Images, GIFs and stock photos (the media library)

Every picture your club uploads or chooses is kept in your media library, so you never need to upload the same photo twice. When you add a picture in the block editor, a window opens with four tabs, in this order:

1. Upload: an image from your computer.

2. Your library: anything your club has uploaded or chosen before.

3. GIFs: animated GIFs from GIPHY.

4. Stock photos: free photos from Unsplash (or Pexels).

Managers and admins can add, remove and permanently delete images. An AI assistant connected to your club can also bring a picture in from a web address (see below).

The window opens only in the block editor, which is where you write a message and the text sections (Text, Image and text and Contact) of a website page. It opens when you:

• type / and choose Image;

• choose Choose image on an empty picture spot (for example, one the writing assistant left for you);

• choose Replace on a picture;

• choose Add pictures on a gallery, or pick Gallery from the / menu.

You can also drag a picture from your computer straight into the text, or paste one. It uploads and is added to Your library without opening the window, and without a description. See Writing with the block editor.

The picture boxes of a website page's Banner, Image and text and Photo gallery sections don't open this window. They upload a picture from your computer directly (see Your club's website). Those pictures are added to Your library too, but without a description.

Choose an image from your computer, or drag it onto the window. PNG, JPEG, GIF and WEBP files up to 5 MB work. The file itself has to be one of those: a file that is something else with a picture's name, such as a renamed document, is turned down. Before it uploads, there is a box to describe the image: one short sentence such as "Swimmers lined up for the relay". The box starts empty. People who use screen readers hear that description, it is how you find the picture later in Your library, and it is how the writing assistant knows what the picture shows.

Your photos' location and camera details are removed. A phone photo quietly carries where and when it was taken and what phone took it. Swim Ops removes all of that from the copy it keeps and shows, so a photo of children at the pool doesn't give away where it was taken. The picture itself is not changed, and a photo taken upright still shows upright. If a file looks damaged and can't be cleaned this way, it isn't uploaded: you'll see "This image file looks damaged, so it wasn't uploaded. Try saving it again and re-uploading." Saving or exporting the photo again from your phone or computer usually fixes it.

Describe the picture when you upload it. A picture's description in Your library can't be changed later. A description you type on a picture in a message or page stays with that one picture there; it doesn't change the library.

An AI assistant connected to your club (not the Draft with the assistant window in the editor) can copy a picture from a public web address straight into your media library, for example one of your club's photos from your old website. It has to give the picture a description, just as you would when you upload one. The picture then shows in Your library like any other upload, and you can remove it or delete it permanently the same way. Nothing on your website or in a message changes until someone places the picture.

What it can import, and what it can't:

• Only PNG, JPEG, GIF and WebP pictures up to 5 MB. A web page, a PDF or any other kind of file is turned down, whatever its address ends in.

• Only a public address that starts with https://. Addresses with a username or password in them, addresses made of numbers, and addresses that only work inside a home or office network (such as a name ending in .local) are turned down.

• An address that sends the importer on to another address is followed up to 3 times, and each new address has to pass the same checks.

• If the site takes longer than 10 seconds to answer, nothing is imported.

• A club can import up to 30 pictures in 10 minutes. After that it asks you to wait a few minutes.

Imported pictures lose their location and camera details, like uploads do. The activity log records where each one came from. It keeps the address without anything after a question mark in it, because that part of an address can hold a private access code. Only pictures you have the right to use should be imported: Swim Ops copies the file, and it stays in your library even if the original site later changes or disappears.

When the window opens for a gallery, it says Add pictures, and choosing a picture selects it instead of closing the window. Selected pictures show a check mark and collect at the bottom of the window, from any tab: Your library, GIFs, Stock photos and uploads. To take one out, choose it again or use the small × on it at the bottom. When you're done, choose Add (for example, Add 3 pictures).

A gallery block holds up to 12 pictures, so the window stops you when it's full. (A website page's Photo gallery section is different: it holds up to 24 photos, each added with its own picture box.)

On the Upload tab you can choose or drag several files at once. Each one gets its own description box; Upload sends them one after another and selects each as it arrives.

Your library shows your club's images newest first. Type in the search box to find an image by its description, and use Load more to see older ones. Choose an image to use it. A picture with no description shows "No description" and can't be found by searching.

