Create an online show with photos and videos

Create an online show with photos and videos

Use the free Capzles tool to create animated timeline-based shows. Find out how

Introduction

Services such as Flickr and Youtube have helped popularise the idea of sharing photos and videos online. Both are free and easy to use, yet neither offers much control over how the finished photos and video clips are presented.

That is where the Capzles website comes in. It provides a framework for pictures, videos and text that is timeline-based, animated and comes with a set of built-in themes and design tools to help anyone produce attractive and interesting multimedia shows.

These are stored by Capzles and can be shared, making the service a good choice for anyone who wants to record a structured ‘story’ using different media.

In this Workshop we will explore how to use the basic features of the Capzles website.

1. Capzles works entirely online, so there is no software to download and it’s easy to get started. Launch a web browser and click once in the address line, then type www.capzles.com and press the Return key. When the website loads, take a moment to have a look at some of the featured Capzles by scrolling through the list on the right and clicking on any interesting ones. Want to get started? Navigate back to this page and then click the Join Now button at the top right.

2. Next, create a screen name and password that’s easy to remember and then click the ‘Go To final Step’ button. Add a valid email address and type in the unique verification code to prove you are a person rather than an automated software robot up to no good, and then click the ‘I’m done’ button to continue. (There are other details here but these are all optional.) At the next screen, click the Create button at the top and then select New Capzle.

3. After a moment the main Capzle editing screen appears. The working window is in the middle and the commands are in the panel on the left. Start by clicking the Add Title & Description heading which will open a set of controls underneath. Type in a title and then use the colour and typeface controls to personalise it. Here we are choosing a serif typeface in a burnt orange colour – there will be plenty of time to edit this later if we change our minds.

4. Finished with the heading? Click the Add Title & Description heading to close that set of commands and then open the next one, Tags & Categories. Both are useful for helping others to find Capzle shows, so type in any words that describe the content, separating each word with a comma, as shown here. Next, have a look at the Categories listing and see if there are any there that can be ticked. Since this Capzle is about walking there are several categories that fit.

5. You can’t have a show without content, so close Tags and Categories by clicking on it and then open Add Content. Because this is a simple sequential show, we have selected the ‘Upload directly onto my timeline’ option which will drop every item we upload into its own separate slot. When the dialogue box opens click the ‘add files’ button and then use Windows commands to navigate to a bunch of photos, select them and then click the Open button. Finally, click ‘start upload’.

6. Capzles uploads all the photos in our folder and puts them in date order on a snazzy-looking timeline. From here it is possible to drag and drop pictures into a different order, or go back and add more content in the same way – a video clip for example. Alternatively, Capzles has a neat little blogging feature which will let us annotate our show and, hopefully, illuminate the pictures more than a simple caption ever could. Still in the Content section, click ‘Blog directly onto my timeline’.

7. When the blog entry window opens, add a title, description and some more tags (or the same ones as before – every little helps). Then, type in an entry for the blog, using any of the word processor-style commands in the button bar to add emphasis, change the font size or colour, formatting and so on, and it’s even possible to add hyperlinks or HTML if you know how. Click ‘done’ to continue.

8. Close the Add Content panel and then click Design Your Capzle. Make sure the ‘pick a theme’ tab is selected and then scroll through the list of themes to find a good one. Given the subject of this Capzle, we are going for the first one in the list which has a nice natural feel to it. Although it can’t be shown on the pages of a magazine, this theme is actually animated with insects buzzing about, flowers opening and so on. To select a theme, just left click on its thumbnail once.

9. Capzles can also include background music, for example an MP3 file recorded from an audio CD. Close the Design panel and click ‘Add Background Music’ and then click the Upload Music button. Navigate to wherever the music is stored on the PC and then select one or more tracks to upload. Then click the Open button. If there is more than one track, use the commands in the Add background Music panel to re-order the tracks if necessary by selecting them and clicking Move Up or Move Down.

10. Capzles can be set up so that anyone who visits the site can see them, restricted to certain named individuals or set as ‘private’ so that no-one can see them; this is useful for setting up private diaries or perhaps a visual family history that’s a work-in-progress. By default, Capzle makes all new shows visible to everyone so they can be browsed or searched for, either by name or using the tags we entered back in Step 4.

11. It’s possible to go back and edit any of the settings in the panels on the left at any time, but once the show is finished, click the ‘I’m Finished!’ button at the top right. This displays a preview of how the Capzle will look. Use the controls at the bottom to advance through the show one item at a time or fast forward or quick reverse using the double-arrow buttons. Control the thumbnail size with the magnifying glass button and the volume of the background music with the speaker button.

12. Any of the items in the show can be viewed full size by clicking on them. Here for example, we have clicked on a video clip which can now be seen full size, showing the countryside at dawn. Visitors can rate individual items using a simple 0-5 star system or they can add comments in the text box at the bottom of each item. Pictures can be marked as favourites and visited easily later on, or sent to friends as a link in an email.

13. Click either of the arrows above the image to move forward or back through the show at full size or click the ‘x’ at the top-right to return to the thumbnail view. Want a friend to see it? Click the Share button at the top and then select Send The Link To A Friend command from the menu. When the dialogue box opens, type in the email address and a message – the link is then added to the body of the mail so they can click it when the message arrives.

14. Public Capzles can be found by anyone who visits the site. Here we’ve gone back to the home page and then typed the word ‘river’ into the search box at the top. After a moment the site returns all the Capzles that include the word river in their title or tags. Scroll down the list, find a show and then slide the cursor along the coloured bar in the timeline. When the thumbnails appear above the line, select a point in the show and then click the ‘enter this Capzle here’ button to play back from that point.