Because deleting a photo has such significant consequences, SharePhotos.us makes it a little bit harder to do.
      • First, you can delete photos only from your LOOSE PHOTOS album.
      • Second, the "Mark or unmark all check boxes" control defaults to unchecked instead of checked.
      • Third, SharePhotos.us brings up an alert box asking you to confirm the deletion. Press "cancel" if you are not sure, otherwise press "OK".
    • From the Photos menu, choose Delete to go to the "Delete photos from LOOSE PHOTOS" page.
    • Photos are listed with check boxes, their filenames, and captions for those that have them. Click on a photo to examine the photo in a new browser tab or window; close that tab or window to get back to the list.
    • Mark check boxes for any photos that you want to delete and press the blue Delete selected photos.
    • Press "cancel" or "OK" in the alert box that appears.

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