Help

Registration, Login and Membership

We need some way to keep your board as yours, and to show that you are the author in the Shared Boards page. If you need a password reminder, we need somewhere to send it to. If you're concerned about using your email address with us, our privacy policy is very simple. We will never sell or otherwise disclose your email address or personal information without your consent.

We recommend starting by looking at other people's boards to get some ideas for your own board. If you want to start, go to the My Dreamboard page. You can work on your board for 3 months for free. Save it as many times as you like. Share it or keep it to yourself. Export it as a large image for your desktop. The full Digital Dreamboard functionality is available to you. After 3 months, if you decide not to become a member, you can view your previously saved boards whenever you like. As a member, you can keep on building boards.

At the top right of every page except the Dreamboard page, you'll see a login/logout link.

As a member, you can continue to develop and change your board as much as you like, whenever you like. Membership is $25 per year.

Our privacy policy is very simple. We will never sell or otherwise disclose your email address or personal information without your consent. Ever.

Building your own Dreamboard: The My Dreamboard page

If you've never made a Digital Dreamboard, just go to My Dreamboard and a clean board will be started for you. If you've already worked on your board, My Dreamboard will take you to your current board.

There are three ways to get help.

• For beginners, we recommend the step-by-step guide.
• If you're working on your board and want to know what a specific button does, move your mouse over one of the Help icons. This will bring up notes for each of the buttons near the Help icon.
• Clicking a Help icon will take you to this page where more detailed information about each of the neighboring buttons can be found. The help link can be found on every page in the top links.

Any digital images you have on your computer can be uploaded to your board.
If you don't have an image, try Google Images. It's the most comprehensive and useful image search on the Web.

• First, make a 'Dreamboard' folder on your desktop to save these images into.
  
• In Google Images, type in one or more keywords (for example 'dream house') and it will find images which are relevant. Click on the image you like.
  
• Right click on the image you want and select 'Save image as...' or 'Save picture as...'. Save the image to the 'Dreamboard' folder.
  
• To get images onto your board, see the next item.

Many images are copyrighted. This means that you cannot use them for commercial purposes without the consent of the owner. If you don't try to sell copies of your board, you're fine. Otherwise, contact the owner.

The floating image gallery provides all the tools you'll need to upload images and drag them onto your board.

• Click the 'Browse...' button and navigate to images in your computer.
  
• Click 'Open' in the file-browser dialog and the upload will start. You can upload JPEG, GIF or PNG images.
  
• You'll see a moving upload bar a the file is uploading. When complete, a small version of the image will appear in your gallery.
• You can then drag this image onto your board.
  

Remember that large images take longer to upload and download, so reducing the size of the image before uploading will improve your experience when loading the board.
We automatically reduce the size of very large images without a significant loss in image quality.

Once you've upload an image into your gallery, you can drag-and-drop it onto your board. The image will land where you drop it, but may be dragged anywhere on the board at any time.

Dragging a gallery image onto the Delete Gallery Image icon removes that image from the gallery. If you have used that image on previous boards or on you current board, it will still be present on those boards, but won't be available to drag onto any board.

Clicking on the 'Background' tab in the gallery displays the background color picker. Move the saturation/brightness picker and/or the hue slider to change the color of the background.

Clicking the Zoom 50% icon allows you to work on a full size board while viewing it at half size. This doesn't change the board itself; only the way it's viewed.
To go back to full size, click the Zoom 100% icon. This is particularly useful if you have a smaller screen for your computer (for example on a laptop).

Click on the Board Clear icon to remove all images and text from your board. Note that this cannot be undone so any unsaved changes will be lost. Your previously saved boards are preserved of course.

Clicking on the View icon presents a menu of possible image sizes. Choose one of these sizes and the image will be presented in a separate browser window. Right click on the image and choose 'Save Image As...' (or 'Save Picture As...') to save the image.

By default, your board is private when you start working on it. Go to the Board History page to select those boards which you would like people to see. You can select as many or as few boards as you want to become public. Public boards can only be edited by you of course!

Click the Save icon in the bottom right of the board to save your board. If the icon is grayed out, the board is up-to-date and does not need to be saved.

Select the date of the saved board from the bottom of the board. The old board will be loaded and you can work on it immediately. Alternatively, visit the Board History page to see the evolution of your board.

Clicking on any image on the board brings up the Image Editing toolbox. This toolbox allows you to:

• Resize an image
• Cut off portions of the image (known as Cropping)
• Soften the edges of the image in a rectangular or elliptical shape
• Remove an image from the board

The following sections cover these actions in detail.

If the image editing toolbox is still available for the edited image, you can click the Undo icon at the bottom of the toolbox. This will revert the image back to its original state.

