How To Insert Pictures & Videos Into Your Posts.

[von Poop]

As there are often queries relating to this I thought I'd create a thread that explained it.

First things first:
There is a facility for uploading quite large images, but these are much more likely to fail in the face of certain Internet issues as they take so much longer to upload.
It's a really good idea to shrink a picture's file size first.
If on XP then Microsoft has a free down-loadable 'right click' Image Resizer here, though there are other ways using your own software, many photo edit programs can easily re-size a 3mb image to just a few Kb without downgrading what it looks like on a screen much at all.
If you aim for a maximum of 1 Megabyte (and preferably less) you're much less likely to have upload problems.

Ways to upload:
It is a good idea to go to your User CP first and set up maximum functionality from the forums editing tools, Click 'Edit Options' and scroll down to 'miscellaneous options' at the bottom of the page and select 'Enhanced interface - Full WYSIWYG editing' from the drop down menu.

Then click 'save'.

There are basically two ways to insert pictures.

The first is by attachment, where the picture will display as a small thumbnail that, once clicked on opens a larger picture in a 'lightbox', which if you click on it again will open full size on a new page :

• Click 'go advanced' in the standard posting box.
• Click on the paperclip icon:

Or the 'Manage Attachments' button below the posting box.

• This will open a new window that allows you to upload from your computer, click 'Browse' :

• this will open up a search box for you to find the image that's stored on your computer. Select the image and click 'open'. The name and location of the image will then display in the 'browse' window.

• Then click 'upload'

• After a second or two the image will have uploaded to the site, to insert it into your post go to the paperclip again, click on the small arrow next to it and the pictures you have uploaded will display in a box

• simply click on the name of the image and it will be inserted as a click-able thumbnail.

The second way to insert pictures which will make them display actual size on the post is to use the 'Insert Image' Icon:

• This will open a box like this:

• Simply paste the URL (web address beginning with HTTP) of the image into the box and click 'OK' and the image will display.

• As this can lead to sapping the bandwidth of the site you are taking the image from it is a very good idea to get yourself a free image hosting account with someone like Photobucket, On these sites you can upload saved pictures, rotate and resize them easily (this is handy as you can shrink the picture to a size that doesn't distort the forum's format before uploading it here) and they often give you code to paste directly into the forum so you don't have to go through the above 2 steps:

• you can just use the bottom box marked 'IMG code', paste it directly into your text without any of the steps above and the forum will recognise it and automatically show the picture.

Hope that helps.
(I've locked the thread so the explanation doesn't get buried, if there's anything you think I could make clearer or it doesn't make any bloody sense at all then send me a PM and I'll do my best to clarify things.)









Inserting Youtube/Google videos.

• Click 'Go advanced' below the posting box.
• Select the Youtube or Google video buttons from above

• Copy and paste the video URL between the two quote boxes that appear.
• Like so:

You can also just insert the identifier code from the end of the Youtube URL (eg: '17zhWLY5kPA') - but it's probably easier/quicker just to paste in the whole url.

Cheers,

Adam

[Anne Mullis]

To Von Poop
Thank you for explaining the picture insertion, I will try it
Anne

[Ron Goldstein]

[Ron Goldstein]

Sorry about that ........ I was just testing and to my surprise it worked

Ron

[craigevelyn]

i,m struggling downloading my pictures .It says it is contacting this site-then nothing

[von Poop]

What file size are they craigevelyn?
Even though the limits are quite high, it's usually down to large (c.2mb+) file sizes when bother occurs, as so many things between your pooter and here can affect the process.

[marcus69x]

Adam, I think you should add to post #1 about the ideal pic size for photbucket.

You told me during my 'pic upload test' thread before it was deleted and it's helped me a lot. Since then, I did forget what size suited the forum the best but managed to suss it out before I had to Pm you.

Might be useful to other members.

Edit - 640x480 seems the ideal size for most forum usage. Not too big, not too small. ~A

[von Poop]

Thanks to Otto we can now embed Youtube & Google videos into posts.
Very simple - added instructions above.
Repeating here.







Inserting Youtube/Google videos.

• Click 'Go advanced' below the posting box.
• Select the Youtube or Google video buttons from above

• Copy and paste the video URL between the two quote boxes that appear.
• Like so:

You can also just insert the identifier code from the end of the Youtube URL (eg: '17zhWLY5kPA') - but it's probably easier/quicker just to paste in the whole url.

+ YouTube Video

Please don't add any more videos to this thread though chaps. I'd like to keep it relatively clear.

~A