Post by twistedbassist on Dec 8, 2008 21:54:27 GMT -6
A walkthrough for posting Avatar's and Pictures
Hey guys and gals. I thought since there seems to be alot of problems getting avatar's to load and problems posting pic's that I would write this little walkthrough and hopefully it will help you out. First off let's take a look at posting avatar's.
Posting Avatar's
The first thing to look at is what file server are you using? There are several out there and I am not completely sure how they all work as far as giving you the URL to your picture, but let me use the most frequent one as an example...Photobucket.com. Now when you have your pic uploaded to photobucket you want to find out what the Direct link is for your picture. If you have photobucket set up where only the links show up when you hover over your picture, then it will not work. You will need to click the link under your picture where it says link options. Make sure you have it set to always show links. This is what you should see:
Email & IM _________________ X
Direct Link__________________
HTML Code_________________ X
IMG Code__________________ X
As you can see the Email, HTML, and IMG link codes I have X'ed out. We do not need these links. We want the Direct link. Now copy the link and lets go to your profile.
Okay now we are in your profile. There will be a drop down menu that says avatar beside it. Let's make sure that it says NONE. Now don't panic...really we will fix that. That is just for board avatars if you don't have a pic to put up, but we do so let's get to that. Next you will see this in your profile area:
Avatar Uploader: ________________ XXXXX Do Not Use This...there seems to be problems!
Avatar URL:_____________________ Here is where we put our link to our pic
Avatar Width:____________________Here is where we put our width
Avatar Height:____________________Here is where we put our height
Now we can't post a pic any larger than 100x100. But with our avatar width and height it doesn't matter what size our pic is, as it will resize it for you. So if your pic is large make sure to put the 100 in both width and height. Now once you have that all put into your profile make sure you hit modify profile down on the left hand side at the bottom and you *should* be good to go. If after this you still have problems, let us know and we will see what we can get lined out for you.
Now let's work on Posting pictures.......
Posting Pictures in your Messages
Now this is a new subject and seems easy, but some have problems with this also. I know there are several file hosting services that people use, and up until today I had only dealt with photobucket.com. So for me that one seems easy to explain, but I did have an experience with another service called Flickr.com today. So we'll talk a little about both of these.
With photobucket again like with the avatar's you should have your link options set to always show your links instead of the hover option. So in photobucket you will see this:
Email & IM _________________ X
Direct Link__________________
HTML Code_________________ X
IMG Code__________________
Now as you can see I have email and HTML links x'ed out. So that means we have 2 options here with photobucket. The first option is to copy the direct link and then in your post click the button that looks like a picture. This will put your img tags into your message. Once the img tags are in place, paste your link in between the img tags. OR you can opt for option 2 through photobucket which already has the img tags already in place so you don't need to add them with the message composer. You just add your link to your message and you are good to go.
Now let's talk about flickr.com....We have a user that uses this service and we had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to post his pic. Well I decided to take a look at their page and I found something interesting. You do NOT want to just copy the url of your pic as you are looking at it. What you want to do, is when you are looking at your pic, at the top of your pic, click on All Sizes and then choose a size. Once you have done this, you should see a couple of links under your picture. Copy the second link that is listed and of course you will have to use the img tags in the message composer. This will also be in conjunction with posting an avatar using flickr pics also. This example comes straight from the flickr.com site:
Here's an example of a correct URL for a photo. Note the .jpg at the end:
» www.flickr.com/photos/132375_0ca82ae31e.jpg
Here's an example of an incorrect URL for a photo. It points to the web page where the image is displayed, not the image file itself. Notice there's no .jpg at the end.
» www.flickr.com/photos/eric/132375/
When you just copy the url of the pic while you are looking at it, you will end up with an incorrect url like example #2. So if you go in and do the size, it will give you the correct URL of your pic where it *should* post correctly. If you still have a problem with either one of these services and posting your pic just let us know and we will see what we can get lined out for you.
Now if you are using another service that I have not mentioned and are having problems, give me a hollar and let me check the service out and see what we can get figured out. Took us a little while to get flickr.com figured out, but we did get it figured out and the member that had a problem with it, now has a pic and avatar up and is very happy. So give us a shout and let us help you out if you are having a problem.