fresh.li FAQ

General

  • What is fresh.li?

  • fresh.li is the easiest way to create an online portfolio that is all about you and your work. No ads or any links to fresh.li whatsoever. No social network, or 'more like this' buttons to distract from your work, your site should be about you not us. Your entire portfolio is managed online, all you need is your work and a browser to build your portfolio.

    With fresh.li you can:

    • Use your own domain.
    • Choose from several templates.
    • Create as many pages and sections of images as you want.
    • Upload your own logo.
    • Choose your own colors, font size and type.
    • Use our built-in statistics or add your own tracking code.

    If you want a little bit more than just 'easy' that's possible too; fresh.li is highly customizable. If you know your way around HTML and CSS you can customize the templates to your liking. If you don't check out our tutorials for tips & tricks.

  • Will fresh.li always be free to try?

  • Yes it will. While we believe our Pro plan offer great value for money we also understand you might want to try out fresh.li before you buy so we'll always offer a limited but very functional, free version of our product as well to try for 30 days.

  • Can I view a fresh.li portfolio on my iPhone or iPad?

  • Yes. Unlike flash based portfolios, fresh.li is build with HTML and is visible on the iPad and iPhone. In fact, our portfolio's look really great on an iPad.

  • Can I show video on fresh.li?

  • Yes you can.

    Although you can not upload a video, you can embed a video in a text field (a page or a work description for instance) from youtube, vimeo, blip.tv or any other video service.

    To embed the video simply copy the 'embed' code you'll find on most services next to the video you uploaded. Then paste this code into your text field. You can experiment with the size if you want, with most portfolio templates about 500 pixels wide looks best.

  • Is there a limit of images I can have?

  • You get, among other things, 2 GB (or 2000 MB) of storage space which would be enough for a whopping 12.000 images!

  • Is there a limit to the number of pages and sections I can have?

  • Nope, knock yourself out. We would recommend to not use much more than 10 pages or sections though since your portfolio can become cluttered with more links than that. If you use your portfolio to attract clients for your commercial work for instance it's good to keep your portfolio focused. Show off what your good at and pick a few of your best works in each section (i.e. portraits, landscapes, etc.). If your clients are like most clients they will not have a lot of time and they'll make up their mind fast.

    You can always start a second portfolio for your personal work...

  • How do I get to be on fresh.li featured?

  • Portfolios on the featured page are hand picked. Create a stunning and beautiful portfolio and chances are good you will be on featured some day. We refresh the selection often and new picks are announced on all our social media pages; Facebook, Twitter and maybe our newsletter. Have we overlooked your portfolio? Please send us an e-mail: support@fresh.li because we love to see and share it!

  • Can I share my portfolio?

  • fresh.li is not designed as a social media platform but as an easy way to create a portfolio website. Because social media -is- important to promote your work it's possible to add a Facebook like button to your pages. You'll find the option to add a share button for each work in your portfolio settings.

  • How can I be found by Google?

  • Search engines use crawlers to look at a number of different factors to use for their algorithmic search results. However text is the main thing you can influence to be found by:

    • Filling in the description of your portfolio. (you can find the description form under settings)
    • Text you use to describe your images.
    • The file names of your images. (give them a name that makes sense instead of a number)
    • Any other text you use on a page.
    • Note that text in an image will not be found. Don't save your CV as a jpg, but copy/paste it as text.
    • Think about what you do and what people might type in google to find you and use that to describe your work. To speed things up a little bit you can also add your URL to Google.
    Don't forget to make a contact page; when you are found, people might want to contact you.

Portfolio Settings

  • How do I use a custom domain?

  • What you need:

    1. Your own domain name, registered anywhere

    You'll see an option in your portfolio settings where you can fill in the domain name that you just registered. Once you do and save your settings you will have to change the settings at your domain registrar to make sure your name points to the correct server; ours which is 178.79.164.243. In the hosting world this is known as an A name record, you can usually pick what type of record you want to add (or change since there is usually an A name record pre configured for your domain).

    Since each registrar uses a different configuration system we can't give you a step by step explanation but in general these are the actions to take:

    1. Go to your registrars site (i.e. godaddy.com, 1and1.com or whichever company you picked)
    2. Login to your domain control panel or settings
    3. You will have to find the page where you can change your DNS settings
    4. You will be adding new, or changing the existing, so called A name records.
    5. The A name record tells your browser which server to go to when yourdomainname.com is typed into an address bar
    6. On most registrars the setup for an A record will have three parts; the subdomain, you'll have to create an entry for the www subdomain and one without the www (you can usually leave subdomain empty for this entry), then the domain name which should already be pre-filled with your registered name, then the IP address of the server it should point to which is 178.79.164.243
    7. If you already had A name records for the www and 'www-less' entries setup you can simply change those or replace them with the new ones pointing to the right IP address. The other settings you can leave alone, you'll find entries for email and sometimes database or ftp setting here too but you don't have to bother with those.
    8. fresh.li does not come with e-mail service so if your registrar offers this you can simply use that, and in that case make sure you leave the email entries alone

    Don't worry if this all sounds really complicated, it is a bit but with some tinkering your bound to find out how it works. And if not simply ask your hosting companies support people to do it for you and send them this FAQ answer so they know what you want. Or get your computer wizard friend to do it for you of course!

