How to Create a Gallery

This is a basic guide on creating a gallery for your athletics site. Unlike most other features on your site which are manageable exclusively on SIDEARM, creating a gallery requires the use of a third party FTP client.

The location where you manage galleries on the backend of your site is under Media > Gallery, but before heading here, we first need to transfer our gallery images to the site via FTP.

We generally recommend using the Filezilla FTP client as it’s a free, open source and lightweight program that you can use on all platforms (Windows, OS X, etc.). After you’ve installed the program, you just need four pieces of information to log onto your FTP server: a host, username, password and port number.


This information will have already been provided to you, but if you need any information reset then you can just email support@sidearmsports.com and let us know.

After successfully logging in, you should see a folder in the right half of Filezilla called ‘gallery’ (this right side is the FTP server that you logged into; the left side is your computer’s directory). Open the gallery folder and you will see another folder called ‘load’.

This ‘load’ folder is where you will place all the images you would like to have in a single gallery. Simply find the images on your computer that you would like in the gallery, and then drag them over into the ‘load’ folder. Be sure that the only items you place in the ‘load’ folder are images you want in the gallery. Don’t place other folders inside the ‘load’ folder either – just images.

After you’ve placed images in the folder, you’ve done all you have to do with the Filezilla for this gallery and you can log onto the backend of your site to finish the process of creating the gallery.

On the backend of the site find Media > Gallery > Add Gallery.

If you’ve FTP’d the photos correctly, the system will detect the number of photos it’s found and you can hit Continue.

On the next screen you will be asked to create a ‘Folder Name’. This refers to the name of the folder that will be created upon completion of adding a gallery, in which all the photos you’ve placed in the ‘load’ folder will then be moved.

This means that after you’re done creating the gallery, the ‘load’ folder will be empty and you can begin right away creating a new gallery.

When creating the ‘Folder Name’, be sure to use a consistent and conventional file-naming method. For example, the name of your folder may look something like “MSOC_vs_State” or “WBB_2009”. Make sure there are no spaces in the folder name.

The ‘Gallery Title’ field refers to the title of the gallery as it will be displayed on both the front end of your site and on the backend.

The ‘Sport’ and ‘Season’ fields will determine where this particular gallery will be located in your site’s overall photo gallery. For example, on the frontend I can search for galleries with season and sport filtering options, so it’s important to properly designate your gallery so users are able to find what they’re looking for.

Finally, ‘Gallery Display Date’ simply refers to that date on which the gallery was published. Hit Continue when you’re done with this screen.

On the ‘Image Order’ tab, you can simply drag and drop photos in the gallery to reorder them, or you can skip this step entirely.

On the last tab, ‘Captions’, you can write captions for your gallery photos and give photo credit to individual photos (or set a default credit for all images in the gallery). Also in the ‘Captions’ tab is the option to select one of the images as the gallery’s primary image which will be displayed on the list of galleries on the frontend of the site. ‘Save Gallery Changes’ when you’ve finished.

That’s it. The ‘load’ folder you used when using the FTP client will now be empty and you can start creating another gallery.

Generate Revenue via Sponsorships

You may have received an email from us the other day informing you of a new partnership that ICS SIDEARM Sports has made with University Sports Publications (USP). For several years many of you have been asking us to help provide you sponsorship opportunities on your Website and with this partnership we can now fulfill this need.

The process is easy and the end result is money back into your athletic program. Let us know if you are interested and we will get you the agreement.

Over the past week we have received many inquiries. Below I will address the frequently asked questions.

Why USP? USP understands collegiate athletics and works with over 500 colleges, universities, and conferences across the United States. They already have the relationships with potential sponsors and they have a sales force that can make this a success.

What should I do if interested? We have a standard agreement that we will send you which you just need to sign and fax back to us. THAT IS IT. We do the rest.

How many ad locations will you use? All we ask is for three ad locations on your homepage (one banner location and two right side locations). Each location will rotate through no more than 4 ads.

Will this interfere with my current sponsors? Absolutely not. We will add in the 3 additional ad locations so they do not interfere with anything you are doing.

What kind of ads will be sold? USP’s strength is in local advertisers. USP also understands the type of advertisers that colleges and universities do not want o their website and stay away from anyone that would be inappropriate.

Can I restrict certain organizations from being solicited? Absolutely. You can provide an initial protect list and you can modify the protect list at anytime.

Do I have to maintain the ads? No. USP and ICS will do all the work. We will put up, take down the ads.

So what do I have to do? Nothing. After you sign the agreement we do all the work and you simply receive a check every quarter.

End result. We realize we are still in a down economy and budgets have been cut. We believe your website should be thought of as a revenue stream and not an expense. This is one way in which SIDEARM can help your bottom line.

The Company Picnic

All of us at ICS recently took a much needed break to celebrate the ending of a busy, yet successful summer. We stepped away from our computers for a Friday afternoon and headed to Long Branch Park at Onondaga Lake for a company picnic. We had delicious food and enjoyable company, as well as a rare sunny and warm Syracuse day. The highlight of the afternoon however, was a fierce kickball game and endless rounds of cornhole. Unfortunately most of us were sore from the kickball game and depressed by fact that a kickball game has the ability to make us sore...regardless, we all had a blast. The picnic also created a new office, or mostly Jamie obsession, cornhole. Click here to see pictures from our picnic!