Tutorial 3 - Using Images in your posts/ User Avatars

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Grahame
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Tutorial 3 - Using Images in your posts/ User Avatars

Post by Grahame »

Inserting pictures into your post

In common with most forums of this nature, we do not allow you to upload pictures directly onto the server. This is partly because server space is limited and costs money, and partly as a security measure to avoid spam postings etc. However, there are ways around this restriction that are used by most similar forums.
What you do is upload your pictures to a free third-party host such as imgBB or Imggmi (there are also others - search for "free image hosting" in Google), and link to your pictures from there. This is a common method of getting pictures into forums. Your Internet Service Provider may also allow you to upload pictures for free, but many ISP's do not allow you to link to them from forums. I used to recommend ImageShack or Photobucket, but they started charging for their service (TinyPic was another favourite but that's closed down).

You should try to make your images no larger than 800 pixels wide so that they display without upsetting the forum formatting too much. Most hosting sites hves options to resize your pics when you are uploading them. The best size to pick for a forum like this is 800 x 600. Usually you are also required by the host site to keep the file size below a set limit, so keeping them small is better if you have a lot of them
All these services are pretty easy to use, although I can't provide precise instructions for them all, you will have to work that out yourself.

You may need to first register with the service you want to use. This will be a similar process to registering with this forum - when you've filled in the details, the site will then send you an email with a confirmation link that you click on to complete the process.
Once registered, it's usually very easy to upload a picture.

It's a little more complicated to share one, but not that hard. You will usually see a choice of four or five sharing link options for your image. You click one of these, then copy and paste it into your forum post. The hosting site should have a recommendation for the best link to copy - usually it's the one with {IMG}{/IMG} tags. Click on this, which will highlight all the text in the box, then copy (CTRL+C) the text. Next, in your forum post click on the picture icon button above the posting window. This will insert two codes into your post like this: {IMG}{/IMG}. Click between the two sets of brackets to put the cursor there, then paste (CTRL+V) to insert the picture link code. Those IMG codes in the square brackets are the important bits - they are the codes that this particular forum uses to recognise an image link.

Some sites offer a direct 'forum code' link that already has the IMG tags. These you can just copy and paste directly into your post. You might need to experiment by cutting & pasting different options to get it to work - it took me a bit of trial and error the first time I tried this - but just keep using the 'preview' button to check that it's working for you.

And that's all there is to it! It's really not as complicated as it sounds.
However, if you're not that confident about resizing and manipulating the pics on your computer, or if you simply can't get this to work for you, as a last resort you can email them to me and I can do this bit for you and then edit your post to include the pics. You can email me by clicking on the 'contact' icon underneath my name on the right of this post and selecting email.
Have fun!
Last edited by Grahame on Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:37 pm, edited 6 times in total.
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
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Re: Tutorial 3 - Getting pictures into your posts

Post by Grahame »

User Avatars

For those who don't know what that means, an avatar is a little icon or picture that you can choose to represent you, which appears above your name on the right of the post.

First, you have to choose an avatar picture. This can be anything you like (within the bounds of decency and law of course) - the only criteria is that the image should be in .jpg or .gif format, and no larger than 150 x 150 pixels, and the file size no larger than 1Mb. If you don't have a suitable image, you can find thousands of free avatars on the internet - just search for 'forum avatars'.

Once you have chosen a suitable image, you need to either upload it to the forum, or if you already have an avatar online somewhere that you use on other forums, you can link to that directly. Linked ones are a bit less restrictive on the file size settings.

Go to your 'User Control Panel' (click the arrow to the right of your name at the top right of the window) and select 'Profile' from the drop-down menu.
Click on the tab at the left that says 'Edit Avatar'.
Now either click the 'browse' button to find the image on your own machine and upload it, or
enter the URL (address) of the online image that you want to link to.
Press 'Submit'.

Return to the board index and look at your posts - you should now see your avatar on all your posts.

Have fun, but remember to keep it clean!
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
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Re: Tutorial 3 - Using Images in your posts/ User Avatars

Post by Grahame »

Embedding videos and other media into your posts

You can now embed videos and other media items from pretty much anywhere including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or whatever directly into posts instead of just a link.

What you do is copy the link for your chosen media - this can be a YouTube 'share' link, or a complete URL for an item. Then when composing your forum post, click on the little TV screen icon at the right of the formatting buttons above the posting window -
this will insert the required {media}{/media} codes into your post. Click between the two codes and paste your copied link. The media item should now appear in your post.

Like this:

Code: Select all

[media]https://twitter.com/grumgeo/status/1133365150805893121?s=20[/media]
Which will show you a link from my Twitter feed:
Grahame
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it - Terry Pratchett.
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