How To: Attach an Image to a Post

Attaching an image is easy, if a little convoluted. First, you must be aware, that there are limitations on images. You may only attach GIF or JPEG images and they are limited in size and each user is limited in what they can upload during their time here. Unfortunately, server space is hard to come by without copious amounts of money, and we're not set to start raking in the dough anytime soon. If you want to upload larger files, put them at someplace like Flickr or ImageShack, either way, if you have the URL of the image, BBcode ([img] and [/img]) will allow you to add the image to any type of site content.

Storing An Image On The Web

Web images must be stored somewhere on the web and then linked to, but there are limitations ZPI has in place in regards to sizes and file types, so it may be easier to use a third party service such as Flickr or ImageShack.

Using ZPI To Store The Files

To attach a small JPEG or GIF file to your post (it must be the original post, at this time, not one of the replies to that post) go to the File Attachments section towards the bottom:

I'm going to trust you to your own abilities to attach the file itself at this point (click Browse > locate the file > click OK > click Attach), but once you get the file attached, it will list it:

If you notice, it will give the option of listing the file -- this will display the file in the bottom of the post as a link. If you want to display the image in the body of the post, make sure this is unchecked.

Using Flickr or ImageShack

For Flickr, there are a number of options to get the images uploaded, including, if you are so inclined, a number of downloadable tools. You may also use ImageShack to accomplish the same thing and, similarly, there are plenty of ways to upload images here as well. If you prefer to use another hosting service, you are free to do so, just follow the instructions on that site and get the link to the image that should be provided by the site when you upload the file.

Making The Image Appear On ZPI

Once the file is uploaded onto the web in this manner, get the link to the image (on ZPI, it is below the Description field, for other file storage sites, follow the instructions on those sites). From here, it is a small matter of using BBCode to display the images using the [img] tag.

The [img] tag allows you to display an image in your post. You need to specify a URL to the image, so it needs to be accessible somewhere on the internet. Beware of adding very large images to your text, or the page will load very slowly!

You can also specify the desired display dimensions of the image by adding a dimension parameter to the [img] tag. A good screenshot: [img=640x480]http://example.com/screenshot.png[/img] will display the image in 640x480 (though the full image will be downloaded). Do not use this to show a thumbnail of an image!

You are free to link an image to an external destination by enclosing the [img] tag with a [url] tag.