Users can view Tapestries on the site’s main page. Tapestries examples showcase the various media types available and shared Tapestries can be made accessible to anyone with a link.
How do I know what kind of access I have?
Currently, Tapestries is only available as a viewable set of pages. In the future, when the creator of a Tapestry shares a link with a user, it will be either as a ‘Collaborator’ or a ‘Viewer’. Collaborators will be able to toggle ‘Author mode’ by pressing the 🄴 key.
How do I zoom in on one Tapestry item?
When looking at a larger Tapestry, you can view one item at a time by clicking on the item and pressing 🄵 on your keyboard. This will ‘focus’ your screen on what you’re looking at — similar to walking up to a specific painting in an art gallery.
When you want to zoom back out, you can either press 🄵 again, or use the ‘Zoom in/out’ keys in the bottom right hand corner.
Using ‘pinching’ and ‘pulling’ motions on your screen will also allow you to zoom in and out.
I clicked on a video or livestream in Tapestries and it isn’t playing, what should I do?
If you click on a video file that has been uploaded directly to Tapestries, it should begin playing as soon as you click on the thumbnail. Some embedded links have to be ‘activated’ before you can interact with them so you may need to click on certain videos more than one time. Once a video is playing, use the ‘Focus’ tool—🄵 on your keyboard—to enter and exit fullscreen mode.
I see the outline of a file or link but it’s blank, how do I fix it?
Sometimes files and images, like the ones above, have trouble displaying a thumbnail for viewing. These files are still usable and can be re-set to display their contents by clicking on them.
How do I download content off of a Tapestry?
You can download content from Tapestries to your own computer by clicking on the item and either pressing ‘command-I’ on your keyboard or clicking the ⓘ symbol to ‘Show info’.
This will display a source link which will appear as a webpage when you click on it. Once you see it load in a new tab, left-click (or two-finger-click if you’re using a keypad) on the image and select ‘Save image As…’.
If you’re downloading video or audio content, follow the same steps. The file should appear in a new tab on your browser with three dots on the right hand side like in the image shown below.
How do I find the link for a webpage embedded in a Tapestry?
Click on the page and press ⓘ to see a popup with the link included.
Tapestries: Common error messages and how to fix them
Why am I seeing a message saying ‘Cannot frame’ where a website should be?
Many popular websites—especially news sites—limit how their content can be used. When this happens, Tapestries has a feature whereby a user can view a version of the site that has been previously captured by the Wayback Machine, showing you a version of the page as it was at the time of capture (for more info see this article on Wayback captures).
When Tapestries is unable to display a site’s content, the Tapestry’s creator may be able to use “Wayback mode.”
What does it mean if a page is “Awaiting archive availability…”?
“Wayback mode” accesses URLs on the archive. There may be webpages that have not been captured by the Wayback Machine. If you have a URL you would like to add to the Wayback Machine, use Save Page Now (see this page for instructions).
Why is Tapestries giving me an “Internet Archive account not accessible” message?
If you’re getting this message from Tapestries it might be because your account is not verified. Verifying your account means that you have clicked the ‘Verify my account’ link the first time you logged into Archive.org. Make sure you have gone through the full signup process through the Internet Archive before trying to access Tapestries. If you are having ongoing issues, visit the Accounts – Tips & Troubleshooting page in our help center.
One of the links on Tapestries is saying it “Couldn’t access the Internet Archive”, why is this?
This may also appear as “Error while communicating with the Internet Archive”
It’s likely that this is an issue with a specific part of Archive.org and should resolve with time. Try reloading the Tapestry or checking the website in a separate webpage to see if it’s a connection issue or a site-specific issue.