How to use this forum... Posting pics & other things

[pashnit]

Webmaster Note: Here's some instructions off the top of my head. If you are new to message boards - pull up a chair, grab a cool one, and have a good read. I'll keep fiddling with this text & keep adding to it.


Using the Pashnit Forum - All those cool features...

A message board is an interactive website where you can post messages, essentially hold a conversation with someone else, and also to post pictures. Each person creates a User Name and once you are logged on, the program will remember you when you log on.

Anyone can view the threads, but to post, you must register first. You can view pictures on a thread, then at the end of the 'thread', click the 'post reply' button, type a message, hit send, and that 'post' will be added to the bottom of the 'thread'.

Each time you re-log on...

If you look up at the Nav Bar across the top - hit the NEW POSTS button. The program will remember you and show you only the newest posts since you were here last. This is a handy tool to save time instead of getting lost inside the forum which is growing very quickly.

The only downside to this feature, is if you re-log in, and hit that button, it won't show you any posts since you last logged in 30 seconds ago.

Instead, hit the NEW POSTS button, click on a thread to check it out, post if you like, then hit the NEW POSTS button again. This will take you back to the same list of posts, and you can check out the next one.


Posting a Photo

The Pashnit Forum is heavily steeped in photography- you may have noticed that already. To join in the melee, try out these instructions in the Test Forum. You can try out whatever you like in the test forum- that's why it's there!

In order to post picture, it works almost exactly like attaching a file/picture to an email. While viewing a thread, say a picture thread of motorcycles, on the bottom of each page is a 'Post Reply' button.

Click that and a new screen pops up. If you have a pop-up blocker installed (like me), nothing may happen. That's because your computer is instructed to not allow the 'pop-up'. You solve this by holding down the 'CONTROL' key and then clicking the 'Post Reply' button (this manually disables that feature), or you can adjust the Pop-Up Blocker program settings to allow popups from the Pashnit Forum site.

In the message box, you can type your message. On the right are 'smilies' or 'emoticons' - little pictures of smiling faces that convey emotions that can be added to a message. All you have to do is click on one them. Note the 'more' button. Yes, there are even more of them.

To post a picture from your hard drive (or disk), hit the 'Manage Attachments' button, and a small pop-up window will appear. Hit the 'Browse' button (much like you would do when attaching a picture to an email), and pick the file off your hard drive to upload.

There are limits on both physical size and file size on what you can upload. This ensures that we don't eat up all the space on the server (which is not free) really quick, and also allows everyone to view your pic, those on dial-up or with smaller screen settings.

Resizing Photos & reducing file size - see next post below

It is preferable to 'resize' pictures before uploading them. The optimum size is 800wide x 600tall pixels which is essentially a picture the size of the average computer screen (700 wide is good too). Most digital cameras will shoot very large pictures.

Also, it is preferrable to save the pictures in a reduced resolution so that anyone can view them with a slower connections. The average picture should be no more than ~100K when it's resaved at 50% resolution.

Panoramic Photos

The settings on the Forum will also allow you to post super-wide pictures- say up to 3500 pixels wide, and 800 pixels tall. This is because all these nifty digital cameras we have will allow you to take multiple pictures, "glue" them all together, and create a 180 degree panoramic of the scene. Keep in mind file sizes can get get quite large with these, so you may have to play with the resolution and size. Or just host it remotely, and link it from your Image Hosting Service.




Image Hosting

If you shoot a lot of digital photography, the question is what do you do with it all. Enter Image Hosting websites. Some are free, some cost money. Photobucket.com is one, and there are many others. I have used Smugmug.com in the past which I'm of the opinion is great for message boards. Smugmug.com costs fom $30-$100 a year.

Smugmug.com works by uploading your original size photos (no editing neccesary) to the site. In turn you can pull the pics directly off the site (in three sizes even) & post them to any board by putting the image web address inbetween the {img} tags. Do this by clicking the yellow image button above (the yellow mountain) and entering the web address of the photo (right click to copy & paste).

Use the 'Preview Post' to see if it worked.

Btw, https://www.pashnittours.smugmug.com is mine. Click here to see how SmugMug is different that a lot of other image hosting sites.


Starting your own thread

If you would like to post your own 'thread' or pictures, then click on 'New Message' and give it a title line. Note that below the white box are 'Post Icons'. These are the little icons that accompany your title line. These similies tell folks the general emotion of your post.

Then fill out the message box. Upload a picture to the forum by using the 'manage attachments' button.

Once the picture has uploaded, close out the 'Manage Attachments' pop-up screen and you will see the picture is how a 'hyper-link' below the message box. You'll see the file name you used, and the file size. Type a message into the message box (only needs to be a single character) and hit send. The message and picture will magically appear.

You can upload as many as FIVE pictures all at once (which is extremely unusual for boards).

You can continue to upload and display pictures as many times as you want to the 'thread'. Other forum members will see your pictures and message, and they can reply to the thread adding in their own individual comments.



If none of this makes sense - post a message in the forum that none of this makes sense. Also, there are some huge help menu's built into the program.

[pashnit]

To resize a pic...

try this... While you may have some sort of photo program on your computer since most computers come with them pre-installed, if you're not sure do this.

If you are on a Windows based system you can use the default software that comes with MS Windows.

