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greg_r

Posting Images To The Forum Redux: Self-Hosting

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greg_r

Photo-hosting sites are not the only way to post photos to RWG (and other fora). Personally I've always hosted my own photos on some rented webspace. It's quite inexpensive (less than £5 per month in my case) and overcomes the restrictions of many photo hosting sites.

 

This is how it's done:

 

1. Go rent some web space. Many low-cost web hosts (1and1 amongst others) will rent you up to 100gb of space for just a few pounds/dollars/wampums or whatever per month. Look for one that throws in a free domain name as you're going to need one.

 

2. Grab yourself an FTP client (there are several free options around - Filezilla being one option ( https://filezilla-project.org/ ). Alternatively, most web hosts have a web-based FTP client built into your hosting control panel, which you may find easier.

 

3: Once your web space and domain name are set up (which may take a day or so) may sure that the domain name is pointed at the root folder (which you are not going to use).

 

4. Create a sub-folder in your hosting account called photos (or whatever you want). Inside this folder, create a file called .htaccess (with a period at the start).

 

5. Open .htaccess in a plain text editor such as notepad (or there may be a web-based alternative in your hosting control panel or FTP client). Add this one line to the file:

 

Options +Indexes

 

Save the file. This lets your browser navigate the folder and subfolders without the need to set up web pages.

 

6. Back in your FTP client, create subfolders for the various photos you're going to be hosting - for instance, I have a subfolder called watches with further folders inside for each watch I post photos of. You can then upload your photos to their respective directories.

 

7. Finally, in your web browser navigate to http://www.yourdomain.com/photos and you'll be able to browse your subfolders and their contents. To post any of them to the board simply enclose the URL of the photo between two IMG tags :img:

 

The above sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Once set up, uploading photos and hotlinking them to the forum is as easy as it gets.

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Nikosaldente

Thanks for sharing Greg!

 

Might give it a shot!

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WatchDog21

When the hammer falls on flickr I will be making this switch. Good info for all, thanks boss!

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holla79

Has anyone figured out the "insert existing attachment" function?  I'm trying to learn the easiest way to upload but having to go 3rd party site seems like a more difficult task than it should be. 

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Glaude
27 minutes ago, holla79 said:

Has anyone figured out the "insert existing attachment" function?  I'm trying to learn the easiest way to upload but having to go 3rd party site seems like a more difficult task than it should be. 

Really simple in fact : you go to either postimage or imgur, you upload your images there, you got a link and you paste the link directly into your post, you can't get easier than that !

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holla79

not as easy as dragging and dropping in the comment box but works.  Thanks Glaude

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