preview

[Hillscreek]

Brad,

How can I preview before posting?

How do I make the img link show as a picture?

Fumbling a bit.......

[bradl]

Preview

Preview is no more. Although bless you for asking -- I sometimes wondered how many actually used it  

The reasoning from the software developers is that the new editor is 99% WYSIWYG  (what you see is what you get) so there is no reason to load a preview version to see how your input will be parsed -- almost all code is parsed within moments of being entered.

You can see this happen if you type the shorthand for a smiley :  ) and it is immediately (more or less) converted into final form  

You can see this happen when you paste a youtube link. If you paste the link on its own line and then hit return, the software fetches the video and embeds it immediately (more or less).  

Link as Embedded Image

Along the same lines, many (if not most) images will embed themselves if you paste the link (URL) on it's own line, followed by return. By example, here is a url to a photo:

http://nototo.us/piano/piano16.jpg

and this is what happens if I paste that onto its own line:

Depending on how long it takes for the server to find, fetch, and embed the photo there may be a few moments delay while the editor does this work in the background.

You can also force the embed sometimes by using the Insert other media link over on the far right in the attachment upload box.

Pasting the same URL as in my example into the "insert image from url" popup does the same thing.

Note that some servers have settings that forbid anyone from "hotlinking" their images to other places. Those images cannot be embedded due to the settings their owners have set. The only thing you can do there is save a copy to your desktop and then attach it.

Attach and Insert

I believe you are already comfortable attaching images, but for anyone who hasn't done that yet, if you have a reasonably sized image on your desktop you can attach it by dragging it onto the box that says "Drag files here to attach, or choose files..." Once it is uploaded, you click the "+" sign to insert the image at the cursor location, or the trash can icon to change your mind and delete the image.

If you backspace over the image to delete it in your post, you still want to click the trashcan to delete it from the server too. Otherwise the file is still uploaded and using your storage space even though it's not being shown anywhere.

Hope this helps. Let me know if I can add clarity or better examples.

[bradl]

Just an added comment to say that while I get where the developers are coming from, I personally miss preview. To me it was a pause before "committing" to a post and I frequently caught a typo or three while previewing.

That said, the edit window is set for two hours so  if you see a particularly egregious typo or mis-formatting you can click the 'Edit' link and fix it, if so moved.

[Lynn in TN]

I used the preview as well and I miss it. Even with preview I still missed typos though. 

[Hillscreek]

Thanks brad. I'll see what I can do.

I used the preview quite a bit. 

[Lupinegirl]

5 hours ago, Lynn in TN said:

I used the preview as well and I miss it. Even with preview I still missed typos though. 

 Same here.