How to link to Youtube & other things

[Convict13]

I've looked and cannot find (except one mention that doesn't seem to work), so hopefully someone can enlightened me, how does one attach a link to youtube on here?

[Caya]

If you mean a link to youtube as in blue text that you click on and that then takes you to youtube, just the same as any other link (the symbol that looks like a chain to the right of the Numbered List symbol, above the box where you write the text in).

 

If you mean a link to youtube as in the video showing up here in the forum directly, just copy and paste the video URL in. No extra effort necessary - the nifty forum software understands what it is.

 

Or just put it in however you like and one of us mods will fix it as soon as we come across it .

[Carol the Dabbler]

Right -- though for making the video show up in the post, one is supposed to use the "media" BBCode -- like this without the spaces between the [ and the ] and the word media:
 

[ media ]  video.URL  [ /media ]

 
While Martina is correct in saying that the naked URL will work just as well at this point, I suspect there's no guarantee that it will continue to do so.  If you want your posts to keep working despite future software upgrades, it's safest to use the advertised methods.

 

There are several ways of getting the video's URL -- if you're on the actual YouTube page, just copy the URL from the bar at the top of the page.  If not (say, if you're wanting to repost a YouTube video you've seen embedded in a blog), then right-click on the video frame and select "Get Video URL" from the drop-down menu -- or alternatively click the YouTube button at the bottom of the video frame, which will take you to the actual YouTube page, then copy the page's URL as above.

 

P.S.:  There's also a "media" option in the editor task bar.  All in all, I find it just as easy to type in the code, but for those who prefer to use the buttons, here's how:
 
Get the video URL as above and paste it into your post, then highlight it.  Click on the Special BBCodes button (the square thing between the "eraser" and the "Font" menu) in the editor task bar, and you'll get a drop-down menu -- click on "Media."  Click "OK."
 
Testing (to make sure I didn't just lie to y'all):
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Q-EbX6dso

 

Yay!  It worked! 

 

[Convict13]

It works,  great  thanks so much.  

[Pawse]

What's going on with the video clips? I saw some in a couple of threads, tried to click, and they wouldn't play..!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Could you link us to a couple of those posts?

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Can you embed pictures in this way too?

[Carol the Dabbler]

If you mean still images, those are handled just a bit differently (as below, but omitting internal spaces):

 

[ img ] URL-of-image [ /img ]

 

This is called hot-linking, because you're not actually embedding the photo in your post, you're actually linking to the website where you found it.  If that's, for example, on somebody's blog, then every time someone looks at that page of the forum, they're causing activity on the blog itself, which can eventually cause the owner to be charged an extra fee or even get kicked off the hosting site.  So I try to use that method only when the photo is on a commercial site.  Alternatively, you can copy the photo to your Photobucket account and hot-link to that.

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Thanks, Carol!

[Hikari]

If you mean a link to youtube as in blue text that you click on and that then takes you to youtube, just the same as any other link (the symbol that looks like a chain to the right of the Numbered List symbol, above the box where you write the text in).

 

If you mean a link to youtube as in the video showing up here in the forum directly, just copy and paste the video URL in. No extra effort necessary - the nifty forum software understands what it is.

 

Or just put it in however you like and one of us mods will fix it as soon as we come across it .

 

I am bumping this three-year-old query because I have yet to be successful at cutting and pasting anything into these text boxes.  I've tried links and regular text.  The only way I am able to insert a link is to type it out verbatim.  I'm sure I am doing something wrong or not activating some function I need to be, but Caya's instructions here are not working for me so I need a tutorial.  Thanks!

[Carol the Dabbler]

First, what sort of device are you on? That makes a difference for some things, and it never hurts to have that information.

 

What exactly are you wanting to accomplish (and failing at)? If there's more than one type of thing, pick one for now (to minimize confusion) and we can deal with the others later.

[Hikari]

First, what sort of device are you on? That makes a difference for some things, and it never hurts to have that information.

 

What exactly are you wanting to accomplish (and failing at)? If there's more than one type of thing, pick one for now (to minimize confusion) and we can deal with the others later.

 

I am on a regular Windows PC.

 

Every now and then, I would like to post a link to a YouTube video or a book title on Amazon, for instance.  Or just a block of regular text from an article.  Nothing happens when I attempt to cut and paste from my browser into this text box.  That's it, really.  I'm not trying to embed videos or anything crazy.  The few times I have been able to put a link into here, I had to type it out manually from the website.  So do I need to 'enable links' or something from a command I don't know about?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Glad to hear you're on a Windows PC, because that's what I have the most experience with myself!
 
OK, first let's work on simply copying text, using some Sherlock Holmes quotes as our source.  I have no idea whether you have any experience with copy-and-paste in general, so I'll be fairly specific -- but if you need help with any particular step, please let me know.
 
