Problem with attachments

[Marko]

OK, I know I should know this stuff, but...

First I couldn't get the big picture (literally ;) from a posted thumb. Then I uploaded two of my pictures and they appeared as mere links. I looked at the source to see what was happening and saw that the others had either full size images, thumbnails linking to the full size ones or just links, like I did.

I couldn't find anything resembling an option to put up a thumbnail and link it to the big image either. Now my images are gone and links are returning the error.

Maybe it would be a good idea if someone could take a few minutes and write up a few sentences about this.

Thanks,

Marko

[Tom Westbrook]

You click on the little paper clip above the post editing area (must be in advanced mode for that to appear). That done, the "Manage Attachments" dialog box appears. Click on the Browse button to find the image you want to upload. Select it and click on the Upload button. The dialog stays to allow multiple file selections. You should see the name of the file you just uploaded above the "File Key" area. You can Remove the file and try again if you got the wrong one.

When you click on the "Close" button at the very bottom of the dialog box, you won't see anything obvious displayed in the message editing area, but if you click on the paper clip symbol again, you should see the file(s) listed in the drop down that will be posted with your message. You can remove any of the files by clicking on the Manage Attachments selection in that drop down.

If your file was outside the size limits we impose, you'll see an error at the top of the attachment dialog when you try to upload the image, for example:
53691806_4b627e0dd1_o.jpg:
The Dimension limits for this file type are 650 x 650. We were unable to resize your file so you will need to do so manually and upload it again. Your file is currently 700 x 483.

In that case, you'll need to edit the image to fit the limits and try again.

So, once you are all set, you'll have to submit your post to see if the images made it. You should get thumbnails of each image surrounded by a box. People can click on the thumbnail to view the full size image.

That's a rough intro. We can beef it up and add it to the FAQ. Comments welcome.

I added am image to this while I was writing to be sure it all works. If it did, there should be a thumbnail below and the full-size image linked to it.

[Marko]

Tom,

Thanks for writing this up. That's exactly what I did (including the size error!), I had them up, but they weren't displaying thumbnails, only text links. So far so good, clicking on the links would bring up the full version anyway.

That was yesterday. Today, clicking on the link brings up the error message instead of an image and when I try to edit the post, there are no attachments showing.


Thanks,

Marko

[Ralph Barker]

There are a couple of methods to include an image. If the image is already available online, you can use the little image icon in the standard editor to insert the URL for the image. Note that this method bypasses the image-size restrictions mentioned for uploads, but also substantially increases the download/view time for the thread. Folks on slower connections will quickly tire of long threads of large, inline images, I suspect.

Alternatively, you can upload the image from your PC/Mac via the "Manage Attachments" button in the "Additional Options" section below the test area in the post editor. That pops a little window that allows you to browse your local disk for the image, select it, and then click on the "Upload" button. Currently, images must be no larger tha 650x650 pixels, and have a file size no larger than 150KB. If the file is too large, an error message is displayed. Once uploaded, the thumbnail will be generated by the system, and be displayed as an attachment. The size restrictions are intended to be a balance between "viewing pleasure" and resource consumption - both on the server and for viewers.

As I recall, the "Preview Post" button won't show the uploaded images, but will list them in the attachment section.

This (allowing image uploads) is somewhat of an experiment for us. Fortunately, the new server we're on has plenty of storage and bandwidth. Thus, at least for the time being, uploads aren't an issue. We may have to revisit the process in the future, however.

Note, too, that all image file formats may not be equally supported by various browsers. JPEGs are fairly universally supported, however.

[Tom Westbrook]

One other thing, if you see any problems, act right away (or within an hour while you can still edit your post) and maybe remove and re-upload the images to see if that fixes the problem. This site uses ImageMagick on the UNIX server to generate the thumbnails and perhaps it might botch things on occasion.

[Marko]

Thanks guys,

It worked this time. I still don't know what happened yesterday, but I'd wager on my goof rather than anything else.

Marko