Once an image has been selected (by clicking on the image in the board), clicking the Image Resize icon in the toolbox brings up the resize tool on top of the selected image. This tool has 5 handles. The handle in the top left corner allows you to resize the image while preserving the aspect ratio. Other handles will change the images aspect ratio. Clicking 'OK' in the resize tool will resize the image to fit the outline of the tool. Clicking 'Cancel' remove the resize tool and bring the image back to to it's orginal size.

Once an image has been selected (by clicking on the image in the board), clicking the Image Crop icon in the toolbox brings up the cropping tool on top of the selected image. This tool has 4 handles. Drag the handles to select the region of interest in the image. Clicking 'OK' in the cropping tool will leave only the portion of the image inside the outline of the tool. Clicking 'Cancel' remove the cropping tool and bring the image back to to it's orginal size.

Often, the edges of an image will be too noticeable when the iamge is placed on the board. To reduce this effect, the image editing toolboox offers the Feathering Tool. Images can be feathered along their straight edges (rectangular feathering) or in round shape. Rectangular feathering softens edges as little as possible while still achieving a blended edge. Round feathering works around the largest ellipse which will fit inside the image boundaries.

Clicking on an image brings up the image editing toolbox. Clicking on the Delete icon will remove the image from the board.

Drag the Text icon from the gallery onto the board. This will place a piece of text onto the board and bring up the text editing toolbox.

Once a piece of text has been selected (by clicking on it), the text editing toolbox is shown. You can change the text itself, the font, size and style of the text in addition to the color of the text using the color picker.

Once a piece of text has been selected (by clicking on it), the text editing toolbox is shown. Delete the selected text by clicking the Delete icon.

Once a piece of text has been selected (by clicking on it), the text editing toolbox is shown. Move the text or image to the front or back by clicking on the To-Front or To-Back icons.

As you move your mouse around the board, you will see one of 3 different mouse pointers. The Drag pointer means that whatever it underneath the mouse pointer can be dragged around the board. The Click pointer means that the item can be clicked and some action will be taken. The Default pointer means that there are no actions associated with the item under the pointer.

Forever. You can see any of your past boards by selecting the date the board was saved from the My Dreamboard page.

Internet browsers are fickle creatures, especially when dealing with complex layouts. Occasionally, the board will not be displayed properly when you first come into the page. Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't fix it, try closing the browser and opening it again. If the board is still laid out in an unexpected way, email us.

Kind of. Since your saved boards are saved indefinitely, you can start as many boards as you like and then work on them at any time. Just remember to save the board you're currently working on.

As many as you like.

Does anything happen to my image when I upload it? (My image looks slightly different on the board)

Large images are optimized before they are stored on our servers. By optimized, we mean that the some of the detail is taken out to reduce the file size, but the image is left at the same pixel size. Typical images from mega-pixel cameras can be very large (1MB or over). While we don't mind you having large images in your account, if you use alot of those large images on your board, it will take a long time to download when you first come into the board, even with a fast internet connection. Images over 500KB in size are reduced to about 1/6th of their original file size. Images over 50KB are reduced to about 1/3 of their original file size. In our experience, these changes don't change the viewed quality on normal computer screens. We do keep a copy of the original image on our servers. In case you need to view very large versions of your board, we use the originals to make those images so we lose as little quality as possible.

Viewing other people's Dreamboards

How do I view other people's Dreamboards?

The shared boards page will display all the boards which people have made publicly viewable. Click on any board to view it.

How do I find a specific user's Dreamboard?

Enter all or part of the user's public name into the search box on the shared boards page. Note that you can only search users by their public names (not their real names).

Can I see (or save) a large version of someone else's board?

When viewing a public board, click the Export icon in the bottom right of the page. This will present you with a selection of sizes to view the board. Right click the board and 'Save image' to save it to your computer.

Can I change someone else's board?

No.

I don't/do want other people to see my board. How can I make it private/public?

By default, your board is private when you start working on it. Go to the Board History page to select those boards which you would like people to see. You can select as many or as few boards as you want to become public. Public boards can only be edited by you of course!

Browsers and Operating Systems

Digital Dreamboard should be supported on all A-grade browsers (including Internet Explorer 5.5+, Firefox 1.5+ and Opera 9). The list of A-grade browsers can be found here. This list covers over 95% of computer users so all common configurations will be covered. If you are using one of the browsers listed but are having trouble with some aspect of the board, please email us and tell us the browser, browser version and operating system you are using. We will attempt to correct these problems.

The A-grade browser list (found here) indicates which operating systems/browser combinations are considered A-grade. This list covers over 95% of computer users. If you are using one of the A-grade browsers listed but are having trouble with some aspect of the board, please email us and tell us the browser, browser version and operating system you are using. We will attempt to correct these problems.