Saving Old Seagulls

The task of displaying pictures on this board can be split into two main areas.

The first is putting an image somewhere it can be displayed from - this is the daunting bit. You can either place the file on a personal web site or space with a FTP program (fine if you are familiar with this sort of thing), or you can subscribe to a photo hosting service such as Photobucket (much easier)

Have a look at Photobucket - http://photobucket.com/

Register, choose a password etc, and upload a sample photo from your PC. The Photobucket site is easy to operate, and gives you lots of options.

I've just registered with them, and plonked a photo up there. Once that was done the site displays useful data, including the url of the file, which you can put in your clipboard.

That's the first part done.

Next is to display it - piece of cake. Write your message as you would any post to this board, and at the place in the narrative that you want your photo to appear then paste the url - it'll be something like this:

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p220 ... uarter.jpg

Highlight the whole thing, and click on the 'Img' button at the top of your edit window. This puts tags on each end of the url for the message board to pick up, and the job is done.

Here's the same link, but with the tags added:



You'll notice that the photo appears rather than the url. You'll also notice that the photo is larger than the page - I've left it like that to illustrate that the size is important. Big like I've left it can be an annoyance to readers, so keep it down to a couple of hundred K. It's been pointed out - quite correctly - that space on the SOS server isn't an issue as the files are stored elsewhere. You're merely pointing to a file rather than putting it up on the board.

Have a bash and please if anyone would like to amend this, clarify it, or rubbish it and provide a better explanation then please post!

You can also share your videos. Not in the same 'embedded in the text' manner, but by a nearly identical process to that outlined above.

Put the url in the text as before. Highlight it and click on the 'URL' button on the edit window. It'll come out like this:

http://s129.photobucket.com/albums/p220 ... ldfilm.flv

Click on that URL and it'll take you - in a new window - to the video. This particular film is a 1950 black and white film of an FV being run up in a dustbin.

You'll notice that this post is also 'too wide' - a product of my earlier post which includes a photo that's too big.

As ever, anyone who can explain it better than this poor attempt - please feel free!

You can also make those links appear nice with the following format...instead of posting the link gibberish you post

[ url=(put your link here)] PUT SOME NICE TEXT HERE [/url]

so that instead of the the above link you can post

Cool picture of FV in dustbin

Yes it really is simple.

I had not come across your method of getting the url into the Img tags though. The "correct" method is to click on the "Img" button, paste in the url and finally click on "Close tags".

But if you are using Photobucket all you have to do is copy and paste the Img link which is the bottom one of the three which appear below the thumbnail. Even simpler!

I agree with what you say about overlarge pictures. You can use the sizing options offered by Photobucket by clicking on "uploading options" The advanced options include uploading from a mobile phone.

Alternatively if you have a photoeditor you can use that to resize the pictures before you upload them. Personally I usually make them no bigger than 600 pixels wide. They then fit the available space and do not take ages to display on a dial up connection.

The tutor which you can find HERE is very comprehensive. It was written for users of the YBW forums but applies equally to forums such as this one.

If you use the preview option when making a post your picture will appear in the preview if you have done everything correctly. It is not foolproof but if it does not appear in the preview it won't appear in your post!

I hope that does not cause confusion! It really is simple.

Wish I'd known about the YBW tutorial!

Re ybw tutorial Here is an earlier version

And Here is an alternative one
Not so good IMHO