I now have an image posting solution for us that many of you will love. I've installed Coppermine Gallery on the server at
http://www.carls-sims-3-forum.com/gallery/. This web app will allow you to share pictures on the Gallery and link to them in posts. We'll soon have an ugly thumbnail shortage around here.
I do not want anyone other than our Forum members to register at the new Gallery, and I'd like to make it a rule that you
use your Forum name when registering. I need to know who's who to keep track of resource usage and to prevent confusion.
In the interests of security, I'm requiring admin approval for registration, so only actual Forum members will have access to post in the Gallery.
At this time email notification of account approval is broken so you will not get confirmation that your account has been activated. Rest assured this will take less than 24 hours and probably far less as often as I tend to check these things. Of course some of our mods may want to volunteer to approve accounts as well.
I would have preferred a solution better integrated with the Forum but this stand-alone app will be easy to back up. It looks like I'm going to need a bigger hard drive down the road!
Keep in mind these have to be backed up and don't use the Gallery for storing hundreds of images you aren't going to use on the Forum. However, some use as a vehicle to show off pictures from your Gallery is fine by me. I'll just be watching for people with way too many pictures that aren't tended to. The server automatically scales images into the jpeg format at a width of 800 pixels, and it's small. But multiplied over thousands of pictures it begins to seriously add up.
So, as a rule of thumb, if you aren't using an image in a Forum post but will be nurturing it -- giving it keywords and a description, then feel free to use the Gallery for that. In fact, that could be helpful as in the future running an ad slot on the Gallery may help to cover the expenses of the inevitable storage backup needs. The Gallery will eventually make its way to Google and guests may view these. Giving your images keywords will help people find them through image search.
That's just it - you have control over the pictures in your Gallery and we can browse them. Multiple image upload is as simple as holding Control and clicking the files in the browse interface. Make things easier on yourself by naming your folders something distinct.
You need to make a folder before you can make your first upload. That one's for you, Dynasty bloggers.
Rules and Guidelines1. The Gallery's primary role is to serve images for the Forum.
2. Do not upload non-Sims material.
3. Do not upload masses of screenshots you won't use.
4. If not using an image in a forum post, describe/keyword it to show why you want to share.
5. Be responsive if I ask you to whittle back the collection.
6. The above is easier if you sort your content into folders so that you know what you are using on the forum and what's just in storage.
Instructions for Inserting Images in Posts1. After uploading your image to the Gallery, click it to see the full size.
2. Right-click the image and copy the path (Copy image location, destination, URL, etc.) This URL is the path to your image.
3. There have been reports that this option doesn't show up sometimes. In this case, it might be a browser issue. If you have another browser you can try, it might work. Otherwise, a workaround is to right click, select Properties, then copy the URL from that window.
4. Back on the Forum and in your post, put the cursor at the spot you want the image to be and click the Insert Image button (located below the italicize button). This automatically drops the image tags into your post and places your cursor in the exact spot to copy your image URL.
5. Right-click and Paste or use Ctrl-V to paste the URL of your image.
6. The image is fed to your post from the server.
7. Inserting multiple images is easy, just copy the code for image 1 and replace the file names.
Note: It is recommended that you upload images directly from your Sims 3 file Screenshots folder. The path is: C:Documents/Electronic Arts/Sims 3/Screenshots. Depending on which version of Windows you use, it may be My Documents. For Mac users, the path is basically the same.
Below are some images to help walk you through the upload and posting process (courtesy of samoht04).
Updated: February 8, 2011
