betsy
01-05-2007, 08:49 PM
A photo must first exist on another website before it can be included in a post on this website. (See below if you don't have a website.)
Copy the URL of the image itself (not the page it's stored on), which will end in something like .jpg, .bmp, or whatever form it was stored in, place your message cursor where you would like to see the photo appear in the message, click on the Insert Image icon (the bright yellow one with the mountains), paste the copied URL over the highlighted http:// in the window that pops up and press Enter. If you did this correctly the image will now appear (unless you had to change out of the wysiwyg editor or you're editing a post, in which case you may see the IMG tags in square brackets before and after the URL).
If you get a tiny square box with a red X inside it, it usually means that either you didn't get the correct (or complete) URL, or the photo doesn't have permission to be shared with other people.
One thing to note -- if you insert a wide image (the term image includes photos) in a post, it makes the entire thread wide enough to accomodate that image. Generally speaking, this means that readers have to use the bottom scrollbar to slide back and forth over the text in order to read it. Readers don't like having to do this! It's more courteous to post a smaller image inside the message and put a link to a larger copy of the image underneath it, so people can see the larger version if they want to.
If you don't already have a website where you put your photographs, I recommend getting a free photo account on www.flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com). Flickr is good because it doesn't generate any spam, as some other free photo sites do, and it does allow you to get the URL of the photo. After you upload your photo(s) to your flickr site, look at the flickr FAQ to find out how to get the URL of the photo(s). You'll discover that flickr gives you two versions. You want the second (shortest) one -- I've tried using the first one it gives (the much longer one) and it doesn't work with the BB code IMG tags.
[Update: Flickr has changed the URLs they give you and neither of them works correctly as supplied for embedding an image because they both point to the page the image is on rather than to the image itself. This is because Flicker has a requirement that the URL of the page the photo is on shold appear wherever one tries to post the photo on a forum or other place on the internet. To get around this:
1) satisfy Flickr's requirement by simply copying the URL of the Flickr page from your address bar and pasting it into the post, and then
2) from the inside of one of the two pieces of code supplied by Flickr when you ask for the URL (I find the 2nd one flickr supplies is is easier to do this with), copy the section that starts with http:// and ends with .jpg. That will be the URL of the image itself. Then go back and do the rest of what's written in paragraph 2 in this post.
(The FAQ on our site explains BB code, btw, and gives some examples.)
Copy the URL of the image itself (not the page it's stored on), which will end in something like .jpg, .bmp, or whatever form it was stored in, place your message cursor where you would like to see the photo appear in the message, click on the Insert Image icon (the bright yellow one with the mountains), paste the copied URL over the highlighted http:// in the window that pops up and press Enter. If you did this correctly the image will now appear (unless you had to change out of the wysiwyg editor or you're editing a post, in which case you may see the IMG tags in square brackets before and after the URL).
If you get a tiny square box with a red X inside it, it usually means that either you didn't get the correct (or complete) URL, or the photo doesn't have permission to be shared with other people.
One thing to note -- if you insert a wide image (the term image includes photos) in a post, it makes the entire thread wide enough to accomodate that image. Generally speaking, this means that readers have to use the bottom scrollbar to slide back and forth over the text in order to read it. Readers don't like having to do this! It's more courteous to post a smaller image inside the message and put a link to a larger copy of the image underneath it, so people can see the larger version if they want to.
If you don't already have a website where you put your photographs, I recommend getting a free photo account on www.flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com). Flickr is good because it doesn't generate any spam, as some other free photo sites do, and it does allow you to get the URL of the photo. After you upload your photo(s) to your flickr site, look at the flickr FAQ to find out how to get the URL of the photo(s). You'll discover that flickr gives you two versions. You want the second (shortest) one -- I've tried using the first one it gives (the much longer one) and it doesn't work with the BB code IMG tags.
[Update: Flickr has changed the URLs they give you and neither of them works correctly as supplied for embedding an image because they both point to the page the image is on rather than to the image itself. This is because Flicker has a requirement that the URL of the page the photo is on shold appear wherever one tries to post the photo on a forum or other place on the internet. To get around this:
1) satisfy Flickr's requirement by simply copying the URL of the Flickr page from your address bar and pasting it into the post, and then
2) from the inside of one of the two pieces of code supplied by Flickr when you ask for the URL (I find the 2nd one flickr supplies is is easier to do this with), copy the section that starts with http:// and ends with .jpg. That will be the URL of the image itself. Then go back and do the rest of what's written in paragraph 2 in this post.
(The FAQ on our site explains BB code, btw, and gives some examples.)