Help:Images
Shifti is not an image archive. However, it does allow images to be uploaded and used in various other ways.
To add an image to a page on Shifti, the image file has to first be uploaded. The Special:Upload page, linked to in the toolbox section of the sidebar, contains a form where one can select an image on your local computer and upload it. You can also set the filename it will be stored under (defaults to the same name as on your local computer) and provide a description of the file and its source. The description can be edited and expanded later, but note that an image cannot be renamed once uploaded; if you upload an image and want to change its name you'll have to upload it again with the correct name and have an administrator delete the old one.
See Category:Icons for a collection of already-uploaded icons and other decorative images that you might find useful.
Contents
Image description page
Every image file uploaded on Shifti has an image description page of the same name in the "Image" namespace. This page displays a copy of the image itself, a log of the versions of that image that have been uploaded with that name, and editable text.
Please ensure that you provide an image description that includes enough information to reassure administrators that you've got the right to upload that image ("I drew this", or "I commissioned Joe Bloggs to draw this", or so forth). Other than that, the image description is very freeform and can include whatever other information you feel is important; when the image is used on another page the image description page is not directly visible.
Embedding images in pages
An embedded internal image automatically links to the image page, which shows the full image, or, depending on preferences, a reduced version with a link to the full version. The page also provides information about the image such as who created it, what licence it's under, what pages display it, and so forth.
[[image:star.png|abc]] gives 
[[image:star.png|40px|abc]] gives
[[image:star.png|70x60px|abc]] gives
To add the uploaded image to an article as a thumbnail, one can use:
- [[Image: image name including extension |thumb|caption]] or
- [[Image: image name including extension |thumb|width in pixels px|caption]].
- [[Image: image name including extension |thumb|maximum width in pixels×maximum height in pixels px|caption]]
In the latter case the image will keep its original aspect ratio: either the width or the height will be equal to the specified maximum, whichever allows the other to be less than or equal to the maximum.
The default thumbnail width can be set in the preferences, so typically it is better not to specify "px", in order to respect the users' preferences (unless, for a special reason, a specific size is required regardless of preferences, or a size is specified outside the range of widths 120-300 that can be set in the preferences).
The caption can contain links. Both the image itself and an icon link to the image page. The icon has the link title "Enlarge" in its hoverbox, even in cases where the image on the image page is smaller. Depending on preferences the image on the image page may be smaller than the thumbnail image, so a link may be convenient from the thumbnail straight to the image in actual size. E.g. [[image:star.png|thumb|50px|[[Media:star.png|actual size]]]]
[[image:star.png|left|thumb|50px|caption]] puts the image at the left, [[image:star.png|right|thumb|50px|caption]] puts the image at the right, and [[image:star.png|center|thumb|50px|caption]] centers the image. You can omit the "thumb" keyword to get rid of the frame.
Inline images
Inline images cannot have a caption, but they can have a "title"-attribute (often misidentified as the "alt" attribute, which has a different purpose), which is shown in the hoverbox (in the cases above, for the image it is the same as the caption, and for the enlarge icon it is "Enlarge"). It is the last item of the image code, hence, if there is only the image name with prefix "image:" it gives that; if there is an empty item by ending with a pipe character ("|") it gives none; otherwise, it gives the image code item that happens to be last, unless a proper text is specified.
The size of the images can be reduced and enlarged.
Example (note the hoverbox too):
text [[image:Star.png]] text [[image:Star.png|5px|]] text [[image:Star.png|100px|demo]] text
gives
texttext
text
text
Gallery tag, category, table of images
Shifti is not intended primarily as an image gallery, but it can still be useful to show galleries of images that were uploaded for other reasons. The gallery-tag is a quick way to show thumbnails in a number of columns. Each entry is of the form "Image:image name or "Image:image name|caption, possibly with links". It also allows text taking the position of an image. It is possible to give a title to the gallery with the caption parameter.
<gallery caption="Sample gallery" widths="100px" heights="100px" perrow="6"> Image:Book with bookmark.png|A book with a bookmark Image:Clock warning.png Image:Half Star.png|Half a star is better than no star Image:Jigsaw green.png Image:Speech balloon.png Image:Star.png Image:Work in progress.png Image:Clock stopped.png Image:Editing not needed.png Image:Editing needed.png|Check out the [[editor's corner]] Image:Info icon.png Image:Triple X.png </gallery>
gives:
- Sample gallery
A book with a bookmark
Half a star is better than no star
Check out the editor's corner
Note that, with the gallery tag, the images have a single fixed width.
Using table syntax, with images in separate cells, and the image syntax explained elsewhere on this page, gives more control over size, layout, captions, etc.
Linking
To link to an uploaded file, e.g. Star.png, use [[Media:Star.png]] instead of [[Image:Star.png]], giving Media:Star.png; to link to the image description page, use [[:Image:Star.png]], giving Image:Star.png (the first colon is not displayed).
Piped links work as usual, allowing you to redefine the linked text [[:Image:Star.png|like so]] (like so).
- This page was derived from Meta Wikipedia's images and other uploaded files help page, and so is under the GNU Free Documentation licence.
External images
It may come to pass that an artist has created an image for your story, but has not given permission for it to be uploaded to Shifti for whatever reason. In this case it's possible to use external links to direct readers to another web site where the image is displayed legally. A template has been provided for inserting such links into stories in a similar manner to inserting images directly:
| Template code | Displayed result | ||
|---|---|---|---|
{{external image
|text=Description of the image
|url=http://www.example.com
|artist=Name of Artist
|artist-url=http://www.example.com
}}
|
|
The artist name and url are optional, but should be used whenever possible - especially when the link to the image itself is not very informative about such things. You don't have to use this template but it provides a good framework for the sorts of information and presentation that's best practice.
Please use this sort of linking in moderation and always give credit where credit is due. It's just common good manners. If the owner of a website or the holder of an image's copyright requests that an external link to their work be removed, we will remove it.
Categories
There's a category for stories that are illustrated, either by images uploaded to Shifti itself or by links to external image sites; [[Category:Illustrated stories]].
Image description pages can themselves be categorized, as demonstrated by [[Category:Icons]]. There aren't currently any standard categories for story illustrations, however.
