Questions about adding images (and attaching files) to forum posts

[marekc]

Hi Everyone,

This is a `newbie questions' post, but not for the usual reasons. I'm not posting a question about PI processing, per se, but about how to use this forum. I think my questions will show just how much I'm not a programmer. 

For everything described below, I use a 2009-era MacBook Pro, running Snow Leopard, and I browse the web with Safari. My descriptions of various posts are based on what happens when I'm logged in to the PI Forum.

I'd never tried including an image in one of my posts until yesterday. I made a test post that had an image in it. The image is hosted in my Dropbox public folder. I added the image by clicking the `Insert Image' button in the `Start new topic' message-composition window. When I did that, it put some markup tags in my message. I then copy-pasted the URL of my Dropbox-hosted image between the tags. That caused my image to go into my post, at full size (as near as I can tell.) Here's my post:

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=4452.msg31167#msg31167

I'm glad I was able to add an image to my post, but I've seen other people adding images and files in different ways. I'm curious to understand how they did it. Here are some examples:


1) A post by Cleon_Wells: It has two images. Each image is represented by a small version of the image, and by a text link. The small version of each image is clickable, and opens up in a new Safari window. Each text link is clickable, too, (it has a paperclip symbol next to it), and it causes a copy of the image to download into my `Downloads' folder, where my computer then auto-opens with Preview.

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=4342.msg30460#msg30460


2) A post by DanielF: An image is present in the post, and it appears about as wide as the post's column of text. The image is clickable, and it leads to the the image in the author's Flickr photostream.

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=4385.msg30822#msg30822


3) A post by `Tom OD' that has a .doc file attached. A clickable text link is present in his post, but no image, presumably since the linked file is a word-processing-type file. The link goes to a Word document.

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=4189.msg29370#msg29370


If anyone can help me understand the different ways in which these authors inserted images, and linked files to their posts, I'd be grateful. I'd like to be a bit more of a `master' when it comes to doing this sort of thing. Since I'm not a programmer, all of this stuff with HTML, PHP, SMF forums, and so on is a bit mysterious to me.

Thanks,

- Marek

[DanielF]

Hi Marek.

The answer to questions 1 and 3 is the same I think. They have attached the images/files when posting. This can be done by expanding the "Additional Options" and then choose a file to attach.

In my post I have added a link to an image from my flickr account and also wrapped a url-link around the image which makes it clickable.
This is done by first adding an URL-link with the url-tags like this:

Code: [Select]

[url=http://www.myimagehostingprovider.com/myimage.jpg][/url]

and then adding the link to the image with the img-tags.

Code: [Select]

[img]http://www.myimagehostingprovider.com/myimage.jpg[/img]
So the complete link would look like

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[url=http://www.myimagehostingprovider.com/myimage.jpg][img]http://www.myimagehostingprovider.com/myimage.jpg[/img][/url]
You can also specify what size it should have when displayed in your post by setting the width and height attributes on the img-tag

Like this:

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[img width=640 height=480]http://www.myimagehostingprovider.com/myimage.jpg[/img]
So, if I take the same image I linked to in my post and set the size here i can display a smaller image like this

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[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/77705579@N02/7435249358/][img width=320 height=240]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8143/7435249358_a52bca53b0_c.jpg[/img][/url]

And this is how it would be displayed with the size set to width=320 height=240



Hope this helps.

/Daniel

[marekc]

Hi Daniel,

Thank you very much! That's exactly the sort of information I was looking for. And it was very clearly explained, too, which I really appreciate. I'll try some of these techniques myself, and see how I do.

- Marek

[marekc]

I'll try to use the advice Daniel gave me, and see if I can insert an image at a smaller size (than the original), and have the image link to the (larger) original. Here's an image that I recently processed; it shows M87 and part of Markarian's Chain:



Now I'm going to insert this same image again, but this time I'll do two things differently: 1) I'll make the inserted version of the image a bit smaller, and 2) I'll make the image link to the relevant entry on my imaging blog, rather than linking directly to the Dropbox-hosted, full-size version of the image.



Judging from the previews of my post, it looks like that worked. Neat! Thanks again, Daniel.

- Marek