MEGASHOT

You will  probably find the structure of Megashot.net to be different than any, or most sites you have been to.  MegaShot.net does not have a flat structure where you can see all site's links and members' links all on the same page. Think of MegaShot.net as a portal. When you register and open an account, you are actually building a rather huge site for yourself, in the MegaShot.net shell.  The Communities work the same way too. When you build a Community, you build another rather independent site, in MegaShot.net shell. MegaShot.net has been designed like this, so that it gives you as much independence over your site and the communities you may build. This design structure will allow you for instance, to give your visitors the impression that this is more like your personal site. This is particularly possible, when you hide certain sections  from your visitors.
In navigating MegaShot.net, you must remember one thing. Anytime you are NOT on your own site, you will see the link "Your Site" on the top right corner of the page. This link will take you back to your own  pages.

Your profile is the landing page of your site. This is where you can connect to all other pages and sections of your site. You will find the following links in your profile's navigation bar(toolbar):
Home, PhotoStream, Favorites, Network, HomeStore, Themes, Customize and MegaShot.

Home page of your site is the Admin section of your site. Presently, you can find three pages on this section, Edit Account, Edit Profile and Publish.
Edit Account: This is where you can find your account and registration info and edit them if you need to.
Edit Profile:  Here's where you can upload an avatar or a banner for your site.
Publish: This is where you can publish to your Journal, to About section of your profile, to Notepad section of your profile and also publish to the site (more on publish later)
There will be more pages to this section as we develop your site more.

PhotoStream is the page or pages, where you can find all your uploaded images, in the order you have uploaded them to your site.  On PhotoStream page you will also see an "Organize" link (top right corner). This is where you will find all the necessary and easy-to-use tools, such as Drag and Drop, to create new galleries and organize your uploaded images. More on Organize page, later.

Clicking on the Favorites links, you will see all the images from other members which you have made favorites on this site.

On MegaShot.net,  you can mark other members as Contact, Friends or family. Clicking on the Network link, you will see all other MegaShot members who are part of your Network

The HomeStore link will take you to your Home Store. This is the section where you upload products to sell to other MegaShot members or visitors. More on Home Store, later.

When you click on Themes link, you will see all the available themes for your site. Choosing any theme, will change the look and feel of your site. More on themes, in the Customization section.

As discussed earlier, clicking on the Themes link, you choose a theme that best fits your character and personality. If this is not satisfying enough, you can further change the design and the colors of your chosen theme on the Customize page.

As we discussed, MegaShot .net is a portal. When you register, you actually build a site within MegaShot.net shell. The MegaShot link on your site, will take you back to the main site.

Your profile is the landing page of your site. This is an extremely feature rich page and one can easily get overwhelmed on this page. The best way to use your profile is to go slowly and try do do the basic things such as choosing a theme, uploading a banner, uploading an avatar and   uploading images to your site (you can find the Upload link under "Recent Photos" and on the bottom of each and every page of your site and MegaShot.net portal). Once uploaded; images go to a Photo Page, where the image is displayed large (clicking on any thumbnail, will take you to the image Photo Page).  Explore the Photo Page and look at some of the things you can do on Photo Page. You can click on the "Options" Icon for instance and try to send a photo to Explore and see how that works.
You can then go to your Photo Stream (your Photo Stream is the page where you will see your  uploaded images in the order you have uploaded them) and find "Organize" link and go to organize page. Here, you can make a few galleries and add images to them. You can then go back to your profile and start exploring it's features, such as setting up your Slideshow.  Go slowly and explore new features as you go along. Do not try to learn all of it's features in a day or in a week, you can't!  There is so much  for you to discover and you will never run out of interesting things to do.

Presently, your profile consists of 17 sections. You can hide 9 of these sections from your site's non-logged-in visitors if you wish. Hiding these sections will make your profile upload faster and will give your site a more personal look.  Your Profile sections are as follows:

Recent Photos Section:
This is the section where you will see the last three images you have uploaded to your site.

 From top left, going down on profile page, Journal Section:
The journal section of your profile, or the Journal Box, is top left section of your profile. This is more like a blog and you can communicate with your friends and visitors by publishing to this section.

About Section:
This is the section right below "Journal" Section. This is where you can publish about yourself, upload a photo of yourself, tell others about yourself, things you like to do or services you may provide.

Network Section:
The network section is the section right below "About" section. This is where you can send send yourself Mega Mail reminders, Invite a friend to MegaShot, or share your profile on other sites.
On visiting another members' profile, you can use this section to make them part of your network or block them if that may be necessary. You may hide this section.

Presentation section:
 This is where you can find the presentation slideshow of your profile, it is right below the network section. Here, you can make a playlist of your images, give it a name, choose an effect and save it. You can also share your presentation by inserting the HTML code on other sites.

Notepad  section:
While Journal is where you publish stuff you like to share with others and receive feed backs or comments, Notepad is where you would publish and share more personal stuff. If you have a video to share or want to put a flag counter on your profile, this would be the place to publish them.

Recent Visitors:
In this section you will see the avatars of the recent visitors to your profile. It is located right below Notepad. You can hide this section.