Remove asks first, then takes an image out of your library so it is no longer offered here. It does not change anything that already shows the image: a published page, a sent email, or a draft that uses it keeps showing it.

Delete permanently

Remove only hides a picture from the library: the file is still stored and anyone with its web address can still open it. If a picture should be gone for good (for example, a photo of a child a family has asked you to take down), choose Delete permanently under it. This is offered for pictures you uploaded, not for GIFs or stock photos, which are kept by their own sites.

Before anything is deleted, it checks and tells you where the picture is still used: on published pages, in drafts, in newsletters and announcements, in the wording of automatic emails, as an instructor's photo, and as a shop product's photo. If it finds nothing it says "We didn't find it on any page, newsletter, announcement, automatic email, instructor profile or shop product." That is everything it looks in. A picture can also sit somewhere it can't check, such as an email someone already received, so read the answer as "not found", not as a promise. If the picture starts being used in the meantime (someone adds it to a page after you were shown the answer), the delete asks you again with the new answer instead of going ahead.

• A page that shows the picture will show a missing picture.

• A newsletter or announcement already sent will show a broken picture from now on. Emails already in people's inboxes may have saved their own copy, and Swim Ops can't reach into an inbox.

• It can't be undone. Upload the picture again if you need it back.

Afterwards it says "Deleted. Copies already saved by browsers or email apps may still show for a while." Swim Ops also asks its image servers to stop serving the picture, which can take a few minutes to reach everywhere. If that request didn't go through, the message says so instead: "Deleted. We couldn't clear our image servers' saved copies, so this picture may keep showing for a while. Email Swim Ops support at support@swimops.io." The picture is still deleted, but until support clears those copies it may keep showing to people who open its web address, for up to a year. Each permanent delete is recorded in the activity log, with who did it, where the picture had been used and whether the image servers were cleared.

An AI assistant connected to your club can't delete a picture on its own. It can ask, and the request waits for a person to approve it.

When you replace an instructor's photo on the Instructors tab, the old photo's file is deleted too (unless a page, a newsletter or another instructor still uses it).

Search for a GIF with a word or two ("cannonball", "high five"), then choose one. Only GIFs rated suitable for all ages are shown. A GIF you choose is added to Your library.

Animated GIFs show only their first frame in some desktop email apps, such as Outlook. Pick a GIF whose first frame still makes sense on its own.

Search for a photo ("swimming pool", "lifeguard") and choose one. Each photo shows who took it. When you use a stock photo, its credit ("Photo by … on Unsplash", linked to the photographer) appears under the picture. The photo sites require that credit, so the editor shows it and doesn't let you change it ("Credit required by the photo provider."). A photo you choose is added to Your library with its credit.

• "GIF search is not set up yet" or "Stock photo search is not set up yet": that search has not been turned on for your club's site. There is nothing to change in your settings. Upload and Your library still work. Email Swim Ops support at support@swimops.io if you need it.

• "GIF search is busy right now" or "Stock photo search is busy right now": every club shares these search services, and together they have used this hour's share. Try again later, or upload your own picture.

• "Too many searches in a short time" or "You've added a lot of images in a short time": your club has searched or picked a lot of images in the last few minutes. Wait a few minutes and try again.

• "GIF search isn't working right now" or "Stock photo search isn't working right now": the photo site didn't answer. Try again in a few minutes.

In the read-only demo, image search says "Image search isn't available in the read-only demo." and uploads, picks and removals say "This is the read-only demo. Nothing here can be changed."

Pictures your club uploaded before the media library was added may not be in Your library yet. Swim Ops support can add them for you in one step. They come in without descriptions. Nothing already published changes.

• Describe what matters in the picture, not the file name. "Kids jumping into the deep end" beats "IMG_2031".

• GIFs and stock photos are shown from the photo site itself. If a site ever removes one, it stops showing wherever it was used, so for anything important (a board photo, the pool itself) upload your own.

The Shop product editor offers Upload and Your library, showing only images your club uploaded. Select a photo, then save the product details. Removing a photo from a product leaves it in your library. Removing it from the library keeps existing product photos; deleting it permanently also removes it from the affected products listed in the confirmation.