Getting Started on TheParkNottingham.co.uk

Depending on how much experience you have had of the Internet, this website may appear formidably complex. Don't worry, you will soon get the hang of it and you can't break anything so don't be afraid to experiment. This page will try to explain the basics. If you still have questions or problems, why not email me at webmaster@TheParkNottingham.co.uk and I will try and help you get going. You may find it useful to print out this page so that you can read it while you experiment.

Basic navigation.

Whenever you see a piece of text which is underlined, the chances are that this a link to another part of the site. If you place your mouse pointer over the underlined text and it changes colour, then it’s definitely a link. When you click on a link, you are taken to another part of the website. If you ever need to get back to where you came from you can use the “Back” button on your browser, or press the backspace key on your keyboard. The first page that you see when you enter the website is called the “Home page”. You can always return here by clicking on the Title at the very top left of the screen where it says “TheParkNottingham.co.uk”.

The Basic Elements of the Website

The picture below shows you the home page of the website with various elements numbered in red.


1. This is the “Main Menu”. It consists of links which will take you to the main areas of the site.
2. This is a “Story”. You are reading a story now.
3. This is the "Login Panel". This is where you enter you r username and password in order to log in to the site. More about this later.
4. This is "News", you may need to scroll down the page in order to see all of it. Once you are registered, you can submit your own news.

Logging In For The First Time

The first time you visit TheParkNottingham.co.uk, the website does not know who you are and you are an anonymous user. Anonymous users may view the various sections but are not allowed to contribute to the site. To become a full user, you need to register with the site. It’s free and simple to do and you only need to do it once. When you register, you will be asked for an email address and we will send you a password by email immediately. Once you have logged in, you will be able to change your password if you find it hard to remember.

If you want to register now, click here. If you would rather register later, look for the "Login Panel" (number 3 on the image above) the next time you visit the site.

Joining In

Now that you have an account, you don't have to contribute to the site. But the more people who do contribute, the more interesting and useful the site will become. Here are some ways you can help the site to succeed.

Upload your Photos

Choose Photo Gallery from the Main Menu on the left. This will take you to the page shown below.


There are two photo albums at the moment, one called “The Dougal de Havilland Collection” and one called “Photos of The Park Estate”. You can view any of the albums, to select one just click on the picture and that album will be display ed. If you want to look at a particular image, click on it and you will be shown the full size picture.

“The Dougal de Havilland Collection” is a collection of photographs submitted by Dougal and I have set it up so that only he has permission to change this gallery. “Photos of The Park Estate” however, is open for everyone to contribute to and the following instructions will tell you how to do so. Open the “Photos of The Park Estate” gallery by clicking on the image of Lincoln Circus in the snow (marked with a number 1 on the picture above). You will be taken to the gallery and you should see the page shown below.


An album may contain an indefinite number of images. If there is more than one page of images available, you will see a list of page numbers where the number 1 appears in the image. Click on a page number to be taken to that page. You should see that each image has a caption (included as much information as you can in here) and a hit counter which tells you how often that particular image has been viewed.

You are strongly encouraged to contribute your own images to the website. These form an important historical record of the area and once on the website they will be preserved forever. The albums accept the standard Internet image formats of GIF and JPG. If you have a scanner and some photo software you will certainly be able to save your photos in one of these two formats. The JPG format will give you better results. Please keep the size of your images below 640x480 pixels. This will ensure that they are displayed correctly and that they do not take up too much of my disk space. There are two ways you can contribute images; I'll describe the simplest first...

You can upload your images straight into the "Photos of The Park Estate" a lbum where they will be added to the last page of images. To achieve this simply select the "Add Photos" link which is situated underneath the number 2 in the image on the left.

A window like that below will pop-up which invites you to upload the photos. You can simultaneously upload 5 images, just use the "Browse" button to locate the images on your computer and fill in a caption for each image. When you have finished, click on the "Upload Now" button and wait for the upload process to complete.


The second method of adding a picture is to create your own album within "Photos of The Park Estate". This will mean that our pictures are much better organised so I would prefer it if you would use this method. To create your own album, click on "new nested album" which is located close to the "Add Photos" link, under the number 2 on the image above. You will be given the opportunity to name your album and set certain preferences. When you are happy with it follow the same procedure described above to add your pictures.

Finally, if you have a really good collection of images and you would like your own top level album like Dougals, please email me at webmaster@TheParkNottingham.co.uk and I will create one for you.

More coming soon...