Use of Files and Folders - Mahara
Overview
As you create your portfolio over time, in addition to typing information directly into Mahara, you will
also wish to upload files from elsewhere to be incorporated into your portfolio.
Mahara allows you to upload many different sorts of information held in files in a variety of formats. Over
time, if you upload many files in support of your portfolio activities, the list of available files will grow
quite long.
In addition, if you or your tutors strongly advocate putting more organisation into the way in which these
files are stored within Mahara – for example, because they wish to go and visit all your audits or
assignments in one go – then you need to consider using folders to organise these files within your
portfolio.
The remainder of this note focusses on specific tasks:

Creating a folder for your files

Uploading files to your portfolio

Using your files and folders
N.B. Further general information about files and folders in Mahara consult the online Mahara manual at
http://manual.mahara.org/en/1.10/content/files.html but please be aware that in the set-up of Mahara
at Warwick there may be some differences.
Creating a Folder for Your Files
1. To create a folder within your Portfolio, click on the
CONTENT menu option and then, from the list of
choices below it, click on the FILES option (Figure
1).
Figure 1: The FILES screen
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2. We will create a folder called images to store all
of our uploaded image files. In the text box to
the left of the Create folder button, type
images (Figure 2)
Figure 2: Creating the images folder
3. Now click on the Create folder button. This will
create a folder directly under your Home area
called images (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Your created images folder
Creating a Folder Within Another Folder
Mahara allows you to create folders within other folders and, for some purposes, this may appeal as the
best way for you to organise things. For example, within our general images folder you might want to
create a separate folder for an image gallery.
In the note above, you created a folder (images) directly under your Home folder.
4. To be able to create a folder within an existing
folder, first navigate to the FILES area by clicking on
the CONTENT menu option and then, from the list
of choices below it, click on the FILES option (Figure
4).
Figure 4: The FILES screen
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5. We will create a folder called gallery1 to store
image files that will form part of an iamge
gallery that we wish to have on our page. First,
click on the name of the folder (images) within
which you wish to create your gallery1 folder.
Note that Home has now changed to
Home/images. Then, in the text box to the left
of the Create folder button, type gallery1
(Figure 5)
Figure 5: Creating the gallery1 sub-folder within images
6. Now click on the Create folder button. This will
create a folder directly under your images
folder area called gallery1.
However, notice that when you return to your
Home level (by clicking on Home) it is not
obvious from the display that images now has
one or more sub-folders inside it (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Home-level view – gallery1 not listed
N.B. Your tutors may well have advice and preferences for you on how best to organise your files and
folders – the above was just an example.
Uploading Files to Your Portfolio
Mahara offers a number of opportunities for you to upload information to your portfolio: by uploading
files using the CONTENT -> FILES main menu choices; when you create a Note or Journal; when you create
an image or image gallery; when you add a Files to Download block to your page and so on. We will use
the example of using the CONTENT -> FILES main menu option to illustrate how to upload files to your
portfolio, although the steps are very similar for the other block types.
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7. From your Dashboard screen, click on CONTENT
from the top menu and the FILES from the next
menu down and you will see a screen similar to
Figure 7. Recall we saw this in steps 1 and 4 above
when dealing with folders.
Figure 7: The FILES screen
8. From the Files screen, you can now upload
additional files into your portfolio that you can then
place in your portfolio pages. By default, any file
you upload will be placed in the Home or top-level
part of your portfolio, but you can upload into a
folder you have created by clicking on the folder
name in the list (e.g. images) and the prompt then
changes from Home to Home / images to confirm
that whatever file or files you choose, they will all
be placed into the images folder (see Figure 8)
Figure 8: Uploading into a folder (the images folder)
9. When uploading files to your portfolio, Mahara
checks that you are entitled to have those files in
your portfolio and you must tick the Upload file
checkbox to confirm that is the case before the
Choose Files button becomes active and allows you
to choose one-or-more files to upload. Here, in
Figure 9, we are selecting a local file (from a USB
stick) called “TheScientificMethod.png
Figure 9: Choosing files to upload
10. When your file is selected, click on the Open
button (Windows) and your file will be placed into
the currently chosen destination (Home / images )
and a green confirmation message will appear
above the Upload file checkbox.
Figure 10: File uploaded and in folder
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Using Files and Folders
Now that you’ve uploaded files into your portfolio repository, and organised them in a meaningful way
into folders, how do you make use of them?
When editing a page in Mahara, the editing toolbox area on the left hand side of the screen contains all
the types of “blocks” that you can place onto your page. Each block is rectangular and will normally fill the
whole width of whichever column you drag it onto. Many of these blocks contain within them the ability
to upload / associate files: Image, Image Gallery, Files to Download, Journal, Note and so on.
We will look at making use of files we have already uploaded in relation to two of these: an image gallery
and a note.
Creating an Image Gallery
11. To add an image gallery to your page, click on
Media from the toolbox on the left hand side of the
screen and then click and drag an Image gallery
block onto your page. You will then see the Image
gallery: Configure screen (Figure 11).
Figure 41: Adding an image gallery to your page
12. Give your image gallery a title if you wish – this one
will be Views of Porto 2015. Under Image selection
ensure that “Display all images from one of my
folders …” is selected. Below this, in the Folder area
locate the folder that houses your images for this
gallery - in my example I have previously loaded
them up into a sub-folder of images called Porto –
then click on the Select button by the side of this
folder and it will appear above in the main Folder
area (Figure 12).
Figure 52: Choosing images from an uploaded folder
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13. Now, complete your set-up of the image gallery by
choosing the Style of display, whether to caption
each image or not and the width you would like to
specifiy for each image. Each image is then scaled
to the column width from that width. Finally decide
whether this block on your page is to be retractable
or not and then click Save. (Figure 13)
Figure 63: Completing your image gallery setup
14. Finally, click Done at the base of the page to save
and publish your changes. Then, to view your
changes, click on DASHBOARD and then your
altered page will be seen in the Latest pages area
on the left-hand side of the screen. Click on your
page name to view your image gallery (Figure 14).
Your image gallery slideshow comes complete with
> and >> controls for you to move through it.
Figure 74: Your image gallery
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Creating a Note
15. To add an Note to your page, click on General from
the toolbox on the left hand side of the screen and
then click and drag a Note block onto your page.
You will then see the Note: Configure screen
(Figure 15).
Figure 85: Adding a Note to your page
16. You can now scroll the Note: Configure box down
to complete the setup for the Note. (Figure 16). If
you wish, you can elect to Add a file (under the
Attachments heading). If you do this, the Configure
screen opens out and display the “normal” file
choosing box – and in my case, I will choose to
attach an already uploaded file
“w7_unmanaged_printing_student.pdf” (Figure
16).
Figure 96: Attaching files to a Note
17. Scroll down and click Save and then Done to save
your changes. Then, to view your changes, click on
DASHBOARD and your altered page will be seen in
the Latest pages area on the left-hand side of the
screen. Click on your page name to view your Note
(Figure 17). The screen shows your Attached files
area expanded and you can see your PDF file which
you can view or download.
Figure 107: Viewing your note
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