Goto START --> PROGRAMS --> ACCESSORIES --> PAINT This will start the MS Paint program.

First thing you'll see is this.



GoTo - FILE --> OPEN & pull up your file/picture

Here's your original picture of the bike. The pic is the default size of the camera is using (which you can change), 1600pixels x 1200 pixels.

Goto --> IMAGE --> STRETCH/SKEW & guess at how much your pic should be shrunk. If the default is 1600 wide, then you'll want to resize the pic to 800x600 which is a standard size for message boards and will fit in the average users window.

So type in '50 and '50' and it will reduce the file size by 50%.



You could stop here, and just save the picture. Now you can upload the picture to the forum, and everyone will be able to view it, even those on slower connections.

You can also crop the picture too, which is a handy tool to change the look and feel of a picture.

Here's cropping your pic... Use the crop tool that's circled. Drag the box from top left to bottom right. If you don't get it right the first time, just hit the undo button. Then drag the pic to the top left of the screen. Inside the dotted box is the pic you'll keep.



Then grab the two little resizing squares, and crop the left and right sides of the pic to get rid of the old portion of the pic. Then save. Make sure you save as a .jpg - & remember where you put it. MS Paint typically saves in a low resolution so won't get into altering the resolution which is also something you'd normally do. Then upload. Viola!

[scrubbed flat]

sorry fella's but this uploading and resizing just isnt gettin through .i got lucky on a pic or two but all in all its a bust

[motowriter]

Hey Lyle, Tim's instructions assume you have a tool that can resize photos. I'll send you a PM and see if I can't give ya some help.

G

[pashnit]

Lyle- the basics of resizing are pretty much the same regardless of the program you use, but you do need some sort of image manipulation program (ie PhotoShop) to do it.

[m0t0-ryder]

3 questions...

1. How do you insert pictures so that you can put text "between" each picture.

2. How do you insert pictures so that you can put more than just 5 in each post?

I am familiar with inserting (pre-sized) pictures using the "Manage Attachments" button on the "Add Reply" window.
What I would like to know is how to add attachments then place text relevant to each attachment/picture so that it shows up "above" each picture that I have added.

I see this being done on Pashnit. I just don't know how to do it.

I also see some posts that have more pictures per "Submit" than the 5 "Add Attachments" window provides the option for.
My guess (and I haven't tried it) is that after you have selected the 5 allowable "Add Attachments" you close that window then hit "Manage Attachments" a second time (or more)... before hitting "Submit".
Is that how more than 5 pictures get added per post?
If this is the case...

3. How many attachments are we permitted with each "Submit"?

[motowriter]

Originally Posted by m0t0-ryder

3 questions...

1. How do you insert pictures so that you can put text "between" each picture.

2. How do you insert pictures so that you can put more than just 5 in each post?

I am familiar with inserting (pre-sized) pictures using the "Manage Attachments" button on the "Add Reply" window.
What I would like to know is how to add attachments then place text relevant to each attachment/picture so that it shows up "above" each picture that I have added.

I see this being done on Pashnit. I just don't know how to do it.

I also see some posts that have more pictures per "Submit" than the 5 "Add Attachments" window provides the option for.
My guess (and I haven't tried it) is that after you have selected the 5 allowable "Add Attachments" you close that window then hit "Manage Attachments" a second time (or more)... before hitting "Submit".
Is that how more than 5 pictures get added per post?
If this is the case...

3. How many attachments are we permitted with each "Submit"?

3 answers...

1) You can't. It's coming very soon when we migrate to vB 3.5. It will work the same way it now does on SBR.

2) In the attachment manager, browse and find 5 pictures to put in the file name boxes and submit. Don't close the attachment manager... repeat. You can keep adding attachments beyond the first five. But there's a time limit imposed at some level... I'm not sure where (whether it's on your browser or the Pashnit server). If you take too long to submit your post, the initial attachments won't get uploaded. My workaround for this is to upload 5 attachments, close the attachment manager and submit my post. Then I edit the post and add more attachments.

3) Dunno what the limit is. I suspect it's no different in the regular forums than it is in the article section. I have yet to reach a limit and have seen upwards of a 100 pix attached for one article.

[pashnit]

Originally Posted by Gary

1) You can't. It's coming very soon when we migrate to vB 3.5. It will work the same way it now does on SBR.

John- the future is here. As soon as we get the software upgrades hammered out- you'll get your wish.

[FD929]

Who likes keyboard shortcuts? I do. Here's a few.

Anywhere
-----------

• ALT-1
  • Forum Index
• ALT-2
  • New Posts
• ALT-3
  • Printable view (threadview only)
• ALT-4
  • Search
• ALT-5
  • F.A.Q.

In forms
----------

• ALT-R
  • Reset form
• ALT-S
  • Submit (any form)

Select text and:

• CTRL-A
  • Select all
• CTRL-B
  • Bold
• CTRL-C
  • Copy
• CTRL-I
  • Italic
• CTRL-U
  • Underline
• CTRL-V
  • Paste
• CTRL-Y
  • Redo changes
• CTRL-Z
  • Undo last change

------------

Curious about all those bbcodes () that are inserted into the (standard) editor window when you make changes to your text? Want to know all of the different types and their functions? Check out this page: http://www.pashnit.com/forum/misc.php?do=bbcode

[FD929]

You can edit your thread title by double clicking on it.