People still embedding images incorrectly

[RavensFan]

There have been numerous posts in the past where someone went to embed an image in their message only not to have it show up correctly.  They did it one of two ways:

1. Screenshot where the image file was located on their hard drive.  I am curious as to whether they were uses of Firefox because the path to the image was always to their hard drive Documents and settings temp folder and ended with moz-screenshot.jpg  I also always wondered why you'd see several broken image links in a row always pointing to the same file name.  Why would someone post the same image more than one time?
2. An image where the URL was to the NI website but to a temporary preview path.  My assumption is they attached the file to the message, but embedded the image from the file's URL path in the preview screen rather than actually posting the message first.

I could see how (especially with #1) people could do this because the embed image button really did not function in an intuitive manner.  And the correct procedure to get the image embedded took several steps and was not obvious.

Now with the recent forum changes, I thought embedding images were supposed to be much simpler and setup in a way that these kinds of errors would be unlikely to happen.

Yet I've seen several messages in the last few days after the forum upgrade where the images were linked to files on the person's harddrive.

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&thread.id=412752

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=412771#M412771

How are they still doing this?  I thought the forum changes would pretty much prevent this.

I'm still not sure I like the idea of the image gallery.  I think it make sense for posting things like your icon, or images you reuse in multiple threads.  But for a quick screenshot that only pertains to a particular thread, it makes more sense to just let that be an image file attached to the particular message.  If I decide to go and clear out my image gallery, won't those embedded images in old threads become broken links that people down the road reading old messages won't be able to see?

It is still possible to embed images the old way, but it is now a process with another step or two because that method is now the non-default last tab in the embed images dialog box.

Message Edited by Ravens Fan on 05-29-2009 11:05 PM

[smercurio_fc]

I've been wondering the same thing myself with the images linked to the hard drive. My thinking has always been that most people are simply not web-savvy. This is not meant as a derisive comment, but as a simple statement of fact. We tend to forget that most people are simply not very computer literate. Many people are, for example, simply used to the way something like Outlook works. You drag an image from your hard drive to the email, or you click the "Attach" button in your email client and point it to your hard drive. Voila', it work. They then expect a web form to work the same way.

As for the "moz-screenshot.jpg" thing, from what I've read it's part of the Mozilla code. Firefox apparently creates these files when you paste images into rich text editors. My guess is that the user presses Print Screen and then pastes into the editor. 

As for the image gallery, I'm sort of on the fence on that one. I've only used it a couple of times. I do think you have a valid question regarding the clearing out of the image gallery. I also agree that it makes more sense to have the image attached to the message rather than being in this "t4" directory. 

[Laura F.]

If you clear your image gallery it will indeed clear the images you have embedded  😞

I agree that this is not desirable behavior so I have submitted the request that we can upload images easily without adding them to our image galleries since the large majority of images used on this forum are only used once.

Thanks,

Laura

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

It's a shame that posting images it's more automatic this days.

It must be a fairly simple process, when some one posts a message with an image, too copy the image to a holding repository, make a new link to the location of the image and amend the post so that its points to the new location rather than someone's original hard drive.

It would save all this messing around have to attach the image, post the message, edit the message, get a shortcut to the image, create an image using the shortcut URL address and re-post the message.

Regards

Ray Farmer

[tst]

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Ray Farmer wrote:

when some one posts a message with an image, too copy the image to a holding repository, make a new link to the location of the image and amend the post so that its points to the new location rather than someone's original hard drive.

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This already exists today (with its own problems) in the new image gallery and works well.

[RayFarmer]

Hi tst,

I must keep up with the times. I've never noticed that. I was going to say "How do I get images into the gallery", but I found that out.

You mentioned problems, what sort of problems?

Regards

Ray

[tst]

The image gallery is new, so you haven't missed much.

The main problem is that if add an image to the post through the button in the editor interface, it automatically goes to the gallery instead of being attached to the post. If you delete it from the gallery, it will be gone. Since most images posted here are single use images, it would have been better if they were attached to the post or went to a place in the gallery where they wouldn't get in the way.

[Ray.R]

I preferred the previous method of attaching images. 

Maybe after getting used to this new one, I'll have a different opinion.

[altenbach]

I also still do it the old fashioned way.

We need an option to detach existing images from the library so they end up in a common pool and not clutter the library.

The library is only useful for multiuse images (icons, signatures).

[Laura F.]

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altenbach wrote:

I also still do it the old fashioned way.

We need an option to detach existing images from the library so they end up in a common pool and not clutter the library.

The library is only useful for multiuse images (icons, signatures).

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I have requested the ability to easily embed images without them going to your personal library.

Thanks,

Laura