Organize Images and Files

Your site's images and documents are web content that must be maintained and organized. Just like the information architecture of your web pages, you're looking for a logical scheme for locating and nesting this "hidden" content..

Your site probably already has /_images/ and /_documents/ folders in Cascade. That's a good start. But you might find that these folders have lots of items and are hard to manage. Where is that image from last year's news story? What was the file name? A clear organizational scheme can make your web-editor life a whole lot easier.

"Empty" Folders

Empty folders are the key to organizing documents and images. Create a new empty folder for a related set of images and assign a logical folder name. Then upload the images into the new folder. If you want to organize a bunch of items that are already in Cascade, create appropriate empty folders and move the items into place.

If you have a lot of items to organize, email [[creative, Web & Design]]. Those folks can move several items at once and save you a lot of time. You'll want to re-publish your site once you're done, so that Cascade knows where everything is and displays pages properly.

{{youtube:medium|2gdreAUX3g0, How to organize, upload and move images and document files in Cascade.}}

Thoughts on File Organization

If you win the lottery and move to Tahiti, your successor will really appreciate your clear organization:

Use a consistent naming convention for your storage folders
Place the storage folders in logical, consistent locations
Use a consistent naming convention for your images and files

There are lots of ways to organize your files. Images of entering graduate students, or pdfs of student research work might be best organized by academic year. Faculty images might need a different strategy. Faculty have their pictures in news articles, on directory pages, on content pages - everywhere. It might be useful to have a folder for faculty images, and within that folder another folder for directory photos and one for news photos. If you have images on standard web pages, like the Undergraduate Program page, you might have a separate folder just for those images.

You might also consider a folder for images of faculty who have left W&M. Keep their images separate from current faculty, but don't delete them. Old news stories sometimes have pictures of faculty who are no longer with us. If you remove their images, the stories will have broken images on them.

Images that will only be used on a widget or photo gallery should live in folders with that asset.

Think through how you're using images now, and how you or others might use them in the future. Organize accordingly.

Quick Tips

Only use images or link to files that are in Cascade.
With rare exceptions, pdfs are the only type of document file that you should post - and even then, think twice before you add it.
When you link to a pdf, let users know that's what they're going to get. Like this [pdf].
Forms should be fillable pdfs or a Qualtrics or Docusign form.
Short (1-2 page), informative documents should be turned into web pages. Save the pdfs for forms and longer reports or manuals. (Why don't you like pdfs?)
Replace (or overwrite) images and files when they need to be updated.