Add images to Talk messages

For a long time now members have added images to posts with HTML IMG tags. This works well, but presents a barrier to many members. We've added a feature to allow members to add images to posts without HTML.

The option is on the lower right when you post a Talk post.



The images you add go at the bottom of the talk post. At present you can't embed them anywhere else. Here's what one looks like:



Here's when there are several. How they display depends up their dimensions.



If you click on the image, you'll get an almost full-screen version of it.

Here's an example of it in action on talk!

Which admin just posted this, out of curiosity?

>3 gilroy:

Tim. Trying to get it changed. Irritating reason it's taking a sec.

Testing.

aw heck yeah I've been hoping for this for ages!!!

edit: interesting, uploading a gif converted the animation out?

(descriptive text: a man has giant construction paper hearts taped over his eyes. it's captioned "heart eyes, motherfucker" in reference to the emoji of that name)

>1 timspalding: Thank you! I have to google a thread which explains how to do it otherwise.

Giving this a go.

Oh, no.

Nice idea, but can I make a suggestion? Add alt text as part of the process. I recognised the Alma-Tadema (very recognisable), and Hylas and the Nymphs, but not Circe Invidiosa.

>10 Maddz: Yes. Alt text is needed to maintain the accessibility of LT. Ideally it should be mandatory, with a way to mark an image as purely decorative if it doesn't contribute to the meaning of a post.

>2 yak_blankman: Ha, that's nice. So one of the pictures (added by the new feature) expands when you click on it and the other doesn't (done by the img src method).

Trying out the new image upload feature with an old paperback cover.

Clarifying questions, mostly for curiosity:

- Using this feature doesn't add the image to the user's gallery or elsewise links to the user separate from the post?
- Is a copy of the image retained on LT servers or will images disappear if the source breaks / removes the image?
- Assuming the images are copies from the source, are they altered in any way from the source: meta data, resolution, format?
- Can I borrow an image from another user's talk post?

>9 lilithcat: LOL! Yes, you called it! (sorry, watching baseball, that's my language right now.)

>14 elenchus:

1. It could, but I think it would be better if it did not.
2. It's on LT servers
3. Yes, the images are only delivered at our sizes. Metadata should be stripped, but I don't promise it.
4. Morally? Maybe. Legally? Maybe. Technically? Use HTML.

At present the system doesn't preserve moving GIFs, so if you post one it will become a static GIF.

>16 timspalding: At present the system doesn't preserve moving GIFs

You might want to keep it that way.

>17 paradoxosalpha:

Yeah, I'm tempted. Although people already do it with HTML

I figure as long as we know what to expect, gifs losing their animation is fine. If we really need the animation, there's html, as you say.

There seems to be a dislike of moving gifs. I don't mind them. Some I've seen in GR reviews have given me a good chuckle.

>20 DebiCates: It can be an accessibility thing - the animations can trigger migraines and motion sickness, or just be really distracting from the surrounding text. I like how the Smart Bitches site puts them behind a spoiler tag, so you can choose to see them or not.

I personally prefer to be able to stop the animations once I've done looking at them. I had forgotten the image I posted was a gif until I was trying to figure out why it was so tiny when expanded. But it was a good test to find out what would happen. :)

i have no problem with other people seeing moving gifs if they like, but they really make problems for me. They should really have to be turned on, or at the very least be able to be easily turned off.

>21 keristars: >22 MarthaJeanne: I get it now. Thank you both.

>22 MarthaJeanne: I too suffer from motion sickness when viewing some images. Plus there is the issue of bandwidth and metered connections. Animated GIFs are frequently very large, and can be expensive to view if one pays for downloads.

I frankly wish that all graphics, not just animated GIFs, could be blocked until one clicked on them.

>24 waltzmn: Isn't there a setting in your browser that blocks graphics? It used to be the case back in the day...

