Posting picures at the Hen House

Picture Posting 101

Also includes a copy and paste tutorial

July 2008

NOTE: This is a PhotoBucket tutorial for posting pictures specifically at the Hen House. If you would prefer using Carole's upload site, click here to go to that tutorial.

Want to learn how to post picture at the hen house? Well, it's easy. You don't have to be a computer genius to succeed at this! Just follow these easy directions. Don't panic at the size of this lesson. It's easy, but it's in detail. That's why it's long!

1. To post a picture at the hen house, or anywhere on the Internet, you need to "upload" your image to the Internet. Don't worry, it's not hard! For this tutorial we're using PhotoBucket, a free image storage site. When you click on the link to go there, another window will open on your computer so you won't lose this page page with your directions. All pictures must end with .gif, .jpg, or .jpeg. They are very common so that shouldn't be a problem. If you are trying to post your image on the hen house and you encounter a problem here, or your image is just too big and you don't know how to resize it, please email Dana and she'll help you work through it. (Leave the subject as it is so she will recognize it and not delete it as spam.)

If you need to join PhotoBucket you can do that for free by following the instructions below.

Go to PhotoBucket and hit the "join now" green button at the very top of their page. Once you go through their joining form, find the “Upload Photos and Videos” option and click on the “upload now” button.

Once you've joined or if you already have a PhotoBucket membership, go onto the next step.

2. Look for "Upload Images & Video" and hit the "choose file" button. Once you've chosen the file you want to upload, double click on it and hit the "upload" button (or click on it one and hit the “Open” button.) It'll upload and bring you to a page where you can add a title and description. Once you've done that, look a little farther down for the "Save to Album" button and click on it.

3. When you do that, it'll bring you back to your "album". Find your picture on the page and notice that it now has four code boxes under it. Click in the box for the last one, “Image Code”, and it will automatically highlight everything in the box and copy it for you. (All you have to do is click in the box....they make it simple for you.)

4. Click here to open a new window with the Hen House in it. Now get your message ready. In the message box choose where you want to have your picture show up. All you have to do is paste what you copied. (There's no need to use the "image button" there.) When you're done, click on the "Post" button. You may choose to preview your message prior to posting just to make sure you've succeeded.

If you're using another upload site, upload your picture and copy the address (URL) for the picture.

Copy and Pasting 101

Coping:

Click and hold down your left mouse button in front of the "http" in the URL example below.....

http://upload.myhorses.ca/example.jpg

.....now while still holding that mouse button down, slide your mouse to the right, over the URL, and you'll see the text being highlighted. Once you get the entire URL highlighted, let up on the mouse button. Move your mouse over the highlighted text and RIGHT click on your mouse.

When you do that, a menu will pop open. Choose "copy" from that menu. At that point, your computer will store that text on its memory. This is referred to as being stored on the computer's "clipboard".

Pasting:

Click in the text box below to put your cursor there.

Now RIGHT click there and choose "paste". Try it in the box provided for practice. This action will take the URL you copied and pasted it in the text box.

You've just learned to copy and paste! It's a very valuable computer skill that will help you many times in the future!

5. Click here to open a new window with the Hen House in it.

6. Go to the post where you want to post your picture, or start a new thread to show your picture. After filling in all the regular posting information, you're now ready to add your picture. You have two choices: basic or advanced. Follow the directions for your choice below, before going on to step number seven.

Basic:

Place your cursor inside the text box where you want your picture to show up in your message. Now, under the text box for your message, click on the word, "Image". It's right above the smiley faces. When you click on "image", it'll open another little box below the smiley faces that says "Optional Image URL:" All you have to do is paste your image's URL into that box. Remember my example? http://upload.myhorses.ca/example.jpg Your URL will look like that, but instead of having example.jpg in it, it'll have your file's name there.

Once you have your URL in the box, click the "Add" button next to it and it'll code your image into your message. You can hit your space bar and add another picture if you want to. Now click on the "Preview" button to see how your post will look. Make changes if you need to, or go on to the next step.

Advanced:

With proper coding, you can post more than one picture in a post. To do this, you will need to do the coding yourself. It's not that hard.

When your coding is done, it will look like this, with the exception of your file name will replace the "example.jpg" portion of it:

For coping: http://upload.myhorses.ca/example.jpg

Here's another version that may help you understand what you'll need to do:

Here's how you go about coding it:

You'll need to do your coding In the bigger text box where you usually type in your message. You can put a message in there with no trouble, too. When you get to the point where you'd like your image to show in your post, put this:

Then paste the URL of the image you uploaded, making sure you put no spaces before or after it, then finish your coding with this:

If you'd like to post more than one image, hit your enter key once or twice and code in another image.

Now click the "Preview" button to see how your post will look. Make changes if you need to, or go on to the next step. Feel free to practice with my example URL, http://upload.myhorses.ca/example.jpg, as it's got a little surprise message for you!

7. Now hit "Post" and take a look at your work!

Have fun and enjoy your new found skill!

Lisa Lou

lisacalhoun@gmail.com