There were some questions about this recently, so here you go.


1. Posting images when starting a thread

It is a good idea to add a picture to a thread you start (except polls where you can't), preferably illustrating the subject. Not only it enhances your contribution (and opens the road to more Karma ), it also helps other members to spot your thread on the Hot Topic page thanks to the little thumbnail of your image next to the thread title.

You can only use GIF and JPEG images (two graphical file formats): please make sure the name of your picture file ends with .gif, .jpg or .jpeg

The image you want to add to your thread has to be on your harddisk. If you find an image on Internet that you want to use, you have to download it to your harddisk first. You can do this by clicking on it with your right mouse button, and then select the “Save Image As...” option in the drop-down menu:



Now that you have your image on your hard disk, you have to select it for uploading together with your thread post by clicking the “Browse...” button:



Once your post is ready, hit “Submit”.

Important: Do not use the “preview” button, or if you do, RE-SELECT the picture you want to upload before clicking “Submit”. Previewing will make you lose your picture selection, and it is impossible to add a thread image after posting.


2. Posting a pic within a post

If you want to add a picture within a post, that picture has to be somewhere on Internet already, you cannot directly post pictures which are on your harddisk (except if you use it as a “thread picture”, see above).

When you have located a suitable picture, click on it with your right-hand mouse button and select “Copy Image Location” in the drop-down menu:



Then go to the comment you were composing and paste the imago location (through the menu of your browser, or via the right-click drop-down menu). The link to your image will be pasted within your post, but it will show up as a link, not as an image. To show the image itself within your post, you have to manually add “[img ]” in front of it, and “[/img ]” behind it, square brackets, without the quotes and without any spaces.

Here the “Preview” button is your friend: you can easily check if your image will show up as you want it to.

This way of adding pictures is called “hotlinking”. Not all webmasters allow people to hotlink pictures from their site, because of bandwidth and/or copyright reasons. In that case, see hereunder.


3. Posting images from an “image host”

An image host is a website where you can upload pictures from your harddisk and hotlink to them. This is useful if you want to post an image you made yourself (screenshot, digital photo) or if the site you found that great picture on does not allow you to hotlink.

In the latter case, first save your image to your harddisk as described in (1).

Once you have your image on your harddisk, upload it to your image host. How exactly you can do this depends on your image host, but it generally involves a “Browse” and an “Upload” button. When the image is uploaded, an Internet link will be attributed to it (also called URL or URI). Here again things depend on your image host, you'll have to follow their explanations.

Copy your this link (image location), paste it into your post as explained in (2) and add the [img ] and [/img ] tags.


4. Image hosts

There are a lot of companies out there who do image hosting. They are used for boards like this one, online auctions, photo albums etc. Basically there are three categories:
a. Free without registration
b. Free with registration
c. Subscription ($$)

All have their advantages and their drawbacks: (a) will not keep your image for a very long time, (b) is often restricted in bandwidth (if people look at your pictures too often your image host will cut access), and (c) costs money.

Some free image hosts:
imageshack.us, tinyurl.com (a)
photobucket.com, villagephotos.com (b)

Do not hesitate to share your tips, alternate hosts etc. here.


Happy pic posting

Do not hesitate to share your tips, alternate hosts etc. here.

What about: how can you hack someone else's villagephotos account?

looney you fucker... that was funny

Oh, I do have a tip!

When you hotlink a picture from a site that doesn't allow it, you will not necessarily notice it, even in the preview.
If Geocities and Tripod are obviously not working, it's not always the case for other sites.

To be sure your pic is visible, clear your temp files, reload the page. If the pic is still here, it's that everyone can see it. Otherwise, you have the error red cross.



You then can edit the post and pick another picture, and repeat the operation.

Ok, understood.

When you have located a suitable picture, click on it with your right-hand mouse button and select “Copy Image Location” in the drop-down menu:

I don't have a right hand mouse button.

you have a macinstosh OLDLYME ?

oui, SIMPLE.

oui . advantage . no virus and easy to manipulate

For the banshee Insult_to_Cuckoo...how
to post your mams...

Important: Do not use the “preview” button, or if you do, RE-SELECT the picture you want to upload before clicking “Submit”. Previewing will make you lose your picture selection, and it is impossible to add a thread image after posting.


....that's what i needed to hear. i always preview my posts because my typing is so bad, (i have hands like mittens) and when i preview posts i never lose the image. i did not know that this applied to creating threads. my last thread i resorted to printing the picture and licking the back of it and applying it to the monitor screen and that didn't work either.
with this knowledge i'll have some real power now. oooo boy..... karma here i come.

You shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag Pres,if BDC reads this I'm sure he's the kind of guy who's going to attach stupid pics to all his comments and you might find yourself intimate with a Mexican donkey, or hung upside down with shaven parts in some grotty 70s bathroom or something as tasteless.

My right click does not give me the options described and I'm very frustrated! I operate on windows and dont recognise any of the drop downs Prescott shows. Is there another way?

Why doesn't it works ?
{image=PRESCOTT KARMA WHORE] ???

Is there another way?

Sure!
While you are "operating on your windows", JUMP!

Prescott
I don't know the software changes it would entail
but it would be more efficient to have an image drag & drop function from the hard disk and not via net link

As you told me before, some net sites are not [image=] compatible

However, keep up the good work

My right click does not give me the options described and I'm very frustrated! I operate on windows and dont recognise any of the drop downs

That depends more on your browser than on your operating system. Try Firefox, it has a menu option "Page Info" with a tab called "Media". You can download images from there.

If you have no contextual menu (the drop-down menu with the right-button mouse click) in any application, then it is possible your mouse needs repair/replacement.

you have a macinstosh OLDLYME ?

By OldLyme
oui, SIMPLE.

Do you shave Wilkinson, too, OldLyme?

[img]www.amdzone.com . . .[/img