ETA: Still there. In Chrome, go to Settings > Site Settings > scroll to the Content section Images. There's a toggle there.

that's brilliant, thanks

>20 DebiCates: I'm one of those that find them annoying and want them blocked as default.

>25 Maddz:

Apart from the fact that I'm not giving any more data to Google than I have to, and don't use Google Chrime(-Against-Humanity) :-p, I don't want to turn off all graphics, or the graphics that are needed to use the site more efficiently. I want to turn off, first and foremost, animated GIFs, and secondarily, random images posted by users. On LT (unlike other sites), I'm not deeply worried about the graphics they would post -- but since we should have a control for animated GIFs (for many reasons), why not extend it to other graphics too?

And I don't love it as much as doing the html myself. The embedded photo and the enlarged one are both smaller than the size I selected. Bah.

And how the hell do you get text to come up after your photo? Doesn't seem to be a way. Double bah.

>29 Bookmarque: For the second point, yeah, Tim says they get attached to the end of the post. But what happens if you also attach a review? 🤔

eta: review first, then image, even if you attached the image first

>30 keristars: I'll do it the old fashioned way I guess. Kind of annoying in both cases though.

I've played around with it a bit and will probably use it occasionally, but I'll stick with html so I can resize pictures.

>33 timspalding:

I want to make it as useful as possible.

I think one solution would be to allow people to add what was uploaded by HTML. My thinking is that we could either allow people to do IMAGE or IMAGE1, or something else easy, with the ability to specify the size. (I particularly want to specify the size, so that I can size the image to the presentation, which looks better and avoids wasted processing.

Ideas?

>31 Bookmarque: Yeah, pluses and minuses! I think for my uses, it's a good solution, but if I were on a standard keyboard and bigger screen, I might think differently.

>33 timspalding: Yes, some kind of helpful or automatic sizing is why I prefer the embed vs html. I never really know how huge my images are until they get uploaded, and there really isn't a need for a 2000px-wide screencap of my kindle app! (which is a lot of what i want to share) But it's also tricky to remember how to size it for html, and I can't really resize images like that on my phone.

(sometimes i hate that if i want to do online stuff, I have to use my phone instead of a full computer. but better than triggering a fatigue/pain flare!)

>35 keristars:

FWIW, the new image-uploading sizes your images down to a manageable size. If you uploaded something 2000 wide, it would go to 500.

But it's also tricky to remember how to size it for html, and I can't really resize images like that on my phone.

Indeed. People often size things and it doesn't work on mobile.

>36 timspalding: I thought it probably did the auto resize like that, but it's good to confirm.

And fwiw I know how to find the dimensions, but wow it is not a quick check like on desktop. Plus even if I manually resize it in the HTML, the full thing is still getting loaded. So I am really liking this solution. :)

>33 timspalding: And some way to easily add alt text please. The HTML is a pain to use; I always have to look it up...

>38 Maddz:

Yes, will do. It's on my list today.

For some odd reason, this thread is the only one that does not go to 'last unread' when opened, but half a page above that. Could there be some bug or it's just my browser being willful?

I welcome the new feature. Not only do I not need to type the HTML, which is a pain and I always have to go correct something (there's a reason people use IDEs to write code :D), but if I understood right, I don't need to first upload screenshots to junk drawer now. Yippee

>40 SandraArdnas:

For some odd reason, this thread is the only one that does not go to 'last unread' when opened, but half a page above that. Could there be some bug or it's just my browser being willful?

I noticed that, too. If I click on the thread title, it does that. But if I click on the unread #, it goes to the correct place.

>40 SandraArdnas: For some odd reason, this thread is the only one that does not go to 'last unread' when opened, but half a page above that. Could there be some bug or it's just my browser being willful?

I've noticed this on several threads (in FireFox) when the thread contains a large image. It looks like >1 timspalding: or >30 keristars: did it in. My guess is that there is a miscalculation in the visual size of the image. In any case, it's not just here, and I can't recall seeing it in threads where there aren't images.

