Post by Jewellz on Mar 8, 2019 17:54:12 GMT -5
(Mods/admins, I didn't know where to put this. It's not a tack tutorial but feel free to move this thread if it goes better somewhere else)
A frequent question for new members and people new to Petz is "How/where do I host images to post on the forum?"
Since the downfall of Photobucket, I've used Amazon S3 to host my images. It's free for one year. When I'm not on the free plan anymore, I've estimated I'll pay no more than 6 cents a month at my current usage.
Finding a good image host that is easy to upload in batches and view all your images in one spot is hard. Free options are complicated and annoying (adding code you don't need, making every image you have a walking advertisement) and paid services are super expensive considering the volume and amount of traffic petz images get (not much, heh).
Amazon only charges you for exactly what you use and since the first year is free, it's no commitment if you don't like it.
I'm going to detail every step to set up an Amazon AWS account, create a bucket, and upload your images for the world - or at least the petz community - to see. I will display some images in this thread but many will only be linked. If you are a visual person, click the links to see exactly what I did. This whole process should take less than 15 minutes.
Creating an AWS account
Go to Amazon AWS.
Create an account, I dredged up an old email address to set this up. You DO NOT have to have an Amazon.com account but if you do, you can just use that and it should pull in your contact and payment info for you.
Put in contact information, then payment information (remember you will NOT be charged for anything unless you upload a crapload of stuff or send your images to THOUSANDS of people.
Confirm your identity - just get a text message with a code real quick.
Select the basic support plan. Free is good.
And now you are signed up! Wait a minute and then log in. (You don't need to open or do anything with the email they send.)
Now it's time to log in and get started creating a space to upload our photos.
Creating a bucket in S3
When you log in for the first time, you'll be on the console for ALL of AWS, but we are only going to use their storage service called S3. If it doesn't appear in the list, type it in the search box. Otherwise, click on S3.
Once you're in S3, go through the setup process for your first bucket.
Name your bucket something short and memorable, it will be part of the url for all of your images! It also must be unique to the region you select, so, sorry, but I don't think anyone else in the Oregon region can use "show-poses" now.
You can select a region or leave it as whatever popped up, but it's recommended to pick one close to you. There are only 4 regions in the US.
Configure the bucket options. Leave everything as default settings.
Next, you set the public access settings. Amazon, by default, wants to lock down the buckets and all the objects in them (images, files, etc.) because it's geared more towards storing things than sharing them. We want to be able to share everything so uncheck all the boxes!
Review everything to make sure it's correct, then create your bucket!
Once created, you should see your bucket. Also, make sure that the Access shows "objects can be public" so that you can set your images to be viewable by the public. Otherwise, only you can see them.
You can create multiple buckets to organize your objects (files), but I'd also like to note that you can create folders within a bucket as well, if you wanted to sort your images a bit. I myself use two buckets, one for my website and one for images. Within both of those buckets I have 3 or 4 folders to keep things more organized.
Uploading images to your bucket
Click on your newly created bucket and hit upload or get started.
You can drag and drop multiple images or browse through your computer.
I'm gonna upload a pose from Tequila for an example. I'd like to note that it is helpful if you click "Next" instead of "Upload" once you have selected the image(s) so you can set their public access, but there are also other ways to do that after they are uploaded.
If you click "Next", on the next step you will be able to manage public permissions for the image(s). Use the dropdown menu to select "Grant public read access to this object(s)".
Amazon will have a warning that EVERYONE can see this object now. Don't worry, that's exactly what we want!
Select the standard/default storage class properties.
Review everything and hit upload.
Now, your image(s) will show in your bucket. We're not quite done yet, but close!
Your image is now uploaded and you need a link (url) for it so you can post it in the forum for everyone to see!
You can find it in two ways, check the box next to the image and a popup will show the url. You can also click on the image in the bucket and it will show you the url. Copy and paste or right-click the url and 'copy link address'.
Paste the url into a new page or tab and see if the image loads. If it does not show up, then you probably didn't set it as public when it was uploaded. Don't worry, we can easily fix that!
If everything in your bucket is meant to be public (they're all images you want to share) then you can select all the objects in the bucket (or just select the one you want) and use the dropdown 'Actions' menu and hit "Make public". You could also click on the image and hit the "Make public" button.
Once the image is public, anyone with the url can see it and you can post it in forums. Hooray!
Recommendation: I bookmark this url, which allows me to quickly access S3 to upload images or manage my files: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/
Posting an image to the forum
Okay so your image is uploaded and you have the url for it. Here's how to post it in the forum so everyone can see it - full-size and no weird links or anything attached.
Most forums have an "Insert Image" button somewhere.
Use that, and all you do is paste the url in. Don't worry about alt text, leave it blank.
If, for some reason, there is no handy insert image button, you can also copy and paste the url into this code and then copy and paste the whole code into your post to show the image. Or, just remember and type in the code that goes around the url, either way.
If the forum has a Preview tab and a BBCode tab, always paste 'code' into the BBCode tab.
That's all folks! Thanks for reading and I hope this will help you use, or consider, Amazon S3 in the future!
