Image and Videos in your blog entries

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Image and Videos in your blog entries
by admin
02-Jul-2008
 

Hi Everyone.

By popular demand we now have better image and video support in our blogs. A few changes were made that I would like to talk about. We can use this blog entry to have a conversation about these and other issues that may be on your mind. I'm sure there are other things we can improve too. We're doing the best we can.

Before we start, lets realize that none of this is necessary. If you don't care about images and video and want to continue blogging the way you have been, just do it. Ignore the new extra image box and everything should be the same as before.

1. How to place a picture in your blog.

You probably already noticed the image of the horses above where normally my Avatar would be. The image is also larger and the text after it starts on a new line. This is an uploaded image that I inserted by simply browsing on my hard drive for an image hitting the upload button in the new "blog image" box in the form.

There is nothing tricky about it. Just upload a picture that you want and it will be placed at the beginning of the blog entry where your avatar would be. The picture will only appear in the "full body" version of the blog entry, like the one you are reading right now. So for the purposes of the "summary" which shows up in blog central, your avatar will still be used for that. If your image goes outside the boundaries of (currently) 460 pixels for width and 400 pixels for height, the system automatically shrinks your image to fit inside those dimensions -- without any distortion or skewing.

Later, if you want to edit your blog entry and change the picture you can just browse for a new one and upload it. Or you can delete the existing one by checking the "delete" box and the "submit." This will take the picture out of the entry and put your avatar back in the full body view.

2. How to put in YouTube videos

We can now include videos in the main "body" boxes of articles, blogs and even comments.

All you have to do is put a special token of the form

[v ideo:URL]

anywhere in the text where you want the video to be displayed. Just replace "URL" with the actual "//..." URL from Youtube. (Note this is not the "embed" or "object" code, this is just the URL). Youtube provides it on the right side just above or below the "embed code" or you can just copy it from your browers address bar.

The system will take this and convert into the video object of the right size and control buttons.

So to give an example. If you type this in your Blog body, article body, or comment:

[_ideo://youtube.com/watch?v=OAQ_c1C1JfQ]

It will automatically convert to the video that you can see on this page.

//youtube.com/watch?v=OAQ_c1C1JfQ

The brackets "[]" are necessary and so is the colon ":" between the word "video" and the start of the URL. You can put multiple video tokens in your text, but for best results try to keep it to one or two per blog entry and have sequel blog entries for the other ones.

Go ahead and test it out in the comments. Even anonymous users can do it. But if it gets too annoying or overtly commercial, Editors may take down the video.

One drawback to this system is that it only supports certain video sites not all of them. YouTube and Google Video should work fine, but we have to program in additional code to support Irannegh.com for example.

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Rosie T.

Actually I always wondered what was the sense in blogs

by Rosie T. on

(SORRY THIS IS GOT SO LONG I JUST WANT TO GET THESE THINGS OFF MY CHEST!!!) 

becoming unfeatured when they are changed.  The features these days usually last less than a day, often only half a day (as opposed

to I think about two days last fall and winter).  It's not like anyone is going to have a major change of heart or opinion in twelve hours, is it?  I mean aren't the changes in features usually typos and things like that< People forget about it all the time and go in to correct a typo and then the thing is gone.  I still do.  Mazloom still does. And people who are new don't have the slightest idea about this unfeaturing.  It is mentioned in some obscure place briefly on the FAQs.  The only way I found out was when somebody told me about it after I was here for weeks.

I have always thought this "feature" should be eliminated.

Sorry if I'm overwhelming you but it's just that I have a lot of ideas about how the website runs.  You don't have to answer me but let me throw some of my pet ideas out since I have your attention for a little while, hope you don't mind.In order of (my perceived) priority:


Fix the spellcheck

Fix the spacing feature for writing blogs, articles and posts

Don't unfeature featured blogs.
Get a po box snail address

Update FAQ's

________
I also told jj that the website really needs a "How This Website Works" section prominently featured on with the FAQ's prominently displayed, the moderation policies, how to navigate it and so on.  I already have a blog I wrote on benefits of registration.  I did it on a thread for someone who asked and then I blogged it.  I don't know if jj agreed with me that it was necessary but if he does it will take him a year to do it. I think it's important.  People come here kinda clueless and it takes a pretty long time to figure some things out. I think that kind of section is VERY important but I couldn't possibly say what priority I'd give it because knowing jj it will take forever so what's the point.  Probably #3 in the best of all possible worlds.

Well, anyway, grist for the mill.  Happy Fourth of July,

 


admin

Samsam: Yes, you can replace it whenever you want

by admin on

you will lose "featured" status, but you can edit it just like the rest of the text.


samsam1111

Foaad! Can you replace the image by editing once

by samsam1111 on

It,s done..? or it,s permanent?

regards!


Rosie T.

Foaad, you now have your very own chicken "feed"

by Rosie T. on

on mazloom's poultry blog, courtesy of rosie.

we like you! we need you! we want you to stop hiding behind your software and join us more often, not as a geek but as a partner in crime.

and punishment.  i won't lie to you.  there's always some punishment on these threads, but, hey, no pain, no gain....

kisses,

rosie  :o)

 


admin

Imagist: good suggestions

by admin on

we would still have to limit the number of images and that could be difficult. And the quality of pictures would suffer, even if someone just has one picture.

I think you should consider doing a photo essay instead if there are that many pictures, the quality doesn't suffer either. Then you can link your blog to it.

-foaad


Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez

I did it.........

by Natalia Alvarado-Alvarez on

I had to work on it but I finally figured it out. I put it into practice through out the web site.