>42 waltzmn: Strange! I'm not seeing it at all. Is it when the image post is one of unread ones?

>43 keristars: I haven't seen enough of them to be sure, and I didn't pay detailed attention until >40 SandraArdnas: brought it up. It might be unread images, since it worked for me this time. It might be the browser. It might be that I haven't a clue. :-)

Are these saved on the same server as covers and other LT images? Can I block user images without blocking core LT images and covers in my browser? Or are they all all mixed in on the servers?

>40 SandraArdnas: It happens on every thread with a lot of images - for example a diary thread in the reading groups that has a lot of covers added on almost every message. It seems to calculate where to go before it renders the images and when it renders them you are halfway up the thread instead of the first unread. It may be browser related but it happens on all of my hardware and browsers so I’d always assumed that’s the best we can get.

>42 waltzmn: Yes, I'm using FF too. Haven't opened other pages with large images, so I believe your diagnosis is true.

>41 lilithcat: Indeed, it works, thanks

>46 AnnieMod: Perhaps >41 lilithcat: would work there too. Works for me here. (Or perhaps it works now because the image posts are way up by now, lol)

>46 AnnieMod: I think when there are a lot of images, the browser wisely chooses to not wait for all the images to load before it renders the page. Otherwise you'd be waiting an indeterminate amount of time before seeing the page.

>48 SandraArdnas: Once you've viewed the page once, those images are in your cache and the full page loads quickly which means that the calculation to put you at the right place on the page can be correct.

>49 jjwilson61:

A good thought. This suggests why images sometimes don't go haywire: If the image has a size attribute, the browser will get it right, or if it is cached and the browser knows the size, the browser will get it right, but if there is no size attribute and no cached image, then the browser gets it wrong.

I don't know, but it sounds like it would fully explain the behavior.

>42 waltzmn:

Yeah, I think what's happening is that it goes to the right place, but then the images come in, and that causes the text to re-flow. I'll look into if I can work on that. In theory, I ought to be able to set the images to the right size initially.

>52 timspalding: If you need a thread to test it on, this one to highlight beautiful book covers always gets the page location wrong, https://www.librarything.com/topic/365093#unread

We at https://www.librarything.com/topic/379504

Good Show, Sir! are thrilled, as our entire reason for being is posting bad sci-fi covers as @TorMented showed above.

>54 GSSex-noob:

Good to hear it.

>55 timspalding: Could it take images from the clipboard?

I don't think that's possible, technically.

Discord allows pasting an image from the clipboard into a text post.

So does Google image search, though you have to select a special element to make it happen.

>60 timspalding:

@conceptdawg See here

>58 paradoxosalpha: Isn't Discord installed as an app on your PC? Or is there a browser version?

>61 jjwilson61: Both.

>61 jjwilson61: Either.

>1 timspalding: Wow!! It works. I tested it on my own thread. Simpler than the gallery and so easy to use. Thanks, Tim and company! 👏👏👏

I can’t believe, I actually did it in my 75 book challenge. I was never able to do it the old way, despite instructions people gave me.

Now if you could only change responses to go under the related message…..

One thing I've noticed: We're not getting as many of these I as thought we would. Are members dissatisfied with how it works—which is not as flexible—just used to the old way, or what?

>66 timspalding: One thing I've noticed: We're not getting as many of these I as thought we would. Are members dissatisfied with how it works—which is not as flexible—just used to the old way, or what?

We're book people. We say it with words. :-)

It's still a bit early with them, I think. Only one week, and I bet the majority of posts don't need images.

Oh, I noticed the other day that one picture was bigger before I tapped for embiggening. The fun of mobile screens, I guess. But it amused me.

oh, I was wondering if it would take multiple photos. I assumed so, but hasn't seen an example yet. (two bookish pics from my photos app)

>66 timspalding: A little of both. I like having more control over the size of my images, and I like being able to put text both before and after them. And I've finally gotten to the point where doing it feels relatively routine and simple.

