Using IE and having problems with quoting and posting links/pics? Suggested workarounds

Hi,
 
If you have to use IE to post here, you may well have been finding problems when you try to quote another poster or paste any links or pictures. Now, this issue has been reported and hopefully the website developers will soon find a proper solution as it's annoying. However, that's not really what this thread is about, it's to share user-suggested interim workarounds.

I'll do 'Quotes' for now and links/pics later. They'll look pretty similar to the instructions for quotes, though.

Step one:


Step two:

 
Step three

 
Step four


 
Step 5


I hope this helps. I made it as I see people puzzled in threads why they can't post and stuck for a way around the problem. I hope it's clear and that it helps someone. If I've missed a step or it doesn't work, by all means let me know and I will check I've not forgotten a step or worded it wrong.

Thanks Sophie. 

 

For the 'developers'. How can it be so difficult to make a functioning bulletin board? I have been on plenty of BB's, and never encountered the scores of problems that keep cropping up here.

 

and btw. using chrome doesn't solve the problem, so don't come back with MS-hate related statements.

Thanks Sophie. 

 

For the 'developers'. How can it be so difficult to make a functioning bulletin board? I have been on plenty of BB's, and never encountered the scores of problems that keep cropping up here.

 

and btw. using chrome doesn't solve the problem, so don't come back with MS-hate related statements.

Thanks Sophie. Quoting is not a problem on IE9 so obviously all versions of IE are behaving differently. I note also that in your step 2, after turning on the light switch, that the emoticons are showing as normal, this is not the case on IE9. Emoticons do not show under any circumstance.  

As I said yesterday in the "forum" thread, other IP.board BB's work perfectly well with IE9, so presumably this is the case with other versions, as clearly this board did at one point. It's the very fact that we appear to be being totally ostracized that I find difficult to accept.

Thanks for this..

I am using IE11 on Windows 8.1 and it still doesn't work as intended.

Up until today, I've been using Windows XP and IE8. I'd not been able to use this site properly since the upgrade...and in the last couple of weeks Imageshack had also stopped me accessing its site due to their recent upgrade.

 

I bit the bullet and installed google chrome as an alternative browser that I could use when websites made using IE difficult. The little row of emoticons are now back. Type is now in black as opposed to grey - I can post pictures using imageshack now.

Google chrome isn't my default browser - but I can now see why IE posters were having so many troubles.

Okay, posting pictures. First, I'm going to just manage expectations by saying these suggestions are probably not going to work for everyone - I can't replicate everyone's computers, operating systems or browsers. I also am not part of the development team, or mandating how you should post your images, I'm just sharing what works for me.
 
So, you have your image and you want to display it on the boards. I am going to assume for the sake of argument you have permission to do so and aren't breaking any copyright agreements. How to get other people to see it? Well, if it's a file on the web, you can link directly to it by use of this icon here:

 

Pate the image URL into the box  it brings up:

Be nice if it always worked but frankly, it seems pretty hit and miss. As you can see, this has worked to load wikipedia's photo of Alonso...


 
...but it failed to display Wikipedia's file pic of Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Incidentally, be aware that certainly back in the old days of the internet, linking directly like this, was, and actually still is by many, seen as a bit of faux pas because it eats the host site's bandwidth. For this reason, I always use my own private photohosting account because a) I'm not eating anyone's bandwidth and b) it actually always works.
 
I would love at this point to give you the full rundown on all the photo sites out there with their pros and cons. I cannot. I can tell you that I used to use Photobucket. It's free and quite user friendly. I also don't recommend it because certainly when I was using it, the bandwidth allocated to each photo for public viewing was pretty tiny. I use imgur because it is a) free and b) pretty reliable and I know how it works. It has a community and a front page of often tasteless photos which I just ignore and go into my account.
 
Posting from Imgur,
 
1) Upload your picture into your account. If it is already on your hard drive, click 'computer' as shown below to open up a box which will allow you to browse your PC to select the picture file and upload..
 

 
2) To display on the boards here, click on the image you now have in your imgur images like so:
 

 

3) Copy the highlighted line to the right of the picture. This is the bulletin board code of your picture.
 

 

4) Press paste into your Autosport forums reply post.
 
5) Preview to check your image isn't absolutely enormous. If it is, there's a couple of things you can do to change the display size. You can use the thumbnail facility circled in this image.

 

 

 

It uploads well, a thumbnail instead of the whole image.
 
Or, and this is what I do, you just go to the code you've pasted in. Look at the file extension, which will usually be .JPG or .PNG etc. If you manually add the following letters S, M or L Just before the .JPEG bit, it makes well, small medium or large versions of the file display.
For example - and I've manually changed the 'I' of IMG for the number 1 here to show the code - I start with:
  [1MG] http://i.imgur.com/4dsTe88.jpg[/1MG],
 
... But if I add an 's' like so:  [1MG]http://i.imgur.com/4dsTe88s.jpg[1IMG] then it will display like this:
 

 
For 'm'
 

 
'L'
 


There. As I say, I know in advance this will not help all of you but I hope it may help at least someone.

I've never had an issue linking an image, has worked every time whatever the site (provided the pic URL ends with .jpg, .gif, or .png).  However, I do have the issue every single bloody time where after posting, the page requires a refresh to be actually able to see the posted image.  This is in Firefox, can't be bothered with IE (even though it's what I use for work stuff).  However, it is a nonsense.

 

Of course, I post in the sure knowledge that it will never be fixed as clearly none of the issues will be either.  Rather pathetically half-arsed by Autosport really.  And this is from someone who was totally supportive of the change despite wide-spread initial teething problems.

 

Neil

Edited by Option1, 12 February 2014 - 19:27.

Not quite Sophie. Well not in IE but it does shows on the Kindle.

Doesn't especially surprise me given that I was mentioning it in the context of that process being really hit and miss and not really recommended. However, I wanted to to show how that process worked in theory because a few people seem to find posting images very confusing.

Doesn't especially surprise me given that I was mentioning it in the context of that process being really hit and miss and not really recommended. However, I wanted to to show how that process worked in theory because a few people seem to find posting images very confusing.

What annoys me is that it is only this one picture of yours which is showing as per screen grab, all the others are ok. Having quite clearly taken on the mantel from Pitbabe, can you not get out the whip which she left?

Thanks Sophie, but for the record, not working for me.

Thanks Sophie, but for the record, not working for me.

 

If you want to drop me a PM of some of your details, GreenMachine, I will try to find workarounds with you. Or maybe I've missed a step somewhere and my notes need updating.

Quotes not working for me. It's not worth my time to do a 5 step work around. Quoting someone is a standard feature and should work.

I've just had to upgrade to Windows 8.1 and IE 11 and am surprised that these issues have not been resolved a year after being first reported. I'll install Firefox and see if that works.