I just love it. Thanks a lot!

 


default

Dear Admin, what about this

by Imagist (not verified) on

Dear Admin,

what about this method:
1- limit the size of images to 320x240 pixels.
2- limit the kb size to 40 kb maximum.

and then tell people to reduce their images to this size and post them in between paragraphs. If any image is above these limits the system will not accept it.

After sometime people will get use to it and reduce their images before posting.


admin

Yea, thanks Rosie

by admin on

each of the categories in the contact form can go to a different person. I see the technical ones for example. JJ gets the editorial and "general" ones.


Rosie T.

Agreed. And no spell check on earth will ever find that.

by Rosie T. on

Nonetheless, our Fearless Leader could've told me.  I was worried.  I even asked him if you were deceased.  He did not reply.  Perhaps he was just busy trying to figure out how to spell your name.

Thanks for the link but I am no stranger to the contact form. Ask your boss, He will vouch for me.

But seriously I tell people about the contact form onsite ALL the time. They moan and groan on threads about whatever and Rosie says "Go to the contact form at the bottom of the home page and address your grievance to jj.  If you are not satisfied with his response, blog on it, He will probably feature you." No, I am no stranger to the contact form. LOL

PS Thanks for the kitty on Maz's blog. 


admin

yes, it's me :)

by admin on

one reason you may have trouble reaching me could be that you are misspelling my name (no spell checker can fix that sadly)!

best place for technical questions is the contact form, use the "Website bugs and technical issues" subject.

-foaad


Rosie T.

OMIGOD OMIGOD NOT THE CAPTCHA CHALLENGE!!! Just when

by Rosie T. on

I was getting soooooo good at it!

But thx: this is the link to the poem: //iranian.com/main/blog/rosie-t/hyperborea

if you want me to tell you exactly where the line spacings were supposed to be that the system refused to accept I will do it later.  Needless to say, they're in the longer stanzas.  You can also notice the irregularity of the spacings between stanzas because frankly it's kinda arbitrary sometimes how much spacing you can get the system to accept. (or not to). Poems are the worst horror but by no means the only (as per my post below).

Also are you the new Fouaad?  I kept writing to Fouaad and it kept bouncing back to me so I kept writing to whatshisname and asking him what happened to Fouaad and he kept not answering me so now I have to direct all my technical questions to whatshisname which naturally he doesn't answer so I feel this is perhaps unwise.  Should I be writing to you? What HAPPENED to Fouaad?  Who ARE you? Are you Fouaad? Or is it a secret?  Do tell!  :o)
THNX!


admin

Rosie

by admin on

thanks for the feedback.
Which poem is it that you were talking about specifically?

imagist: that's not possible right now, but perhaps in the future, there may be a way. There are several problems that make it difficult.

  • We don't have a good interface mechanism to upload multiple pictures right now.
  • Allowing users to layout pictures of arbitrary size in their own text could lead to bad layouts that could break our own page layout and cause problems.
  • We would have to potentially host thousands of photos that would be very expensive and the constant uploading/downloading would slow down the site.
  • If we allow external linking, we would have to worry about huge photos that we can't control, being inserted and making the site really slow when viewing the blog. If the photo is illegally "hot linked" we could be liable for bringing someone else's site down.
  • This isn't ideal but we're proceeding cautiously on what we can handle. This site isn't like blogspot where we have unlimited resources and millions of users. Our conception of a "blog" is a little different. For now, you can have multiple shorter blogs with one picture each.

 

PS: we also got rid of the Captcha math problem for registered users on an experimental basis. If it works out, we'll do it permenantly.


default

what about inserting images

by imagist (not verified) on

what about inserting images in between lines of your blog. You write a paragraph and you want to insert a picture, then you write again a few paragraphs and you want to insert a picture, WOULD THAT BE POSSIBLE?
HOW?


default

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by niki not logged in (not verified) on

Welcome addition


Rosie T.

Hi, thanks. Line spacings and spell check

by Rosie T. on

rCan you reinstiture the spell check?  It was really great burt we only had it for about a week, it had bugs. But when it worked it was fantastic.  (And sooooo cuuuute  :oD),

Also, there are still a lot of quirks in the spacing system when submitting blogs and articles and even posts. In the last poem I submitted there were several stanzas that I could not separate from each other even if I pushed the return key ten times. (And I STILL can't and it RUINS the whole thing, it's a POEM...).  Also a lot of times you write the whole blog and then when you preview it it loses ALL the spaces altogether and becomes one big clump.  (This can happen with simple postings too),

Once that happens (and it happens a lot) all bets are off.  You don't REALLY know what the submission is going to look like from the preview, you can spend an hour wrestling with the preview to no avail and give up in despair and say to hell with it I'll submit it as is, and then when you do you're amazed that it is what you keyed in, not what you previewed. Or it could be a clump or anything in between.  Then once it's submitted sometimes you can fix it more easily there, other times not. It's unpredictable and enough to drive you bananas. Wastes tons of time and energy.

I say "you" not "me" because other people have told me they have the same problem. And it's been going on since like forever. It's gotten a little better but not that much. 

So, spacing and spell check, it seems pretty basic, I mean videos, great, but what about basic text?  That's what I would hope would be fixed next.

Thanks for the blog and Happy holidays,
Robin


sadegh

This is great news, thanks

by sadegh on

This is great news, thanks so much...

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

 


admin

[video: //youtube.com/watch?v=OAQ_c1C1JfQ]

by admin on

example video by inserting the tag above.