key1969 Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 As a newbie to TNG, I’ve been slowly setting up my site and have come upon a few its that I am trying to determine best practices. I was wondering if there was a recommended good practice to setting up media directory structures? I see that there are different directories set up to match the collections in the program. But I was wondering if it was good practice to add sub directories for separation of the files or if it was the recommended practice to just place all media files in the associated directory in one big list? My dilemma is that I have close to 2500 media style files with multiple files for some people. Also as a side note, I was wondering how obituaries were handled. Are they a source or an event or a history? Also, is it good practice to create a collection for Obituaries Thanks Karl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merv Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 Hi, Some things you may want to consider. Media Collections You should avoid having too many custom collections (12+) because you will find that the media dropdown in the nav menu list will start disappearing off most device screens. Your media should slot into the basic media collections provided by TNG anyway and will leave your media dropdown list less cluttered and easier to dissect. Media File Name. Media files are filed within the server by file name and not by title name so you will need to take this into consideration especially seeing you have over 1500 media files and finding one out of 1000's can be like looking for a needle in a haystack if they have random names as many sites do. I suggest the file name match the title name. Media Title Name. When searching for media, most people search by name, so ensure you title the media with the persons name. If you think they will search by media type, then it would be sensible to add this to the title as well ie Smith, John (Birth Certificate). Photos If you decide in future to have a random photo display on your home page in future (check my homepage out) you may want keep your family photos in a separate collection as they will appear on this otherwise. I have set up a "Family Photos" media collection for these. For photos of family crests and other icons that you may use on your site you will probably not want these appearing on the random photo display either. I have set up a "Miscellaneous Photos" collection for these. As a general rule, photos should be no larger than 100kb for family photos and preferably around 50kb or less for profile photos (to save on sever space) Headstones a good idea to put your headstones in here especially if you go with a headstones display on your homepage. Documents There has been debate what qualifies as a document and what doesn't on here before. What you decide to put in this collection is up to you, but on my site, documents are official records that are normally dated and signed Birth, Death and Marriage certificates Awards Immigration documents Coroner’s reports Wills etc. What most people do is make a thumbnail from the image of the document. The problem I have with this is that when you see the thumbnail you can't tell what type of document it is because the thumbnail is just a blurred image of the document. I have elected to make custom icons for thumbnails instead as users can see exactly what type of document it is before they open it properly. At the end of the day,the choice is yours. or Histories As with documents, I can only tell you how I classify my histories media . But the decision in the end is yours. On my site histories are any historical information about a person or place that isn’t classified as a document (section above): Biographies News articles Family stories Obituaries CV’s etc My histories custom thumbnails... Muti-Page Documents These are nornally PDF's and can be loaded the same as photo files. The difference being that you can not make a thumbnail from a PDF so you have the option of sticking with the default TNG document or histories ithumbnail/icon or make a custom icon of your choice. Video & Recordings These other media collections you can use at your discretion or not at all. What you have to remember is that video files in particular take up a lot of space on your server. You may elect to post the video to YouTube and the link that to the person instead. That's about all I have for you at the moment... Others here are welcome to offer their advice and discredit mine, but we learn something everyday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theKiwi Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 7 hours ago, key1969 said: I see that there are different directories set up to match the collections in the program. But I was wondering if it was good practice to add sub directories for separation of the files or if it was the recommended practice to just place all media files in the associated directory in one big list? Yes, you can, and probably should, have sub-directories in the main media folders. For example in my headstones folder, I have a hierarchy that goes headstones Country State City State City Country etc, and in the photos folder sub-folders for people, places, ephemera, and a couple of others. As long as you duplicate that hierarchy on your local machine it's easy to keep your local copy and the website copy synched by FTP. Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merv Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 5 hours ago, theKiwi said: Yes, you can, and probably should, have sub-directories in the main media folders. Hi Roger, If you don't mind me asking, what are the benefits of having sub-directories? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theKiwi Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 51 minutes ago, Merv said: Hi Roger, If you don't mind me asking, what are the benefits of having sub-directories? Well - so you don't end up with 5,000 items in a folder if you have 2,500 media items plus their thumbnails - at least some FTP clients get unhappy trying to make lists that long - as well as perhaps your computer dealing with the local mirror of it. Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merv Posted March 7, 2017 Report Share Posted March 7, 2017 2 minutes ago, theKiwi said: Well - so you don't end up with 5,000 items in a folder if you have 2,500 media items plus their thumbnails Thanks for the explanation Roger, Even though sub-folders may reduce number of items in folders down from thousands to hundreds, I would still suggest that you match the media file name with the media title name. My server photo folder currently has over 1500 images but it's reasonably easy for me to find any image within it because of this.. Having custom generic thumbnails as I have done, would also cut down on the number of thumbnails you need to sort through as well... and another benefit of this is that if you ever want to change a custom thumbnail, you just need to change the one file and all the files using that thumbnail will be updated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBirdUK Posted March 8, 2017 Report Share Posted March 8, 2017 22 hours ago, theKiwi said: Well - so you don't end up with 5,000 items in a folder if you have 2,500 media items plus their thumbnails - at least some FTP clients get unhappy trying to make lists that long - as well as perhaps your computer dealing with the local mirror of it. Roger Why would you have the thumbnails in the same folder? I just use /tn/z_ as the thumbnail prefix so my thumbnails go in a subfolder of the relevant media folder and are all prefixed with z_ (as a Belt and braces for when I am doing a general search of a disk.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theKiwi Posted March 9, 2017 Report Share Posted March 9, 2017 10 hours ago, TBirdUK said: Why would you have the thumbnails in the same folder? I just use /tn/z_ as the thumbnail prefix so my thumbnails go in a subfolder of the relevant media folder and are all prefixed with z_ (as a Belt and braces for when I am doing a general search of a disk.) Because you don't know to use a prefix to put them in a sub-folder. I have seen way more TNG sites with the thumbs in the same folder than I have seen putting them in a sub-folder. Roger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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