Adding images to articles
One of the great new features in Joomla! 1.5 is the nice little "Images" button at the bottom of the text editor in the article manager. That button launches a pop-up in which you can easily locate the image you wish to use and add it to your article.
The only problem is, this nice little pop-up starts at the default images directory (yoursite.com/images/stories) and not the default media directory (yoursite.com/images). If your images are not in yoursite.com/images/stories or some sub directory of this folder, then you will not be able to get to it from the image locator.
The Solution
Fortunately, the core team in their infinite wisdom decided to make it possible for you to change which directory acts as the default images directory. Here's how.
First, you need to log in to yoursite.com/administrator and navigate to the global configuration manager either by clicking on the "Global Configuration" button in the main control panel or by clicking "Site->Global Configuration" in the administrator main menu.
The Global Configuration is divided into 3 main sections: Site, System, and Server. Click on "System" to view the System configuration and scroll down to media settings, which you can see in the following screen shot.
Change "Path to Image Folder" to your desired location. This path should be relative to the root of your site. So for example, if you wanted your images folder to be "monkeys" for some strange reason, then you would simply type "monkeys" in the box. I usually just change it to "images" to match the "Path to Media Folder" value, but you can set it to whatever you want it to be. Just make sure that the location you choose actually exists on your server.
Finally, click "Save" and you're all set. Now your default images directory is a location that actually makes sense for your site. That's all there is to it.
Questions
As always, please feel free to post any questions or comments about this.