>66 timspalding: One thing I've noticed: We're not getting as many of these I as thought we would. Are members dissatisfied with how it works—which is not as flexible—just used to the old way, or what?

I'm still working on taking all the extra steps needed to pull up the "Show Emoji & Symbols" window & picking a yellow face instead of just typing :O !

>66 timspalding: Partly how it works, but mostly I just don't post a lot of pictures. I'll probably use the new way for bug reports and when I need to quickly illustrate something, and use the old way for my personal thread.

I think I used the new way once. It is faster, but I still have to take the picture, and most posts don't need pictures.

One totally unnecessary picture:

>66 timspalding: I like it because it was so darn easy. And it's wonderful the image is now stored on LT which solves the problem of a manual html link going bad or the cluttering up of one's Gallery or Junk Drawer.

What prevents it from working for me 100% is
1. Only one image in a message
2. No sizing options.

Like others, though, I haven't used it much because I don't use images all that often.

Until now.

>73 DebiCates: You can put multiple images in a message.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the need to put an image into an LT post. It’s a text-y sort of place.

>75 AndreasJ: I like to add the covers of books I'm currently on my thread, but I prefer them smaller and above the text.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/376677#9047903

I think there's also a cultural reluctance to turn this place into an imageboard. Hence the groans from some.

>74 amanda4242: That's wonderful! Thanks Amanda. I never thought to even try.

>78 DebiCates: Tim showed it off in his original post.

Fine.

Memes + books

>17 paradoxosalpha: I agree. I'm not a fan of gifs, especially if more and more are added on the same thread (or review, or whatever).

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but overall, I like this.

I do usually use html and will likely continue (for now), as I can place it where I'd like and size it how I'd like.

Now, let me give this a test...
(This is my oldest boy, Kells (he had the name at the shelter before I adopted him, but it is a perfect name for a librarian's cat - or a book lover's cat). 15 years old. Now on palliative care (cancer or IBD), but he's doing well at the moment.)

>80 davidgn: Made me laugh!

Using this option, are five images the limit?

ETA: in one message.

Love this feature!

>75 AndreasJ: I’m not sure I’ve ever felt the need to put an image into an LT post. It’s a text-y sort of place.

I completely agree. But it's very common in certain groups.

FWIW, eventually we may get rid of HTML in Talk. It raises various problems. But not now.

>87 timspalding: When you say get rid of HTML in Talk, do you mean adding formatting options available when creating or editing a post? It would be nice if such were available in other extended text fields (reviews, book and series descriptions) as well.

>87 timspalding: FWIW, eventually we may get rid of HTML in Talk. It raises various problems.

This I would oppose, were it take to a vote. Books do allow italic and boldface, so LT talk should have a mechanism. I frankly wish your HTML parser would allow superscript tags....𝐈 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝐟𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝔦𝔱 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝓾𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓸𝓭𝓮, but it's a flippin' pain, and I think at least elemental formatting is important.

>89 waltzmn: Those unicode characters are a nightmare because they can't be plugged into a translation tool and are not interpreted as the letters they visually resemble by screenreaders.

One of my RSIs as a mobile-only user was an interface for basic text formatting and images. If html is disabled but we are offered bbcode or wiki markup and buttons to insert that markup, I would be perfectly happy.

The new image feature is almost exactly what I had hoped for! The main improvement would be a (visible to all) caption and alt text (for loading issues & screenreaders).

>87 timspalding: FWIW, eventually we may get rid of HTML in Talk. It raises various problems. But not now.

Agree with >89 waltzmn: that elemental text formatting is important, currently handled in Talk and Reviews with HTML.

I have no idea what issues are presented with supporting HTML currently, though don't doubt they're significant if you mention it. Change is hard but I think I could handle the transition, especially if formatting were supported natively in Talk and Reviews. My biggest concern is how you'd handle all the existing HTML. Some of my reviews are quite reliant on HTML for legibility (bullets, indenting, quotations, section headers).