1.  Open the Holmes quotes page in another tab or another window.
 
2.  Highlight some text, like this:
 

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

 
3.  Copy the highlighted text.  You can use either your browser's Copy function, or you can type Ctrl/C (which I find easier).

 

4.  Back on the forum page, position your cursor where you want the text to appear in the Reply box.  (If you haven't yet opened the Reply box, just click anywhere inside it and the toolbar will appear.

 

5.  Paste the copied text.  You can use either your browser's Paste function, the Reply box's Paste function (toward the right-hand side of the top row of the toolbar) or you can type Ctrl/V (which I find easiest).  The text should appear in the Reply box

 

6.  Finish typing what you want to say as usual, then click Post.

 

Please try that and if it doesn't work, please let me know how far you got before things didn't seem to be working.

[Artemis]

I mostly use the right click function on my mouse to copy/paste, but occasionally it won't work on something (like a fussy text box), in which case CTRL+C and CTRL+V usually do the trick.

[J.P.]

A side note: I noticed that sometime the link made by the "share" function under a YT video will not embed this video on the forum. To be sure I always copy the URL that's in the browser's address bar.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Every now and then, I would like to post a link to a YouTube video or a book title on Amazon, for instance.  Or just a block of regular text from an article.  Nothing happens when I attempt to cut and paste from my browser into this text box.  That's it, really.  I'm not trying to embed videos or anything crazy.  The few times I have been able to put a link into here, I had to type it out manually from the website.  So do I need to 'enable links' or something from a command I don't know about?

 

Glad to hear you're on a Windows PC, because that's what I have the most experience with myself!

 

OK, first let's work on simply copying text, using some Sherlock Holmes quotes as our source.  I have no idea whether you have any experience with copy-and-paste in general, so I'll be fairly specific -- but if you need help with any particular step, please let me know.

 

1.  Open the Holmes quotes page in another tab or another window.

 

2.  Highlight some text, like this:

 

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

 

3.  Copy the highlighted text.  You can use either your browser's Copy function, or you can type Ctrl/C (which I find easier).

 

4.  Back on the forum page, position your cursor where you want the text to appear in the Reply box.  (If you haven't yet opened the Reply box, just click anywhere inside it and the toolbar will appear.

 

5.  Paste the copied text.  You can use either your browser's Paste function, the Reply box's Paste function (toward the right-hand side of the top row of the toolbar) or you can type Ctrl/V (which I find easiest).  The text should appear in the Reply box

 

6.  Finish typing what you want to say as usual, then click Post.

 

Please try that and if it doesn't work, please let me know how far you got before things didn't seem to be working.

 

 

Have you had a chance to try this yet, Hikari?  I see you've posted a (working!) link since then.    Any luck (or otherwise) with blocks of text?

[Hikari]

 

Every now and then, I would like to post a link to a YouTube video or a book title on Amazon, for instance.  Or just a block of regular text from an article.  Nothing happens when I attempt to cut and paste from my browser into this text box.  That's it, really.  I'm not trying to embed videos or anything crazy.  The few times I have been able to put a link into here, I had to type it out manually from the website.  So do I need to 'enable links' or something from a command I don't know about?

 

Glad to hear you're on a Windows PC, because that's what I have the most experience with myself!

 

OK, first let's work on simply copying text, using some Sherlock Holmes quotes as our source.  I have no idea whether you have any experience with copy-and-paste in general, so I'll be fairly specific -- but if you need help with any particular step, please let me know.

 

1.  Open the Holmes quotes page in another tab or another window.

 

2.  Highlight some text, like this:

 

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth traveled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

 

3.  Copy the highlighted text.  You can use either your browser's Copy function, or you can type Ctrl/C (which I find easier).

 

4.  Back on the forum page, position your cursor where you want the text to appear in the Reply box.  (If you haven't yet opened the Reply box, just click anywhere inside it and the toolbar will appear.

 

5.  Paste the copied text.  You can use either your browser's Paste function, the Reply box's Paste function (toward the right-hand side of the top row of the toolbar) or you can type Ctrl/V (which I find easiest).  The text should appear in the Reply box

 

6.  Finish typing what you want to say as usual, then click Post.

 

Please try that and if it doesn't work, please let me know how far you got before things didn't seem to be working.

 

 

Have you had a chance to try this yet, Hikari?  I see you've posted a (working!) link since then.    Any luck (or otherwise) with blocks of text?

 

 

Actually the applause is a bit premature, because I faked it.  I typed that link in manually.

