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Let's say I'm answering a question and want to include a small schematic image in-line with the answer.

First, the documentation for the post editor markup language is well hidden. When I actually had this problem, I looked all around the window and found no "edit help" link or anything like it. I found something like it later when editing one of my posts, but that seems to be hit or miss. For example, right now after scrolling down the browser window there is a box "Similar Questions" where the other time there was a box with links to editing help. Right now I see no way to access editing help from this page.

Anyway, apparently "!", followed by desription in brackets, followed by a link in parenthesis makes the content of the linked image appear in line. However, that is still linking to the image in the temp directory on my server. I'm not going to keep it there for more than a few days. How do I get the forum server to make a copy and then tell me the link to that copy so that the embedded image remains in the post after I delete the temporary copy on my server?

Also, where is this documented? I'd like to RTFM, but all I've found is https://electronics.stackexchange.com/editing-help, which doesn't say anything about copying references to the forum server.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ what's your browser/OS? We disable the bar on mobile browsers because it doesn't work well there. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 15:41
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Kevin: I'm at a different computer now and here I can see the formatting toolbar. This one says it's IE 8. I have no idea what the other one is, most likely a somewhat older version of IE on that system. It's definitely not a mobile PC though. It's a desktop system running Win 2000 (I think). \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 23:54

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You can use hotkeys with the WMD Markdown editor. The hotkeys are visible on hover, but that doesn't work in your case. You're probably right, they should be added to the editing-help page.

They're also visible from the page source, but you probably didn't want to have to resort to that, so here they are (in order as shown in the image):

screenshot of wmd-button-row

  • CTRL-B - Bold
  • CTRL-I - Italic
  • CTRL-L - Link
  • CTRL-Q - Block Quote
  • CRTL-K - Code Block
  • CTRL-G - Graphic
  • CTRL-O - Ordered (numbered) List
  • CTRL-U - Unordered (bullet) List
  • CTRL-H - Heading
  • CTRL-R - Horizontal Line
  • CTRL-Z - Undo
  • CTRL-Shift-Z - Undo

The one you want in this case is CTRL-G. Regrettably, you'll have to move your hands from the keyboard because you can't tab through this AJAX box.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ thanks, that's exactly the sort of information I was looking for. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 23:50
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When you are composing a post, help can be accessed by clicking the ? on the right edge of the post section. This will expand an area with different topics. When you click a heading, it will show the help for that, but also animate the associated icon in the toolbar.

When you click the image icon in the toolbar, it will bring up a dialog that lets you add an image.

(Note that for users with low rep, this help area is shown by default.)

editing toolbar help

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    \$\begingroup\$ Apparently you see a toolbar that I don't. I guess I must have shut that off by accident somehow. I looked around at all the settings I could find, but didn't see anything that turns on this toolbar. I uploaded a screen shot of my browswer window to embedinc.com/temp/b.jpg so that you can see what I'm seeing. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 12:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Olin - Here's a screenshot of the same part of my browser (no help shown): i.stack.imgur.com/W6jlR.png \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 14:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kevin Actually that does show the toolbar in question. Note that it's missing from my image. So the question is how do I turn mine back on? \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 15:09
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When you use the built-in image button, either uploading or pasting in a link, it automatically mirrors the image on imgur.com, and uses that, so that the original is no longer needed.

imgur using button: enter image description here

if you type in the code by hand (why would you do this? o_O) then it links to the external image:

not imgur:

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't seem to have this toolbar with the image button on it. In any case, I'd rather just type the stuff in. I don't like clickety-click interfaces because using the mouse is so much slower than typing. Is there any other way to get the server to make a copy of the image other than using this tool button? \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 12:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Olin You can upload it to imgur.com by hand, copy and paste the URL, type it into the answer, etc. Wayyy slower than just using the mouse. \$\endgroup\$
    – endolith
    Jun 27, 2011 at 14:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ Uploading to imgur manually isn't recommended because imgur says they will delete images that have any 6-month period no views. Stack Overflow has a pro account which permanently hosts the images. If you use the button, the images go to this account. \$\endgroup\$ Jun 27, 2011 at 14:40
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This is a test.

I got this image uploaded to imgur by using the ctrl-g method Kevin mentioned. Thanks Kevin, it seems to work. One minor wrinkle though. When I hit ctrl-g I got this little window that had a text line in it that said something like "pathname on your computer". However, I couldn't type there, no characters showed up. I had to click BROWSE, then enter the pathname in the window that popped from that. Not a big deal, but it doesn't make sense that the first text line is there if it can't be used.

It's interesting to note that the HTML CENTER tag apparently doesn't work here. I enclosed the image reference in CENTER tags, but it sill shows up left aligned, at least in the preview window. Again, not a big deal.

This is centered text.

Nope, that doesn't work either. Oh well.

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