>90 keristars: Those unicode characters are a nightmare because they can't be plugged into a translation tool and are not interpreted as the letters they visually resemble by screenreaders.

You'll note that I said it was a flippin' pain. I do not want to have to do that (though I do think screen readers should be improved to handle those characters).

One of my RSIs as a mobile-only user was an interface for basic text formatting and images. If html is disabled but we are offered bbcode or wiki markup and buttons to insert that markup, I would be perfectly happy.

I'd personally still prefer HTML, because it's more fun :-), but I can live with alternatives. My point is more that taking away all forms of formatted text is unacceptable. And I say that as someone who still uses plain text as my default format for e-mail. :-)

>91 elenchus: My biggest concern is how you'd handle all the existing HTML. Some of my reviews are quite reliant on HTML for legibility (bullets, indenting, quotations, section headers).

This too. If the current HTML is problematic, then the conversion is likely to be problematic. :-)

Practicing with my grandson to see if it works. Please disregard otherwise.

YES! It works!

>1 timspalding: I do like this feature and want to really run with it. In particular I'd like to use it--within its constraints--for The Poetry Collect upcoming celebration of April's National Poetry Month.

Constraints that I know or think I know:
--Images always show at the bottom of the message.
--There is a limit of 5 images per message.
--The order you upload them is the order they will appear in the message.
--There is no overall limit to the number of images a member could upload.
--Each image is clickable, taking you to a larger size presented "in screen."
--Right clicking on that in screen image you can (depending on your browser, I suppose) "open image in a new tab" which will present an even larger image.
--That image (not necessarily the original images' larger size) is stored on the LT server and has a unique url.

My questions are:
--Is it okay to use the LT url to do further work with the image, for example to create a thumbnail directory (using "img src" and "width" in html on that LT url)?
--Is it okay to use the LT url in another message (via html "img src")?
--Is it okay to use the LT url outside of LT? (I'd like to share the same images for The Poetry Collective group on Goodreads as well).
--Will "orphaned" uploads disappear at some point? For example, images that were uploaded then deleted from the message, or the message itself deleted.
--Is there a way to include an "alt" or "title" with the image that will display when one hovers over the image in the message?
--Is there any way to see a directory or list of what images I have uploaded?
--What is re-sizing formula for the dimensions between the original image and the in body message, the in screen image, and the ultimate LT url image?

Images below are from pixabay, free to download for non-licensed use, saved to and then uploaded from my computer's drive. I tried to select images that were 1280X1920, although I see that some widths were less than 1280.

I've been quiet through this thread because I haven't really cared enough to chip in. If people want a quicker way to insert an image, good for them. I add pictures all the times, but I prefer to do it via HTML. As others have noted, there are restrictions to the new add image function that means using HTML is preferable (only allowing five images? I regularly post covers of all the book I've read in a current year in my thread - I'm no Stasia but I definitely read more than five!).
Which is why this sentence scares me:

FWIW, eventually we may get rid of HTML in Talk. It raises various problems. But not now.

Please don't. Please, please, please don't get rid of HTML. I understand that it may cause issues (though I'm not knowledgeable enough to imagine what those issues might be, but removing the option from users will mean removing something very important to a lot of users.

Do you really need more than 5 images in a single message? Yikes, I hope it's not somewhere where I would try to open it!

>97 MarthaJeanne: Need? Well, I technically don't need to have a thread on LT at all, but I like to have it, and I like to have a post about "read so far in 202X", and that definitely requires more than five images. And I can think of quite a few other instances where five wouldn't be enough. But no one is forced to visit any thread of mine if they don't want to. Personally, I've never had an issue with visiting threads with multiple images so it's not a concern I have.

