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Placing images in messages:
If you simply want to add a
single image after your message, then you just use an
attachment. After you have put in the text of your
message, locate the image you want to use on your hard drive, using the
Browse button in the Attach file section
which is at the bottom of the Post New Thread and Post Reply
pages. Select Submit New Thread.
NB. If you select Preview Post, you will only preview the text,
and the information in the Attach File/Browse box will disappear and you will
need to relocate the file for attaching.
Once you've pressed Submit New Thread your attachment will be uploaded
from your computer to our server and will then display at the end of your
message.
If you wish to
- show an image with text before and after it
- show more than one image in a single message
- make an image a clickable link
- be really clever and place a
thumbnail
then things get a little more tricky and you have to use code. However, it's not
as bad as it sounds as there is a system to help.
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Placing an image within the text.
1. You must ensure that the picture(s) you wish to use are already
uploaded to webspace somewhere on the Internet. If you don't know how to
do this, you will need to find out from your own ISP how you access your
allocated webspace. This is not something we can give you precise help with as
there are so many ISPs out there.
If you try to link to a picture on your own computer, it simply will not work
and all the viewer will see is this "red x"
 . Do not be misled,
even though you will be able to see your picture (because it's on your
computer), no-one else will.
2.
At the point in the text where you wish the image to appear, click on the IMG
button
and the Image Prompt will appear
 and you either type or
paste the URL of your image in the box. If you paste, make sure that you end up
with only one "http://".
 Then Click OK.
Your code will now be inserted in the text box (NB. It is always inserted at the
end of the text - you can move it by cutting and pasting)
Now simply add the remainder of your text.
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Show more than one image in a single message
If you want to add another image, just click on the IMG button again,
insert the url of the next image, click OK and carry on or
Simply copy and paste the earlier line of code and just change the
nameofpic (assuming all your pictures are in the same place as the first
one!)
You can do
this as many times as you like, but it is sensible to limit yourself to 5 images
per post so that the viewer doesn't have to wait for ever while they all load
up.
You don't have to insert text between each picture if you don't want to.
Make an image a clickable link
You may wish to make your picture into a clickable link. One of the most obvious
reasons for doing this is allow people to choose to view a much higher
resolution version of the image you have displayed, perhaps so that they can
print it to paper. (See the section on
resizing
an image for more about this)
You can either use the same method as shown in the
Placing an image in your signature section, inserting your link in the
following style:
<a href="http://www.where-you-want-to
link-to.com"><img src="http://www.where-the-picture-is.com/filename"
></a>
or you can employ our own forum code and use the following format:
[URL=http://www.where-you-want-to
link-to.com] [IMG]http://www.where-the-picture-is.com/filename
[/IMG][/URL]
To use the forum code, you can either type it in as above, or
use the IMG and http:// buttons...
1. Click the IMG button to bring up the Image Prompt
2. Enter the location of the picture to be displayed in your message
3. Hit OK and the code appears in the main text box
4. Now highlight the complete line of code and copy it.
5. Select the http:// button
This brings up another prompt, similar to the Image Prompt
6. Paste the code into the white box. Normally, you would just enter text in
here, but by inserting the whole code, you are telling the "system" to display
your picture instead.
7. Click OK. This will bring up a second prompt...
8. in which you enter the location of the picture or place you want the
displayed picture to link to.
9. Press OK and the complete code is inserted in the main text area
10. Delete the original line of code (otherwise your picture will be shown
twice!)
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Inserting thumbnails
Why use thumbnails? Well, even though more and more people are moving to
broadband connections, it is still important that a webpage loads up quickly.
Using thumbnails gets your information across to the viewer as quickly as
possible, and they have the choice of clicking on the thumbnail to show a
bigger, higher quality picture - and because they want to see it, they
don't mind waiting for it to appear on screen.
To see a good example of the use of thumbnails, click
here. If you examine the properties of the thumbnails you'll see that they
are about 12KB in size, whereas the picture linked to is about 144KB - meaning
that the thumbnail loads 12 times faster than the bigger picture!
Inserting thumbnails is merely a variation on making a picture a clickable link.
All you need do is make a small copy of the
picture and upload it to your webspace along with the original.
Then make each small picture (thumbnail) a
clickable link as shown above; to make the thumbnails appear on the same
line, just make sure that the code segments follow on from each other in the
text area; the screenshot below gives the code layout to give the same thumbnail
appearance as the
demo link given above.
Note that .... has been used to give a regular spacing between columns; you can
just leave spaces if you wish.
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