In order to include an image in a post, it must already be on the Internet.
AARoads does not provide image hosting to forum users in most cases. If you have an image on your computer that you want to put in a post, you are going to have to get it on the Internet first. One good option is to upload it to Imgur (https://imgur.com), but there are other sites that do the same thing. If you have your own website, you can upload the image to your website. Avoid social media sites like Facebook or Instagram; they often have code that causes images to break when displayed outside of their website, or URLs that expire after a certain time frame. Google Drive will not work at all for this purpose.
Once you have the image uploaded somewhere, you need the
bare image URL. That is, a link that loads just the image and not the page it's on. This will usually end with
.jpg or
.png. You can normally get this by right-clicking (or long-pressing) the image and selecting "Copy image location"/"Copy image link". (This will work on sites where the image is already uploaded as part of an article, blog post, etc. as well. Do keep in mind, however, that some smaller sites don't want the extra load that sharing one of their images brings. It may be better to rehost the image elsewhere, although that can also raise copyright concerns. Use your best judgement.)
Now, on the AARoads Post Reply (or Start New Topic) page, click (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/Themes/Button_Copy/images/bbc/img.gif). This will insert the following tags into the edit window:
[img] [/img] In between those tags, paste your image URL:
[img]https://i.imgur.com/bDHRBQ7.jpg[/img] If you're using Imgur, you can click the "..." menu button, select "Get share links", and use the "BBCode (forums)" option to get the image URL and the code precomposed for you, which you can just paste into your message.
Click "Preview" and you should see your image displayed, along with the rest of your post. If it doesn't work:
- You don't have the correct image URL. Make sure you didn't copy the URL of the page the image is displayed in. If the URL ends in .html, .cgi or .php, or it doesn't have an extension, you probably have a page URL instead of an image URL.
- The site the image is on blocks images from their site being displayed in pages on other sites. Reupload the image on another site (if you are legally allowed to do so).
- Your URL is not on the Internet. Paths to files on your personal computer or phone, like C:\Users\Alan\My Cool Road Pictures\i366.jpg or /home/alan/pictures/i366.jpg or /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera/IMG_0366.jpg will not work!