Network Upload:
Right below the Recent Visitors, You will see this section. Here, you will see some recently uploaded images from some of your network. You can hide this section.

Recent Network:
Here, under Network Upload, you will see avatars of your recently chosen network. You can hide this section.

Communities:
Below Recent Network, you will find the Communities Section. Here, you will see some of the communities you have built, or communities you are a member of. You can hide this section.

On Explore:
on the very bottom of your profile, you will see 5 images from other members which have recently been added to Explore.  These images change with every refresh of your profile page. You may hide this section.

From top right, going down....Stats Section:
This is the top right section of your profile page. Here, you will see some interesting links. such as viewing all your network Journal or posting to a forum or replying to any topic in any forum.

Favorite Artists:
this is right below Stats Link. This is the section where you can post links to your most favorite artists.

Recent Galleries:
This section will show the last 6 galleries you have made. Clicking on them will take you to the appropriate galley page.

Favorite Video:

You can use this video playlist maker and playlist player, to make unlimited playlists of your favorite videos on Youtube. These could be your favorite songs, music, documentaries or tutorials. You can hide this section.

Favorite links:
below Favorite Video, you will find Favorite Links. Here you can add links which mean something to you, or may be interesting to others. You can hide this section.

Guestbook:
This the section where members can leave messages, images, or videos, for one another. You can hide this section too.

You can upload an avatar two ways:
A. Click on "Home" link on your profile page. . Once on your Home section, choose "Edit Profile". Once on "Edit Profile" Page, You will see the option to upload an avatar.
B. On the top center of your profile page, you will see Recent Photos section. Under recent photos you will see a link called "Upload". Clicking on "Upload" will give you the option of uploading an avatar. Choosing this option, will take you to "edit Profile" page above, where you can upload an avatar.

Your avatar should be 50X50 pixels square. It can be JPEG, Gif, or animated GIF.  Please resize your avatar to 50X50 before uploading. The upload script will resize it for you but you may not  quite like the result.
 

You can upload a banner same way you upload an avatar:
You can upload a banner  two ways:
A. Click on "Home" link on your profile page. . Once on your Home section, choose "Edit Profile". Once on "Edit Profile" Page, You will see the option to upload a banner.
B. On the top center of your profile page, you will see Recent Photos section. Under recent photos you will see a link called "Upload". Clicking on "Upload" will give you the option of uploading a banner. Choosing this option, will take you to "edit Profile" page above, where you can upload a banner.

Your banner should be 1003 pixels wide and between 200-400 pixels wide. It can be JPEG, GIF or animated GIF. The best format would be to save your banner  choosing "Save for Web" option in Photoshop or your favorite image processing application. Saving an image for web, will remove all unnecessary image meta tags and optimizes it for web.  This way, your profile will upload faster for your friends and visitors. If you were to save a regular JPEG version of your banner by choosing "Save As", such as in Photoshop, use a low compression level 6 or max level 7.

Think of Profile Journal as your mini Blog.  You can communicate with your friends and visitors by publishing to this section.  When visiting your profile, your friends and visitors will see your journal and can comment on it. This is a great way for sharing interesting events, images and videos. You can also read your network Journal from your own profile page. 

On your Journal box you will see a publish link, you can use that link. You can also click on Home link on your profile page and once on your home section, choose "Publish". On the publish page, choose "publish to Journal" from the drop down option menu on top of the editor. You can use the editor to publish to your journal.

The publishing editor is simple to use.
A. The top icon on the right, will allow you to choose a font and change the font type of your text. To change the font type, highlight the text and choose a font.
 B. The center icon on the right, will allow you to choose a color for your text. To change color of your text, highlight the text and choose a color using the color picker. If you do not choose a color, the default theme color will be used.
C. The lower icon on the right will allow you to choose a size for your font. To choose a size, highlight the text and choose a font size.
D. The lower icon on the left will allow you to upload an image from your local drive. To keep your profile page optimized for upload time, please make sure the image you are uploading is resized and it is NOT wider than 450 pixels. It is best to save these images for web and choose a medium quality. If the uploaded image is filling your text  area and you need to get the cursor on the bottom of the image, just use down arrow, right arrow and enter. Your cursor will be on the bottom of your uploaded image.
E. the center icon on the left, will let you make a hot link from your text or image. To make a hot link, copy the destination link, highlight the text or the image you like to make a link and click on this icon. paste the link in the text area on the pop up and you have made yourself a link.
D. To use the Bold and Italic icons, highlight your text and click on these icons.

No, you do not need to visit your network profile to read their  Journal. You can instantly read them and comment on them on your own profile page. To do so, click on the link "Network Journal" on the top right section of your profile(the Stats Section), From the drop down menu, you can choose, Network Journal, or, Friends and Family. Your network journal will instantly show on your own journal section section and customized to your own theme. Here, you can comment on their journal as well.

