There has been a fair bit of confusion regarding the use of attachments here lately. From what I understand, at some point in the past, their use was forbidden for unknown reasons (I'd love to know if someone can enlighten me though). Up until recently, attachments were outright disabled and after enabling them not long ago, even when inserted into posts, were only displaying as links, making them of questionable use at best. This has all changed and they now display as full images instead.

First and foremost, attachments are now allowed in all sections of the forum. If anyone tells you otherwise, you can point them at this thread. Dazz has updated the Universal Rules thread to include the fact that they are allowed but I want to take it a step further and encourage their use.

By uploading attachments directly, you cut out the risks involved with using a third party. A site like imgur, realistically, isn't going to go down but it still requires links to another domain. When they're uploaded here, they are guaranteed to be here as long as the site exists (and the uploader doesn't delete them). There is no quality loss, no resizing (besides the lossless resizing that happens when an image is too large), and a generous file size limit (I can't quite remember what it is at the moment). So, while I don't intend to ban the use of third party image hosts, I encourage you all to use the attachment feature unless there is some specific reason not to.

Here's an example, for those interested:

   

As you can see, that image is included directly in the post but hosted here, as an attachment. The screenshot is of the post editor so you can even see how to use it if you're unsure. Basically, choose a file and click "Add Attachment". When it's done uploading, click where you want it to appear and then just click the "Insert Into Post" button to add it in-line and you're done!

Just an addendum with what we currently have set up for the attachment filesizes:


(EDIT: Updated with the new limits.)

No .rar allowed?

Hmm... So my PHP settings don't affect the forum upload limits. I'll have to remember how to change those on the forum side to allow for larger files or the feature will be mostly useless.

As for the lack of rar support, the acceptable file types are controlled by the forum but I'll look into seeing if there's a way to add it in manually. That being said, zip is generally the way to go for compatibility's sake which is why it's the only archive format we accept on the main sites.

Edit: Found where to do both. I'll increase the limits, add rar support (just in case), and update with the new sizes here tomorrow. If anyone has any requests or suggestions for sizes, let me know.

Personally, I'm fine with simply using both Photobucket and Dropbox for all my file hosting need.

Now that I see that the attachment ban has been lifted, I may have to try that the next time I upload an image to this site.

By the way, since the use of attachments is now encouraged, will this have any affect on the site's bandwidth and overall performance?

It shouldn't have a noticeable effect but if anything, pages with attached content should load a little faster than those with content embedded from off site since it there will no longer be an external request.

Ah! I like the sound of that! I was thinking that too many attachments would bog this entire site down, but seeing as it provides more good than harm, I'll be sure to make sure that the next sprite image I'll upload will be an attachment!

You're the best, Petie!

Also, size limits have been increased and rar support has been added! I'm on my phone and can't really put together the most right now but the smallest for images is 10 MB with gifs allowing 15 and archive formats allow 25 MB.

With these changes in mind, do not use this as a free file hosting service. Attachments should be relevant to a thread and if we notice any that aren't, they will be removed without notice and the poster's attachment privileges will be revoked. Please don't let it come to this because that means I'll have to make another user group and I really don't feel like doing that to combat what I imagine shouldn't be a problem.

(05-29-2014, 12:39 PM)Petie Wrote: I'm on my phone and can't really put together the most right now but the smallest for images is 10 MB with gifs allowing 15 and archive formats allow 25 MB.

I've updated my earlier post with the new sizes now.

i dont think this'll change my imgur habits, since most of what i upload aren't actual files, rather just ctrl V onto imgur, or puush when im lazy

this could be useful to me when it comes to GIFs though
i have yet to try out what the upload speed is worth but nonetheless this is some good work

keep it up petie

I'm using the attachment feature for the first time and I'm getting this when I preview my post:

   

Idk if this is only in previews though, so I'm gonna test it now by posting this here.

EDIT: Looks like only previews. It is a bit annoying though, is it possible to rectify that? Or is it only happening to me?

(05-28-2014, 07:47 PM)Petie Wrote: There has been a fair bit of confusion regarding the use of attachments here lately. From what I understand, at some point in the past, their use was forbidden for unknown reasons (I'd love to know if someone can enlighten me though).

well the deal is that some new users would use attachments to show off their sprites
and everyone was waaay too lazy to actually download the sprite to look at it then give C+C
so what that would do was it would make it so no one replied, not having bothered to look at whatever it is the member did
and then said member would bump their topic complaining about why no one replied etc

so yeah we wanted to avoid that

maybe someone who's been around longer will tell you different about why this is, but that's just what i figured

Well, with the new renovations Petie made to the attachment system, Lexou, I don't see that kind of problem happening again in the future.

(05-31-2014, 06:06 AM)puggsoy Wrote: I'm using the attachment feature for the first time and I'm getting this when I preview my post:

Idk if this is only in previews though, so I'm gonna test it now by posting this here.

EDIT: Looks like only previews. It is a bit annoying though, is it possible to rectify that? Or is it only happening to me?

I'm not entirely sure what's causing that but I'll look into it. If I had to guess right now, my assumption is that the forum doesn't treat the attachment as "existing" until the post is submitted so you're not seeing it show up in the preview.