Latest revision as of 09:44, 1 September 2016

1 Overview

The Information Centre can display images and multimedia but how do you do it cleanly and correctly?

This article discusses a number of different media types and options.

2 Images

A web page is not like a Word document. Embedding pictures is not as easy. A bit of work has to be done first.

There are a few options.

2.1 Option 1 - Unsecure images

If you have a general image you want to include get the URL of the image. This can be done from Google Images or many other sources.

Go to https://www.google.ie type in your keywords Click on Images Click the image you want Click "View Image" Copy the URL of the image from the address bar

Alternately you can use a feature of Firefox or Chrome called "Copy Image Location"

With the URL you can now put this into your Information Centre message.

Lets take an example URL. The bxp logo from the main http://www.bxpsoftware.com website. The URL is http://www.bxpsoftware.com/wp-content/themes/bxp/images/headerLogo.png

Open your Information Centre message.

Main Menu > Information Centre > General > Add Item to the Information Centre >

Go to the body and locate the icon.

In source put in the URL and put in a description as well

When done click ok

This is a quick easy solution. However consistency wise its not ideal. This approach assumes all of your users have full access to the Internet. It also assumes that the owner of the image will not remove it. On the net and in business this is not always the case.

2.2 Option 2 - Custom images

So if you can save the image to your machine first, then you can upload it into a custom folder in bxp. This custom folder allows you to upload any amount of images for this kind of use.

Main Menu > System Access Management > System Management > Custom Folder - File Upload >

Here you upload your image. bxp when it has finished transferring up the image will display on screen the new URL to get to that image.

I can now use that URL the same way we did above.

The challenge with this is approach is that URL is accessible by the whole world. It is not locked away inside bxp. It is unlikely that the world would access it, as we do a lot to keep search engines away but that is no guarantee.

The URL will look like

2.3 Option 3 - Secure images

There is a far better option. If you upload the material to an eCourse page you can create the URL from the uploaded asset.

Create a book for your assets. Upload your image to the page. The page will look like this.

The URL of the asset will look like this https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_xxx/main/file.asp?strType=eCourse&intFile=7715&strSystem=2

Unless you are logged into bxp you will not be able to access this URL. You will need to make sure that all the users have access to this eCourse and this page. So building up a page of assets can be very useful.

2.4 Option 4 - A link to images

Why not simply put a link to the eCourse page itself. This could allow you to build up over time a library of useful information that is searchable.

Go to the eCourse page and get the URL. It should look something like https://ww3.allnone.ie/client/client_xxx/ecourse/usereCourse_Page.asp?inteCourse_Book_Id=215&inteCourse_Chapter_Id=452&inteCourse_Page_Id=2356&intSystem=2

Go to your Information Centre message and find the icon.

Paste in the URL and give it a name

Hey presto, you have a link to your eCourse page.

3 Videos

3.1 Types

The same challenge with Videos exists but you add the complexity of video type and how the users browser works to the mix.

If you have videos from your phone they more than likely will be MP4 videos. If they are you can use this wixi to guide you through. ECourse_MP4_videos

3.2 YouTube

It is also possible to embed YouTube videos. Again, please remember that the user MUST have full internet access to be able to view a YouTube video.

At the bottom of every YouTube video is "Share". From the options choose "Embed". Copy the text which will look like

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7nwg96d8g3I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Put where you want the video to go in your message and locate the icon.

Paste in the code.

Now you have YouTube messages

4 Tables

A table in Excel and Word is very different to one that is done in a web page.

There are two options for tables.

4.1 Option 1. Copy and Paste

This is not a guaranteed method of success but it can make your life very easy. The editor has the ability to "interpret" a table picked up from excel.

Highlight your data in Excel and copy it.

Paste it into the body. The interpreter will attempt to convert it to a table. It may not be a perfect match.

4.2 Option 2. Convert to an image.

This is the simple guaranteed method of copying tables.

Take a snapshot of your screen. Creating_a_Screen_Snapshot

With the resulting image, handle it as you do option 2 or 3 of images above.