Adding Photos to Forum Posts

[Doug]

There are several ways you can share your aquarium photos with forum members:

1. Establish a free account with an online photo hosting site that allows linking from external sites. Link to your albums in a post. Photos of a reasonable size may also be placed "inline" in a post, which means the photo is displayed in the body of the post. See your photo hosting service's instructions for how to link to your photos there.

2. Your ISP may also provide you with an amount of webspace you can use to host your own photos, and then link to them.

3. Embedded slideshows. Many photo hosting sites provide links so you may place a slideshow of an entire album inline on a webpage or email. Since HTML is not allowed in forum posts, a special BBCODE will allow Google Picasa slideshows to be embedded.

Example using Picasa:

When viewing your Picasa album, click on the RSS button at lower right. Copy the part of the link that subsequently appears in your browser URL line, between user/ and the ? before alt=rss. RSS link example:

Code: Select all

https://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/fishystuff.net/albumid/5394363886907308849?alt=rss&kind=photo&hl=en_US

In the forum post creation/editing window, click on the Picasa button above the window, and paste the copied text between the Picasa tags that are automatically inserted into the post. In the case of this example, the copied and pasted text was fishystuff.net/albumid/5394363886907308849. The album must be set to "Public" for this to work. Before submitting your post, you must make sure the Option "Disable BBCode" is unchecked.

[Gerwin]

I think we should have thread specifically titled FishyStuff Members Aquarium Pictures here:

So we get all the pics in one area especially for those who want to show off their prize setups or specimens

[Gerwin]

a practice pic addition using Doug's picasa, I found if you use this program you must make sure the button that states

Image only (no link) is checked. then copy it by right click and paste it on you post placing the [img]picture[img/] on either side image link

[Gerwin]

Direct link to a Picasa album photo using [url] tags:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_GP_EVV2kZS4/St-8r ... yellow.jpg

Inline using

[Doug]

ANY photo hosting site that allows direct linking to its photos can be used in the above manner. But you must make sure the site allows for "guest" viewing, and doesn't require registration and login to view pics. Some sites provide special guest links that can be shared with anyone to view.

For slide shows, however, only Picasa is supported by the forum software at this time.

This is a test of a new BBCODE (almost working):

Yellow Discus

Red

Mix

[Doug]

Your aquarium photos may also be featured on the main website page. From the FAQ:

Q: I Have Some Great Photos of My Aquarium. Can They Be Featured on the Website?

With a Google account using Picasa Web Albums, yes, subject to the following terms:

* Your Google account name will be shown as the owner of the photos, so no objectionable account names.
* You must supply us the code for the embedded slide show in the 288x192 medium size.
* There must be no photos in the album other than those of your fish, and aquarium or pond.
* You must be a registered member in-good-standing of our forums.

Your slideshow will remain on the main page for at least one week or more, as long as the embedded slideshow continues to function, and adheres to the terms listed above. Note: The slideshow will allow viewers to click through to your Picasa page and view any public albums there.

[Gerwin]

[Doug]

Bump.

Remember, folks, if you would like to have us feature your tank on the website main page, you need to be proactive. Set yourself up a Google account, upload some photos to a Google Picasa album, and email or PM me the link code for an "embedded slide show".

[Doug]

Addendum to main page slideshow feature:

I set up a mySQL database, and changed the slideshow frame on the website main page so that it shows a random Picasa slideshow that a member has posted on the forums. Since it is random, the "View Another Slideshow" link might load the same one more than once in a row.

Also, 6 months' worth of photos from Just Fish Biloxi, taken by Sandy, are now viewable at the bottom of the website main page.

[Doug]

I was made aware today that the forum was exhibiting a certain unexpected behavior when attempting to use the IMG tag to place a photo from a Picasa account album inline in a post. An error was being returned that image size information could not be obtained, and the posting would fail. It used to work just fine. I have researched this issue and installed a workaround that appears to have solved it. As before, you can right-click on a single photo when viewing it in your Picasa album, choose Copy Image Location (or similar for your particular browser), and paste it between IMG tags in your forum post. This may work for other photo hosting services as well, depending on what they allow.

I have also updated the tutorial above to better illustrate the exact procedure for putting an embedded Picasa slideshow in a post. The reason for using Picasa slideshows is it is the only photo hosting service slideshow plug-in I am aware of so-supported by this forum software.

Embedded slideshow code provided by photo hosting services directly will not work in forum posts because it is generated in HTML, which is not permitted for security reasons. HTML in a forum post could be used maliciously to harm a viewer's computer without them even clicking on anything.

Direct linking to single images on any hosting service that so allows it should work using the IMG or IMG2= tags. However, using the Picasa slideshow is preferable, since it does not force the viewer to wait for every individual photo linked inline on a single topic page to download in order to view the page.

[Gz28]