Here is a brief HOW-TO on the different ways of posting pictures to this site.
The software for our site is powerful. It allows for the posting of images and files (such as office docs and pdf's) in several different ways, depending on whether the file is located in your computer hard drive, or hosted online.
IF A FILE IS HOSTED IN YOUR COMPUTER'S HARD DRIVE:
You can easily upload the image directly to the forum server as an attachment to your post. To do this:
- Open a post window either by clicking reply or the new topic buttons.
Below the post box where you type in your message you will see a toggle link that says "Additional Options". Click on that link and toggle it open. (You will now see a series of options you can check or uncheck to enable or disable.)
Below that you will see an attachment upload window with a browse button on it. Click on browse, and find your file in your computer.
When you finish with your post, just click "post" and the system will upload the file that was indicated in the attachment line.
If you have more than one file you wish to attach, below the attachment window you will see a link that says "more attachments". Click on that and another attachment window will appear. You can upload multiple attachments to a post, but it is recommended that you
don't upload more than five files simultaneously. You can always edit your post and upload more files.
NOTE: If a person is not logged in to SCWF then they will not be able to see uploaded photos. Also, we have discovered that occasionally photos manipulated using PHOTOSHOP cannot be uploaded due to Photoshop's insertion of information into the image file that conflicts with the forum's security software.
IF AN IMAGE IS HOSTED ON-LINE:
You can link it to SCWF and its subforums in a number of different ways. Keep in mind that this only "deep links" the image from some other source, and the image is not hosted on SCWF's servers:
- Using the Insert Image Icon: In every post you will see an icon in your toolbar that looks like this:
. This is your insert Image icon. If you click on it, a little window will pop up (you must allow pop-ups for SCWF). In it you simply copy and paste the IP address of the image you wish to deep link. Click OK and the system will take care of inserting the appropriate tags to make the image visible. The image will be inserted in the place you had your cursor.
Using Image Hosting Services: If you store your images in a web based Image hosting service, such as Photobucket or Picasa, use the line of code provided by your service that uses square IMG brackets: [ IMG ]. The format will be the IP address of the image in between two of those square IMG brackets. Post that where you want it to appear in your post.
Inserting an image manually from some other online source: To do this you have two options:
- Right click on the image and either copy the image location (if your browser gives you that option), go into the image properties, or click on view image. All three options will give you the same information. What you are trying to do is get the image's IP address so you can then use it to deep link the image. If you copy an image's location, that will give you that image's direct IP address. If you click on view image, your browser will go to a blank page showing only that image in full size. the image's IP address will be in the address bar at the top of the window. if you clicked on an image's properties a window will pop open showing you information on the image. one of them will be the address for the image, just highlight it and copy it. To deep link the image, simply follow the instructions in #1 above, or manually type in the IMG brackets and stick the address between them.
This is the easiest way. The forum is equipped with a rich text WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") editor that is turned on by default. This means that you can copy and paste already formatted text and images just like you would do in a word processor like Word or WordPerfect. To deeplink an image, simply find it on-line, highlight the image, click copy, go back to your post and paste the image where you want it to appear. You will see the actual image appear in your post as you are writing it. I find it easier to highlight images if I right click on "View Image" first. IN that way, the browser will show you the image by itself and without the rest of the formatting from the web page it was in, which makes it a lot easier and cleaner to highlight and copy.
When uploading images, please make sure that you have permission to do so and that you post correct attributions to the image source/owner if the image is not yours.
If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to ask the Moderators.