How to upload images to your posts

The saying ' A picture paints a thousand words ' may be a cliche but it is very true and nothing helps more with identifying locks and keys than good pictures. They also make all the difference to an article on locks too.

There are two methods of adding pictures to your postings here in antique-locks.com but I only plan to cover my preferred method in this guide. It is my preference for users to upload their images to this server rather than link to images hosted elsewhere and there are a couple of reasons why - which I will cover briefly :

1 - The forum software contains a sophisticated image handling system which automatically creates a thumbnail, or smaller version of any uploaded image. This allows pages to load faster and any registered (and logged in) user then may click on the image to see it in it's original form.

2 - Longevity - images hosted elsewhere are liable over time to become lost, get deleted or replaced and in doing so can cause threads to become disjointed, fragmented and just plain make no sense.

There is one final thing I do ask of anyone adding an image to any post, whether the image is remotely hosted or uploaded, please spend a few moments to process your image first, all digital cameras come with software to do this, if you have a picture surrounded by a large border - crop off the unnecessary parts of the image and then resize it. The image from the camera may be many thousands of pixels wide (ie far wider than most monitors) so please reduce the size, 800 pixels is usually about right.

Thank you. Now onto the guide.

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Please note, all images below are thumbnailed, click on each in turn to see the full size version. The item circled in red is discussed in the text above each image.

1st we create a new thread in the normal manner :

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A new message window screen will open. Provide your post with a title and then your message text.

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When you are ready scroll slightly down the page into the area below the message window called 'additional options'. There you will see a box called attach files and a button 'Manage attachments'.

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Click on the box and a new window will open like this one, click on the browse button shown.

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A further window will open allowing you to navigate through your computer to select the file you wish to upload, simply double-click it.

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The address of the file as it is located on your pc will now appear in the box, if you wish to add a further image (you may to up to ten in one go) please do so, when you are ready click upload.

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The phrase uploading images will appear, as shown here.

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When the upload of your files is complete, the file-name will appear as shown here. Please note the time taken to upload your files will vary depending on the size of the file, the speed of your connection to the internet, network traffic and the server load at the time. Please also be aware of the limits of file type and size as shown in the 'Manage attachments' window.

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When you have completed uploading the images please close the 'Manage attachments' window. All the files you have uploaded will now be listed on the main webpage as in the example shown here.

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Now if you look at the main message window you will see a small paperclip symbol :

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If the down arrow is clicked it will show the list of attachments you have just uploaded, by clicking on each name in turn from the list you can place the attachment where you wish in your post.

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When all is as you would wish you can proceed to preview and submit your post. And your image will appear like this :

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I hope that was easy enough to follow, please experiment with the process and should you make a mistake that you cannot rectify simply send me a private message and I will be happy to look at it for you.