Why is it so difficult to post pictures to this forum?

[jpendle]

@emjaybee No - they're touring this year..................

https://jethrotull.com/tour-dates/

If Martin Barre isn't on guitar then it's Ian Anderson who's touring.

John P

[Bigmac]

now try uploading a video clip....

[GlenEglise]

 

[Malc-c]

Having to upload them to a personal album or general gallery is fine if the pictures are of significance and you want to use the space as a on-line back up sort of thing, but often if trying to help someone with a particular problem its easier to take a picture and upload it to that thread. The image isn't important to want to retain it... if could be something like where a wire or screw goes on a bit of rolling stock, which would be confusing or lengthy to describe... It those times I hate the chunkiness of the forum...

[njee20]

Then you just add them to random photos. +1 for it's not as slick as it could be, but it's alright.

[Webbo]

Can we more accurately rename this thread "Why do some still find it difficult to post pictures to this forum?, when others just follow simple instructions..."

When you click on NOTE: If you want to add an image to the gallery please use [REPLY] button instead you should get a pop-up box like this. - If you don't it is a local setting in your browser preventing it, not a forum fault...


Just fill in the details, click add picture and the bb-code even automatically appears in your draft post!

You can even do it multiple times in the same post - takes less than 10 seconds per pic...


Admittedly, "NOTE: If you want to add an image to the gallery please use [REPLY] button instead" could possibly be better labelled e.g. "Click here If you want to add an image to your post"

This is exactly how I've done it and always have done it with zero problem till a couple of weeks ago. Had worked easily and beautifully until then. Now whether the image address gets written to the bottom of my post or whether the image gets sent off to my Gallery is random. Could very well be something in my browser that's changed. So, will try the Gallery method that seems to be working for others even though it does seem clunkier.

Webbo

[AdeV]

But I would much rather have a forum on our hobby running old clunky software than have no forum at all... 

In fairness - this isn't "old clunky software": It's pretty much the current version of SMF, which is still actively developed & has the advantage - unlike say vBulletin or phpBB - of being free open source software.

It does, however, have some "quirks", particularly around image handling, and I'm not aware of any SMF board which has fully fixed it. Having not been here until after the change to the latest version, I'm not aware of what the forum was like "before" - but I'm guessing the whole Gallery plugin was developed for a previous version, and was probably a bit of a smoother integration than in its current form.

I am admin on a couple of SMF forums (unrelated to model railways), and images are a constant bane for me and for the users... we don't use any fancy plugins, so images are simply "plonked" at the bottom of the posts - assuming the user can even upload the damn things in the first place. Most people host their photos somewhere else & simply link to them inline.

I realise that's not helpful here... but I thought it worth correcting the "clunky old software" comment that's been made a few times (& apologies to you Malc for picking on your post - it just happened to be the last one that mentioned it!)

[Malc-c]

quote author=AdeV link=msg=824758 date=1708077856]

In fairness - this isn't "old clunky software": It's pretty much the current version of SMF, which is still actively developed & has the advantage - unlike say vBulletin or phpBB - of being free open source software.

That may be the case, but the look and operation seems unchanged to how forum software was some 20 or 30 years back.  I appreciate NGF probably lacks the funds to use "commercial" software, but you would have thought that with this software being open source the issue and clunkiness of how the software handles images would have been addressed years ago.

Don't get me wrong.. As I mentioned, I'm very pleased there is the forum and like being a member, but simply feel that the way image handling and processing in its current form puts me off adding images to my posts that would really benefit from them.
 

[AdeV]

That may be the case, but the look and operation seems unchanged to how forum software was some 20 or 30 years back.  I appreciate NGF probably lacks the funds to use "commercial" software, but you would have thought that with this software being open source the issue and clunkiness of how the software handles images would have been addressed years ago.

TBH - part of that is the theming - the default SMF theme does look somewhat old fashioned... and with no "dark mode" available, it's also a pain on my monitor (which occasionally flickers - dark mode minimises the epileptic effect somewhat!

The image handling.... yeah. Can't disagree with that. The base software is a pain, and I've yet to see a truly seamless plugin that improves it.