 

The instructions which you describe are, to the best of my knowledge, what I have been doing, here and everywhere since I've been cutting and pasting these last 20 years at least.  When I get down to your Step 5, nothing happens when I hit the Paste function.  The box stays black.  I will experiment some more because I really want to get this sorted.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Were you copying from that page I linked to, or something else?

[Hikari]

Were you copying from that page I linked to, or something else?

 

I've tried that page and a bunch of others.  I've tried all variations on the functions, too.  Cnt/C, Cnt/V, paste icons here, all of them. All I get is a cursor blinking in a black box.  I can Cut just fine, but it will not Paste. I don't know if it's some quirk of my server or what, but I'm stumped.  I followed your instructions exactly as written.

[Arcadia]

Hikari, what browser are you using? And what version of Windows? Because that's exactly the problem I was having at one point, before I upgraded from Windows 8. I'm on Windows 10 now, using the Edge browser, and have no more problems with the forum. Well, not technical ones, anyway. :P

 

Before my upgrade, the best workaround was to simply switch to another browser (Firefox, mostly), although that came with a different set of issues that I also found annoying. The Edge browser took a lot of getting used to, but now that I am, I'm pretty happy with it.

[Hikari]

Hikari, what browser are you using? And what version of Windows? Because that's exactly the problem I was having at one point, before I upgraded from Windows 8. I'm on Windows 10 now, using the Edge browser, and have no more problems with the forum. Well, not technical ones, anyway. :P

 

Before my upgrade, the best workaround was to simply switch to another browser (Firefox, mostly), although that came with a different set of issues that I also found annoying. The Edge browser took a lot of getting used to, but now that I am, I'm pretty happy with it.

 

Therein lies my problem(s).  This is Windows 8 and I generally use Internet Explorer.  We have Firefox and Google Chrome but what can I say, Explorer has been my frenemy ever since I've been on the Interwebs.

 

Rumor has it that we are getting new computers in January so I will wait and see if my problems continue with Windows 10.  Thanks for the tip.  Til then, I guess no cutting or pasting here for me!

[Arcadia]

Okay, I'm on Explorer right now, here's what you do.

 

Copy the text you want, then put your cursor in the "reply" box by clicking in it. Then, see the little square icon in the upper left corner of the reply box menu? It supposedly looks like a switch. Click that, and it should switch you to plain text mode ... you'll know it has, because the rest of the menu will become unavailable (turn gray.)

 

Then right click inside the reply box, and choose "paste" from the pop up menu. The text you copied should appear, probably in Courier (typewriter) font.

 

If it doesn't work, make sure the cursor is still in the reply box; nothing will happen if it's not. Also make sure your right click is in the reply box.

Once the text appears, click the little square icon again, and you'll be back in regular mode, where you can do some formatting to the text (such as italics, etc.) It's not perfect, but at least you'll be able to copy and paste things in a browser that's familiar to you.

 

I see you can use the quote function, but are you also having trouble with the "multiquote"? Just curious, because it didn't work for me in Explorer. Alas, I never found a workaround for that, other than using another browser.

 

Hope this is clear enough, I find it hard to describe all those little actions I do so automatically! Let us know if it works.

[Fantasy Lover]

 

On 10/6/2014 at 12:04 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

This is called hot-linking, because you're not actually embedding the photo in your post, you're actually linking to the website where you found it.  If that's, for example, on somebody's blog, then every time someone looks at that page of the forum, they're causing activity on the blog itself, which can eventually cause the owner to be charged an extra fee or even get kicked off the hosting site.  So I try to use that method only when the photo is on a commercial site.  Alternatively, you can copy the photo to your Photobucket account and hot-link to that.

 

What is Photobucket?

[Arcadia]

2 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

 

What is Photobucket?

It's a site where you can store photographs, and link to them. But it's become an expensive service since that was posted, from what I understand. I'm still using Imgur, which is free. (Thanks Caya!)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Photobucket has not only become expensive, they keep changing the rules without prior notice, and then talking like you've been naughty for breaking the new rules that they hadn't even told you about..  Back in 2017, they suddenly decided my free account didn't include "hosting" (which is their word for hot-linking).  They substituted an obnoxious warning for each of my online photos and told me to cough up $400.  I just ignored them, till about a year later, when they suddenly apologized for their recent behavior and offered me a basic hosting account for a very reasonable $20 per year, so I upgraded to that (note that they now have my credit card number).  Then here recently I got a bitchy email from them, in the middle of my prepaid year, "reminding" me that my account does not include hosting, so I should either upgrade [again!] or else remove all my image links immediately.   So far, my online photos are still visible, but who knows how long that'll last?  My options now seem to be 1] pay the new, far higher amount, or 2] let them keep charging my card $20 every May 20th (with no promise of continued service), or 3] cancel the account.  I have less than four months to decide.

In short, they used to be a good site, but they can no longer be trusted.