Uploading Pictures

Some people say pictures are worth a thousand words. Although in storygames, it is a different matter. Pictures are put in to help describe words in storygames, and they can be a very useful technique to get the feel of a story across. Take "The Free Hand" for example, without the pictures the story wouldn't be as intense. This article will show you how to upload these pictures on to the internet, so you can put them into your storygame.

Uploading Directly on to Choose Your Story
Alex hosts these pictures for your storygame on the website for free, so thank him if you get the chance.

1. Make sure that you have a picture ready to upload on to the website. Remember, the maximum width of the picture is 550 pixels, and the maximum height is 600 pixels. You can find out how big an image is by looking in the "Properties" of the image once you have saved it. You must also save it as either a JPG, GIF or PNG file. You can do this by clicking on "Save As" and save the picture as a name and then put either .jpg, .gif or .png at the end.

2. Go to My Stuff > Pictures > Upload New Picture > Browse and then find your picture and click on "Open". If it fits the requirements, it'll be uploaded into your personal Pictures section.

3. Open up your storygame. To upload the picture, click on the button and a pop-up window will show up (make sure you have any pop-up blockers temporarily turned off). You will be able to choose from any of your uploaded pictures to put in your storygame.

Uploading Through Image Hosting
Alex isn't the only person who hosts images on the internet. Find a good image hosting site (recommendations later) and you're already halfway there. Remember, if you upload this way, there are no restrictions on the size of the image. That means you could have the image being a 2000 width 2000 height image and you could put it into your storygame. What's even better is that you aren't taking up Alex's space.

1. First of all you need to make sure you have the image saved on to your computer.
2. Secondly, go to an image hosting website, like Image Shack or Photobucket. They keep images on the internet for you for free.
3. Make an account there and upload the image from your computer on to the internet.
4. Now that it is on the internet, copy and paste the Image URL (right click on the image, and go to properties. It should be next to something along the lines of "Image Location: www.example.com/example5.jpeg". Don't worry about what is after the Image Location, just copy it by highlighting it and pressing CTRL and C.
5. Go on to Choose Your Story (or My Adventure Game, whichever you are using).

If you can see the "Source" Button while writing your storygame, don't follow steps 6 and 7a. If you can't access the "Source" button, then follow all steps except 7b.

6. Right now you're probably using the Rich Text Editor, which has all the fonts and "Bold" buttons etc. at the top. You'll need to change it to the Basic Text Box. You can do this by clicking on the links on the side of the website.

My Stuff > Account > Use Rich Text Editor > Untick Box > Update My Account and Profile

Don't worry, you can change back to the Rich Text Editor later.

7a. Now, go to your storygame.
7b. Click on "Source".
8. Type in <image src="IMAGE LOCATION THAT YOU HAVE COPIED HERE"> in and finish up. The image should be there.

Using Any Picture Through Image Location

Why upload an image when you can just use something that is already on the internet? To do this, you can skip steps 1 to 4 and instead just right click any image on the internet and get the Image Location, and then continue from step five except using a non-uploaded picture. Remember to check for copyrights, though. If you use something without permission it can mean big consequences.

If you go through the second and third ways, you can use the Source Button to insert pictures into the forums and on your profile as well.

As you can see, the hard way has more benefits at the end, as the saying goes, but if you picture fits the requirements to be hosted on Choose Your Story just upload it through the website for convenience. Either way can be completed fairly quickly, so it's up to you to decide. I hope that pictures can bring out the best in your storygames.