As new members join the Forum, a recurring question is,
"How do I attach or upload or link to photos with my posts?"I hope I won't overstep my bounds as a Forum member by offering here a thumbnail sketch of the two most common ways to do so...
It is much easier than you might think to add photos and there's a couple ways to go about it:
METHOD 1: Link and co-host your photo with your post as an attachment. To do so, when making a post just click on the blue "Additional Options..." link at the lower-left corner of the page. Once there, click on the "Browse" button and navigate to where your photo is stored on your computer.
The photo will appear below your post as a thumbnail. Forum members can click on it to enlarge the view, or choose to download and save it for themselves or view it on their own computer using an installed image viewer. Because the photo is co-hosted with your post on Thorn's servers, it will stay with the post.
The server allows a maximum of 4 attachments per post, totaling 512KB per attachment/photo.
Most photos need to be resized to get under that limit, so you'll need an image resizer. If you're running Windows, there are some nice free resizers that integrate with the right-click context menu:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/windows-xp?T1=PThttp://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/09/imageresizer-powertoy-rewritten-to-work-on-vista-windows-7/http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/Other OSs have their own resizers, or you can reduce picture size in a standalone graphics editor. I often combine my photos into a .PNG collage, then convert to .JPG and resize from there, allowing me to post 4-5 decent-sized photos in the space of one.
METHOD 2: Insert your photos as an html link ("image tag") inline with your post, so they appear in-between the words you've written.This method is ideal if you wish to link to a photo already posted on the Internet or on your own website or hosted somewhere else (say, a photo-sharing site like Flickr).
To do so, just visit the online site of your photo, right-click on it, and select "Copy image location" (in Windows; other Operating Systems and browsers have similar options). Then, when making your post, select the symbol for "Insert Image" -- it is the little symbol with a framed picture, second from the left in the row below the text-style options and above the emoticons (smiley faces and such). Once you have selected the picture-frame symbol, paste in the link you copied for the online picture in the first step above. Done. The photo will appear as part of your text.
Because the photo is linked to the post, the link will be broken if the photo you've linked to is taken down or moved. This leaves a blank spot instead of a photo for future readers, though your descriptive text and post will remain.
Tran Tu, Thorn Forum Administrator in 2007, gave his own very useful description of how to add these inline image tags:
http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=26.msg6286#msg6286FOR THOSE WHOSE PHOTOS ARE HOSTED ON FLICKR (as of 8Dec2013):
If you have a Flickr account and you wish to link to it with html tags, things are a bit different and the "rules" can change as Flickr updates its format. Here's what you need to do:
1) Go to your public Flickr account home page, the one with the collage of photos.
2) Click on the photo you'd like to link. It will come up in a viewer.
3) At the lower-right corner of the viewer, you'll see a link with three dots (...). Click on it and a menu will pop-up. Select the option for "View all sizes".
4) Once at the "View all sizes" page, click on the
link for the size photo you wish to post. Tip: Medium 500 is a pretty good choice for general Forum sharing, but keep in mind larger sizes can overwhelm the topic formatting.
5)
Right-click on the (displayed) photo itself and select "Copy Image URL" (if you have a PC). This copies the html image tag you'll want to paste into your post.
6) Back at the Thorn Forum Post Compose window, you'll select the Insert Image icon (bottom row, second-from left, looks like a little picture-in-frame above the emoticons) and "[img ][/img ]" will appear in your text. Now, just put your cursor in-between the ] and [ brackets and Paste in your link.
The tag itself will look something like this: http : //farm3.staticflickr.com/{bin number}/{image number} {size designator}.jpg
Your Flickr account photo will now appear in the body of your post. This will work for linking any photo posted on Flickr, but please observe copyright rules.
FLICKR UPDATE, 1 MARCH 2015It seems Flickr has reorganized and updated things a bit, so the above tutorial has changed slightly. I'l leave it up for now as it may become useful again, but the new procedure for people with PCs is slightly different:
FOR PCs:1) Go to the Flickr Photostream you want.
2) Click on the photo you want.
3) Click on the download arrow symbol, upper right on the page.
4) Click on the option to View All Sizes. This takes you to the Alt. size page.
5) Click on the photo-size you want, i.e. 640 (640x480). Photo in that size will open.
6) If you have a PC, right-click on the photo so the context menu opens. Choose Copy Image URL.
7) Go back to the the post you're composing on the Thorn Forum. Click on the "Insert Image" icon (2nd from left in middle row above the emoticons). Paste the Flickr Image URL you copied to the clipboard in Step 6.
Make your post; the photo should now be embedded.
FOR ANDROID DEVICES:If you use Android -- and view the photos via Chrome rather than by the Flickr App -- it works almost like the PC method:
1) Go to the Photostream.
2) Go to the photo you want.
3) Look for "View more info about this photo" at the bottom of the screen.
4) Click on "View all sizes".
5) Click on the size you want to copy.
6) Press and hold your finger on the photo until the menu comes up.
7) Choose "Copy Image URL", insert it in your post between the "Insert Image" brackets and you're done.
NOTE:
There's a good chance photos embedded in posts before this change at Flickr will no longer display on the Forum...you may wish to check and update your older posts as necessary. This is one reason why I almost always display my photos as uploaded attachments. They then reside in a separate, secure part of the Thorn Forum server and so are unaffected by changes at hosted sites elsewhere.
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The Thorn Forum Guidelines are always a great first-stop when there are questions about posting. See:
http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=26.0There is also a nice, separate section on Thorn Forum Policy here:
http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?board=14.0Hope this helps.
Best,
Dan.
