Introduction - Media Directory
This is an optional feature if using pictures or sound files, and allows you to keep your media files on your own (web) drive, so you don't have to upload them to my server. If you don't have many media files, it's probably easier to just use the normal picture/sound upload process and not use this feature.
• Advantage - your media files won't get deleted from my server (since I don't have space to keep everyone's files around indefinitely)
• Disadvantage - you'll need to setup your own drive space that can be accessed from the internet
One good solution is to use Dropbox. You can sign up for a free account and you get 2GB of personal storage. You can use the web interface, or install a great client on your computer to make it easy to transfer files to. (See Dropbox section below.)
Note: Using large picture files may cause downloading and flashcard performance to be slow. My website's upload process will automatically shrink large pictures to increase performance. Keep this in mind, and consider using my upload process to do the work of shrinking your picture files, and then export them back to yourself for use.
Input Box - Media Dir URL
Here you enter the full http path where your files are stored. (Don't use spaces!) For example: http://orangeorapple.com/MyDecks/Chinese/
When you download your deck from your device, the app will look to this location for your media files, rather than on my server.
If you update an existing deck, you don't need to enter this value again, as the app will remember the old Media Directory used with the deck.
Not using this server at all?
If you are using your own server as the source of your text data, you can use this feature by adding a header row to your text file:
* {tab} media-dir {tab} http://...
When you use the Media Dir URL feature in the upload page, all it's doing is adding this header row to your text data.
Using Dropbox
After signing up for Dropbox, look at your existing Dropbox folders. One will be "Public". This is where your media files will go.
Create a directory for your deck, for example "Chinese", and put your files in there. (You'll either upload the files using your web browser, or if you've installed their program, you can just copy as if you're copying to another folder on your computer. Neat, huh?)
The final step is to get the URL of your folder. Dropbox makes it easy to get the URL of a file inside the folder, so let's do that first:
Using a web browser: Right-click on a media file and choose "Copy Public Link".
Using your file explorer: Right-click on a media file, find the "Dropbox" sub-menu, then choose "Copy Public Link". It's been copied to your clipboard/pasteboard. Paste this into a text editor so you can see it.
The link will look like: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1234567/Chinese/1.mp3
Remove the file name and you have your "Media Dir URL": http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1234567/Chinese/
(Spaces in directory names may not work. Also, sometimes "https:" (with 's') is required.)
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