ArtFinder

‘ArtFinder’ is our interactive mapping project, which uses online mapping tools to create a dynamic archive of art projects that have taken place outside the gallery. Artists who have created works of a temporary, ephemeral or location based nature can add a marker to an online geographical map to publish a record of their projects.

We will be making an announcement about the future of ArtFinder very soon!

What type of info can you add?

  • The exact location where your work/activity took place
  • Title
  • Type of work
  • Year
  • A text description of your work
  • Existing web links
  • Embed video/audio
  • Add Images

Creating a new entry:

The first step, if you are not already a member, is to register for free at the backletter.ie website. You can do this here: http://blackletter.ie/site/register.php

All registered Blackletter users can easily add a point to the ‘ArtFinder Map’

  • Login using your Blackletter.ie user-name and password.
  • Click ArtFinder on the main menu on the left hand side of the screen.
  • Once here, click on the ‘Add/Modify Point’ text underneath the map. This will bring you the ‘Manage your Points’ page
  • Click on ‘Add a New Point’
  • On the left of the Map are navigation controls, which allow you to change the scale of the view. You can also drag map to reach location of your point. It may take a few goes to get close to where you want to add your point. Once you click on the map a small red marker point will appear. Click on the location of your choice to make sure that the longitude and latitude co-ordinates update when you move the marker to a new location.
  • Fill in the required text fields in the form, you must add a Title and Description.
  • Once you have added all your text, click add to save your point.
  • Your entry is now live on the map. You are now brought back to the ‘Manage your Points’ page. From here you can add another point, edit an existing point or return to the map. When you do return to the map, you should see your new point under ‘Recently Added Points’. If you would like to modify your entry again click on the ‘Add/Modify Point’ text underneath the map.

Customizing an entry:

The first 250 characters of your text appears in the map info bubble, subsequent text appears in the longer description available when you click the read more link on the map info bubble.

You may like to add images and other media to your entry:

To add images:

Images are limited to 640×640 pixels – we recommend saving images as jpgs.

Click on the ‘Add/Modify Point’ text underneath the map. On the ‘Modify Point’ page use the drop-down menu to navigate to the point you wish to add images to. Click on the ‘upload image’ text above description field on the form.

This opens the Image Manager window. On the top left hand corner you will see a small drop-down menu called ‘Image uploads’. Click here and then click on ‘Upload new image’. Choose a name for your image and then use the ‘Browse’ field to locate the image on your own computer and click ‘Submit’. The image will then upload to our website, if successful you will see a thumbnail of the image. Click ‘Add YOUR IMAGE NAME’ to add the image at the end of your description text. It will look a little like this:
Quote:

[img]http://blackletter.ie/site/uploads/example.jpg[/img ]

If you would like your image to appear in the map info bubble above your text: simply copy & paste the image code to the top your description text. Further images will load on the long description page.

Troubleshooting & images.

If the image uploader returns an error message :

1) Your image file may be too big. Please use guidelines as above to resize the image.

2) Occasionally users may get an error message if the file extension for their image ie .jpg is in higher case i.e .JPG. Simply re-name the image making sure that the extension is visible and in lower case.

Adding Media

Video:

At the moment you can add video to your entry by using some third party services such as blip.tv.

Currently the only third party video, which is supported to appear directly in the map info bubble is blip.tv. We support the use of www.blip.tv, because (1) the video quality is superior to youtube.com and (2) greater control over copyright issues.

To add a blip.tv video direct to the map info bubble you will need to upload the video to blip.tv and then to copy ‘WordPress.com’ embed code and follow example here:

Youtube video can only be added after the first 250 characters to be viewable, and will load on the long description page. Simply copy the YouTube embed code and place anywhere AFTER the first 250 characters of your description.

Audio:

If there is audio documentation of your activity, you can use a hosting platform like www.lastfm.com or www.goear.com (these are like youtube for audio). At present these are not supported to load directly into the map info bubble (we’re working on it!) but they too can appear in the long description page. Add your audio embed from your site of choice as you would add a YouTube video.