Embedding media (pictures, video clips, etc.) in a post

Site Feedback
1

I was thinking there should be a sticky here or an FAQ, but I don’t see it, nor do I see an explanation in the documentation that is here.

If I have pictures to embed in a post - even if they’re hosted securely offsite - I get an error message claiming that I’m not allowed to embed them.

I thought maybe it was because I was a “Guest”, having let my subscription lapse decades ago, but in the very thread I wanted to post pictures, I see other Guests posting pictures.

What gives? How do I unlock this capability?

2

The option is disabled here. You can paste a link to an external image, but not the image itself.

If you post a URL to the image file directly, it will show a preview of that image.

3

I’ll be darned! I was over-thinking it. Shows you what I know.

Posting a direct link to the image works. Using the IMG tags does not because that function has been explicitly disabled!

4

For Imgur specifically, note that posting a link to an album produces a squashed preview of the first image in the album. A link directly to that image has a not-squashed preview. Since albums of one pic are commonplace, this merits knowing.


Vids are slightly more complicated due to a bug in Discourse. See here for more:

5

I’ve been guilty of this for some time now. I pledge to reform.

6

Just note that this is the wrong category for that. ATMB is about things like board culture and decision-making. Site Feedback is to talk about board software and how to use it.

There is a sticky over there about YouTube video uploads, and some discussion of how to imbed a photo is also talked about, but it’s probably not a bad idea to have a how-to for pictures as its own sticky. It seems like a lot of posters struggle, mostly because they don’t know how to get the address of a picture instead of the web page a picture is posted to.

7

Moved to Site Feedback (from ATMB).

8

Thanks, engineer_comp_geek.

Yes, the solution is to simply paste the URL for the picture itself into the post. The preview window will show you what this will look like.

The tricky thing is that using the IMG tags also makes the image show up correctly in the preview; it’s not until you try to post that you get the error.

9

With blank lines above (unless the URL is the first line of the post) and below (unless the URL is the last line of the post).

10

Here is advice I posted in an older thread:

I usually copy an image then paste the image into my browser’s address bar. That should put the direct link to the image. Then copy that address from the address bar and paste it into Discourse on its own line with no other text with it. That’s my quick and dirty method.

Note that it’s not a 100% guaranteed method of posting a photo. Sometimes the link is gibberish (especially if it’s directly from a Google search result) or it doesn’t end in an extension that Discourse recognizes as belonging to an image. But it works most of the time. Some images just don’t seem to work so I find something else.

11

That’s not needed. But putting the extra blank lines in will always work and as long as you’re happy with the vertical spacing that results, it’s no harm.

No extra blank lines between line1

and line 2.

What I did do is make sure there was a hard [Enter] at the end of line 1, so there’s no confusion between line 1 ending, versus line 1 just happening to word wrap immediately ahead of the url. And a hard [Enter] after the url so the “and line 2” starts a fresh line for sure.