And Tequila would like to show off her spiffy show getup...
A frequent question for new members and people new to Petz is "How/where do I host images to post on the forum?"
Since the downfall of Photobucket, I've used Amazon S3 to host my images. It's free for one year. When I'm not on the free plan anymore, I've estimated I'll pay no more than 6 cents a month at my current usage.
Finding a good image host that is easy to upload in batches and view all your images in one spot is hard. Free options are complicated and annoying (adding code you don't need, making every image you have a walking advertisement) and paid services are super expensive considering the volume and amount of traffic petz images get (not much, heh).
Amazon only charges you for exactly what you use and since the first year is free, it's no commitment if you don't like it.
I'm going to detail every step to set up an Amazon AWS account, create a bucket, and upload your images for the world - or at least the petz community - to see. I will display some images in this thread but many will only be linked. If you are a visual person, click the links to see exactly what I did. This whole process should take less than 15 minutes.
Creating an AWS account
Go to Amazon AWS.
Create an account, I dredged up an old email address to set this up. You DO NOT have to have an Amazon.com account but if you do, you can just use that and it should pull in your contact and payment info for you.
Put in contact information, then payment information (remember you will NOT be charged for anything unless you upload a crapload of stuff or send your images to THOUSANDS of people.
Confirm your identity - just get a text message with a code real quick.
Select the basic support plan. Free is good.
And now you are signed up! Wait a minute and then log in. (You don't need to open or do anything with the email they send.)
Now it's time to log in and get started creating a space to upload our photos.
Creating a bucket in S3
When you log in for the first time, you'll be on the console for ALL of AWS, but we are only going to use their storage service called S3. If it doesn't appear in the list, type it in the search box. Otherwise, click on S3.
Once you're in S3, go through the setup process for your first bucket.
Name your bucket something short and memorable, it will be part of the url for all of your images! It also must be unique to the region you select, so, sorry, but I don't think anyone else in the Oregon region can use "show-poses" now.
You can select a region or leave it as whatever popped up, but it's recommended to pick one close to you. There are only 4 regions in the US.
Configure the bucket options. Leave everything as default settings.
Next, you set the public access settings. Amazon, by default, wants to lock down the buckets and all the objects in them (images, files, etc.) because it's geared more towards storing things than sharing them. We want to be able to share everything so uncheck all the boxes!
Review everything to make sure it's correct, then create your bucket!
Once created, you should see your bucket. Also, make sure that the Access shows "objects can be public" so that you can set your images to be viewable by the public. Otherwise, only you can see them.
You can create multiple buckets to organize your objects (files), but I'd also like to note that you can create folders within a bucket as well, if you wanted to sort your images a bit. I myself use two buckets, one for my website and one for images. Within both of those buckets I have 3 or 4 folders to keep things more organized.
Uploading images to your bucket
Click on your newly created bucket and hit upload or get started.
You can drag and drop multiple images or browse through your computer.
I'm gonna upload a pose from Tequila for an example. I'd like to note that it is helpful if you click "Next" instead of "Upload" once you have selected the image(s) so you can set their public access, but there are also other ways to do that after they are uploaded.
If you click "Next", on the next step you will be able to manage public permissions for the image(s). Use the dropdown menu to select "Grant public read access to this object(s)".
Amazon will have a warning that EVERYONE can see this object now. Don't worry, that's exactly what we want!
Select the standard/default storage class properties.
Review everything and hit upload.
Now, your image(s) will show in your bucket. We're not quite done yet, but close!
Your image is now uploaded and you need a link (url) for it so you can post it in the forum for everyone to see!
You can find it in two ways, check the box next to the image and a popup will show the url. You can also click on the image in the bucket and it will show you the url. Copy and paste or right-click the url and 'copy link address'.
Paste the url into a new page or tab and see if the image loads. If it does not show up, then you probably didn't set it as public when it was uploaded. Don't worry, we can easily fix that!
If everything in your bucket is meant to be public (they're all images you want to share) then you can select all the objects in the bucket (or just select the one you want) and use the dropdown 'Actions' menu and hit "Make public". You could also click on the image and hit the "Make public" button.
Once the image is public, anyone with the url can see it and you can post it in forums. Hooray!
Recommendation: I bookmark this url, which allows me to quickly access S3 to upload images or manage my files: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/
Posting an image to the forum
Okay so your image is uploaded and you have the url for it. Here's how to post it in the forum so everyone can see it - full-size and no weird links or anything attached.
Most forums have an "Insert Image" button somewhere.
Use that, and all you do is paste the url in. Don't worry about alt text, leave it blank.
If, for some reason, there is no handy insert image button, you can also copy and paste the url into this code and then copy and paste the whole code into your post to show the image. Or, just remember and type in the code that goes around the url, either way.
[img src="HTTP FULL URL HERE"]
If the forum has a Preview tab and a BBCode tab, always paste 'code' into the BBCode tab.
That's all folks! Thanks for reading and I hope this will help you use, or consider, Amazon S3 in the future!
And Tequila would like to show off her spiffy show getup...