Media management

To upload media files (.mp3 audio, .jpg phots, or anything else you’d like to associate with an event), you must be an ‘event organiser’, and you must have FTP access. FTP is a very simple program that lets you drag the media files from your computer to our web server. Ngakma gÇèrdröl can set you up with FTP access if you don’t have it.

The first thing to do is to find the event’s page if it already exists. Use the ‘including past events’ checkbox to search history.

If the event is already in the database, and you are logged in, when you click on it you will see a Create Media Archive button. Click it. It will prompt you for optional media notes (with instructions), and will tell you exactly where to FTP the files to.

After you have save the notes and uploaded the files, you should see them when you view the event in the media archive section.

If the event is not already in the database, you will need to create a retrospective record for it. You can do this just as you would create a future event. If you don’t have a record of the precise date, you can simply note that in Schedule Details, and put in an approximate Start Date.

If you can spare the time, it is good to fill in the retreat description. The reason is that words in it will be found by the search function. With hundreds of retreats in the archive, it is good to be able to find all the discussions of (say) bardos. Retreats without descriptions may effectively get lost.

Generally, you can steal the text for public retreat descriptions from the public retreat pages. (Do View > Source and pull out the relevant bit of HTML.)

If feasible it is also good to give a summary of apprentice retreat topics as the description in that case. The software hides apprentice retreat descriptions from non-Sangha, so it is OK to mention topics that are not public.