Your Home section is like the admin section of your site. This is where you can edit your account, upload an avatar or a banner or publish to your site, or to the main site.
Presently, there are three pages to your Home section:
Edit account:
this is where you edit your account
Edit Profile:
This is where you upload an avatar, or replace a present avatar. You can also  upload a banner or replace your present banner.
Publish:
 this is where you can publish to the following sections on your profile: To your Profile Journal, to the About section of your profile and finally, to Notepad section of your profile.

From this page, you can also publish to all pages of the "Publish" section of the site. You can publish a tutorial to the "Tutorials" part of the Publish section of the site, You can Publish articles to the "Articles" part  of the Publish section of the site, you can publish news to the "News"  part of the Publish section, or you may interview a favorite artist and publish it to the "Interviews" part of the Publish section of the site.

Yes, anyone can publish to the publish  section but you must exercise extreme judgment in publishing and publish worthy, relevant and useful materials.  Published materials will be reviewed daily and if you publish irrelevant materials, your publishing privileges may be revoked.

Your Photo Stream, is the page, or pages where you will see all the photos you have uploaded to the site, in the order you have uploaded them. On these pages, you will be able to view, replace or delete an uploaded photo.

Yes, you can. To change the order of the uploaded images on your Photo Stream, you should go to "Organize" page of your Photo Stream. On this page, you will see the images on Photo Stream, on the left section. Just drag them and put them in a new desired position.

On your Photo Stream, on the top right, you will see the "Organize" link.
On Organize page you can do the following:
A. You can make new galleries
B. You can make new private galleries
C. You can add images to the new or the existing galleries.
D. You can set the gallery representative image.
E. You can move the content of one gallery, to another.
F. You can delete a gallery.
G. You can change the order of the images on your Photo Stream.
H. You can delete an image from your Photo Stream.

On the Organize page, on the top right, you will see the gallery maker module. Just click on the icon "Create A New Gallery". When the new window opens choose a gallery name. At this point you will have a choice to make this gallery public, or private. If you choose to  make a gallery private, you will have to choose a password for the private gallery.

On Your Site, you can make public galleries and also private galleries. Public Galleries will be viewed by all your visitors. When you make a private gallery, you will have to choose a password for the gallery. Private Galleries will be viewed only by those who have the password.  You can also send the URL of a private gallery to a friend, or a client along with the password.  Having the password, they can view the content of the private gallery.  

A Gallery Image Icon or a gallery image representative, is the image you choose to represent your gallery. By default, this is the first image you add to a new gallery. When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. The image on the top left is your Gallery Image Icon. To change this icon, grab any image you prefer and place it on the top left position and it is done. 

 When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. To change this the order of the images in that gallery, simply drag the image and place it in a new position.

When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. To remove any image from this gallery, simply grab it and place it in the trash can above and you are done.
Don't forget to save your changes before you leave the organize page.

 When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. To delete a gallery, simply grab a gallery on the left and place it in the trash can.
Don't forget to save your changes before you leave organize page.

 When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. To change the image order of your Photo Stream, simply grab an image and place it in a new position.
Don't forget to save your changes before you leave the organize page.

 When you go to your Organize page, you will see your galleries on the right and your Photo Stream content on the left. If you click on any galley on the right, you will see the content of that gallery on the left. To delete an image from your Photo Stream, simply grab it and place it in the trash can.
Don't forget to save your changes before you leave the organize page.

Your network is other members you meet on the site with whom you choose to have a closer association. You can add them to different network categories, such as "Contacts".  "Friends" and / or "Family".   You can then choose to share your uploads with any or all these network categories. 

You can add someone to your network in 2 ways:
A. any place you see the person's avatar, click on the avatar. once you click on that person's avatar, you will see a drop-down set of options. On the top, you will see the option to add them to your network.  At this point you have the option to add them to your contacts, friends or family category.
B.  When visiting someone's profile page, on top of the Presentation slideshow, you will see the Network section. On this section you will see the option to add the person to your network. The procedure is the same, as it is in the avatar drop-down options.

You can also remove someone from your network in 2 ways:
A. On your network page, or any other place you see the person's avatar, click on the avatar.  Once you click on that person's avatar, you will see the drop-down set of options.  When the person is in your network, on the top, you will see the option to remove them from your network, or, change the network category.
B.  When visiting someone's profile page, on top of the Presentation slideshow, you will see the Network section. On this section you will see the option to add the person to your network. If the person is already in your network, you will see the option to remove them from your network or change network category. The procedure is the same, as it is in the avatar drop-down options.

This is a social networking site and you are probably here to share and make friends.   In doing so, please try to be patient, courteous and  friendly towards others and hopefully,  you will get the same treatment in return. There are times; however, when someone may test your patience, you don't trust them or just don't like the way they comment. The "block" tool is made for times like this, but still, don't be quick using this tool.  When you block someone, they cannot do the following anymore:
A. They cannot comment on your guestbook
B. They cannot comment on your images
C. They cannot comment on your galleries
D. They cannot rate your photos
E. They cannot favorite your photos
To block someone, just go to their profile page. On top of the Presentation slideshow, you will see the network section. Click on the link "Block" and follow the direction.

Good luck and we hope you never have to block anyone!