There are two general ways to use images at BlountViews.com.

For sharing photos with other readers, the easiest way is to use the Image Gallery feature. To include photos or other images such as charts or graphs as part of your blog posts, use the 'file attachments' link on the blog post creation page.

Both of these features are explained in the following topics.

Using the Image Gallery

The image gallery feature cretes a special kind of post with all the features of a regular post (it gets posted to the front page, you can add text/commentary, and it allows for user comments) but it automatically handles creating a thumbnail image correctly sized for the front page and a link to the full size photo in the gallery.

To upload a photo to the Image Gallery, use the Create Content "image" link and complete the form. You must provide a title, and you can optionally include topic categories and/or descriptive text.

Click the 'browse' button to locate the photo/image you want to upload on your local hard drive. When you complete the form and click submit, your photo is uploaded and a thumbnail is automatically created.

Your photo/image will appear in the View Content "image galleries" page, and a thumbnail link to it will appear on the front page.

Uploading images to include in blog posts

To upload an image such as a photo, illustration, chart/graph, etc. that you want to include in a blog post, use the "file attachments" feature on the blog post entry form. Note that these images do not appear in the image/photo gallery or anywhere else except where you explicitly place them.

On the create blog post form, expand the 'file attachments' section that appears under the blog post text box. Click the 'browse' button to locate the photo/image you want to upload on your local hard drive. Then click "attach" to attach the file to the post. (You can attach multiple files/photos.)

Then, you can uncheck the "list" check box so the attachment is not included in the list of attachments. Instead, you want to copy the url of the image file that is displayed in the list of attachments and include that in an HTML 'img' tag in your post. For example:

<img src="http://www.blountviews.com/files/photo.jpg">

Or:

<img src="/files/photo.jpg">

Notes:

Your images are uploaded to folder 'files'. Images in this folder can be referenced on the BlountViews.com site as simply '/files/photo.jpg', or with the full http path.

You may upload multiple images from the image upload browser window. After the first image is uploaded, simply click the 'browse' button to locate the next image to upload and repeat as necessary.

Images must not be wider than 400 pixels to avoid disrupting the layout of the main/front page. For wider images such as photos, use the photo gallery image upload instead.

For variations on placement of your image in your blog post, modify the example <img> tag as follows:

To align the image on the right side of your post, with text flowing on the left, use:

<img src="/files/photo.jpg" align="right">

To align the image on the left side of your post, with text flowing on the right, use:

<img src="/files/photo.jpg" align="left">

When using "right" or "left" alignment, your images should be no wider than 150-200 pixels for proper appearance.