  • I have changed my template, now all my pages and sections are gone.

  • The primary and secondary color are used differently depending on the theme. If one of these colors is the same as your background color it is possible your pages and sections will not be visible anymore in your menu. Don't worry they are not gone, just change the color and they will be visible again.

  • How do I upload a logo?

    1. sign in to your account;
    2. go to your settings page;
    3. scroll down to custom logo;
    4. click browse;
    5. select your logo and click open;
    6. save settings
  • What is CSS?

  • Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language. In other words; it is a language which you can use to change the design and layout of your website.


    Custom CSS is only possible if you have a PRO account

  • How do I change my template?

  • Go to the settings page (the settings link next to your portfolio name on the main dashboard) and scroll all the way down. There you'll find previews of each template. Pick one and hit the save button and your good to go. You can change templates any time, just remember that the colors you choose in that same settings page are used differently in each of the templates so what works well in the default template might not look so nice in another template. It's easy to experiment with different color palettes though so just try different variations and see what works for you!

Manage Your Portfolio

  • What is the difference between a page and a section?

  • A page is meant for text an a section is meant for images. Every page and section becomes a menu-item in your menu.

    If you know a bit about using html, you can also type html in pages or any text fields if you want.

  • Can I rearrange my pages and sections once i have made them?

  • Yes that is possible. Just drag and drop the sections and pages where you want. You can do this by clicking the green bar of your page or section, hold your mouse button down and drag it.

  • What is a tag?

  • A tag is a way to categorize your work other than the menu. This especially comes in handy when you have a lot of work on your website.

    For example if you are a painter and your sections are; oil paintings, sketches and watercolor, you can individually tag your works by subject. If a visitor clicks the tag 'flower' for instance all the works tagged with flower from every section will show up.

  • I uploaded all my images in a work and now there is only one thumbnail, why?

  • Since a few works with a few uploaded images each can amount to a lot of images in total in most templates we opt to show only the first image for each work in listings. That way it never gets too crowded. When you click on a work you can usually go to the next image in the series by clicking on the image or using the numbered navigation at the bottom of a work.

    It can be confusing that you can upload more than one image for a single work but the thinking behind it is simple; Sometimes a 'work' might not be a single image but a series of images. Or maybe what you make is three dimensional and you'd like to show it from more than one angle.

  • Can I upload a PDF?

  • No, all you can upload right now are images in the PNG, JPEG or GIF formats. You could however add a link to a PDF which is hosted elsewhere for instance in the public folder of your Dropbox account or a similar file hosting service.

  • Can I move a work from one section to another?

  • The only way to do that right now is to delete the work from the first section and then create it again in the second section.

    Technically it would not be that hard to support this feature but the interface would almost certainly become more complex. So instead of more power we chose more simplicity.

Customizing

  • How do i change the image on my homepage?

  • If you upload an image the option show on homepage is activated by default. If you do not uncheck this option all your images will be randomly shown on your homepage.


    How to change this afterwards:

    1. login to your account;
    2. go to your manage page;
    3. click the title of the section that holds the image that you want to uncheck (or check);
    4. click the title of the work that holds the image;
    5. uncheck the blue checkbox for show on homepage in the options panel;
    6. save changes
  • Can I create my own template?

  • That depends on how much different your portfolio design will have to be. If you know some CSS, or are willing to learn, you can get a lot done by simply editing the CSS file for your portfolio. Using the "Custom CSS" option for Pro accounts you could change the complete layout of your site from the positioning of the menu to using your own background images.

    You cannot, yet, create your own HTML for the templates though just the CSS. But... When you have a great design for your portfolio and you wouldn't mind if other people used it too we are open to implementing your design as a new fresh.li template. In that case just send us a link to your designs (as HTML or just the image source files) and we'll see if we can add it to the roster.

Account Settings

  • How can I delete my account?

  • You can delete your accout by clicking:

    1. your account;
    2. delete account
  • What happens if my pro account expires?

  • We'll ask you by email to pay for another year for your pro account. If you do not act upon this request your account will downgrade to free status & features. Your work will remain online but you may not be able to upload new work or use all the features you were used to such as your custom domain name.

    You will never be billed automatically, nor are you bound to a subscription. You pay a year in advance and that's it.

Payment

  • What methods of payment do you accept?

  • We currently accept most credit cards through Paypal.

  • Can I pay by invoice or will you provide an invoice?

  • Our PayPal payment option will get you an email receipt. If you need an 'official' invoice for your taxes, or are unable to pay using our current payment methods, we will be able to send you a digital invoice. Simply send us an email with the email address you use to login and your business details (which go on the invoice) and we'll make sure you get your digital invoice within 5 business days.

  • Where can I find my order history?

  • You can find your order history under:

    1. your account;
    2. order history

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