I should be more clear. I have no current plans to get rid of HTML, and if we do, it will be with a way to do basic markup without it. The trick with HTML is that it's a pretty powerful language, and there are various ways of misusing it, and screwing things up for the rest of the page. We need better tools to prevent both of those.

>98 PawsforThought: I'm with you. Before mankind had a written language, there were cave drawings. Sheesh, there are pictures even, gasp, in books.

>100 DebiCates: For some, anything except text is frivolous and a waste of space. Sad, really. We are such visual creatures and so many parts of our brains light up when presented with images we find pleasing in some way. Shame to hide one's light under a bushel as the saying goes. So here's a turtle, just for those who love those tasty brain chems -

>101 Bookmarque: For some, anything except text is frivolous and a waste of space.

And for those with crappy internet, anything except text takes forever to load. I'd be waiting ages for this page to load if I was using my home internet instead of the library's.

>102 amanda4242: Ah yes, poor internet service can be a problem, I know. Somewhere there was the suggestion that most browsers allow one to turn off the display/loading of images. But you probably already know that.

>101 Bookmarque: It must be hard to use the Internet for almost any purpose if one doesn't enjoy images. And images are not all just "decoration." Images are used to convey information.

That turtle pic fired some neurons. :) Nice.

>102 amanda4242: I get it, but as Debi points out, there are ways to minimize things. Before Starlink I was in the same boat.

>104 DebiCates: thanks. I was in a river backwater in the kayak and just couldn’t resist this little cutie. It could fit in the palm of your hand.

>106 Bookmarque: That's a *great* pic, Kris! I thought it was a stock pic (or these days could be AI), but you saw that, with your own two eyes? In a river backwater? In a kayak? Ohhh, heaven.

>103 DebiCates: I actually didn't know that. I just tried it and discovered it makes the page load way faster, but it also means I can't see the LT logo, the group picture, or any of the book covers in my library unless I change it back.*shrug* I don't want to fiddle with settings just to read a thread, so I'll avoid image heavy threads when I'm using my home internet.

>103 DebiCates: That's exactly why I asked >45 AnnieMod: which got completely ignored.

I do not want to turn off standard LT images but I would love for an option that allows me to hide/not load images posted in Talk.

>109 AnnieMod: Sounds like a great option! It would let each user do their thing, which is the Thing here.

My questions >95 DebiCates: haven't received a reply yet either.

>107 DebiCates: Thanks so much. It was adorable for sure and look how it totally owns that little stump. I think all of the nature photos I post are mine as I can't recall putting up anything else. I hike and kayak a lot and have been a photographer since 1984 when I got my first 35mm SLR. If you hit any of my reading threads in The Green Dragon, you can see a lot of what I shoot. River backwaters are a favorite though and I recently noticed a sprawling area above another dam on the Wisconsin river and am anxiously awaiting warmer temps so I can get up there and explore it.

>111 Bookmarque: What's the link to your thread? I can't say I've visited The Green Dragon before but I know it's popular and has some good helpful people from there.

>109 AnnieMod: I do not want to turn off standard LT images but I would love for an option that allows me to hide/not load images posted in Talk.

This is exactly how I feel, too. I want the LT images, for navigation purposes, but would like to be able to turn off the other images if I'm on a metered connection somewhere or something. Using the images-off option in the browser does not permit this; it would have to be an option in LT.

>112 DebiCates: Here's a random selection - 2020 - https://www.librarything.com/topic/324540#n7365200

>114 Bookmarque: THANK YOU. So many lovely shots, and it's not "just" the beautiful location either. You have a wonderful eye. i am favoriting your thread. I need to see more of what you see, regularly. It's equal parts calming and inspiring.

>115 DebiCates: Thanks much. Not sure if making that one a favorite will connect the rest of them as I do one every year. Planning to hit a waterfall or two tomorrow as we're in the beginning of spring melt.

@ AnnieMod, waltzmn et al.

If images in threads become a common thing, I'm also going to need alt text/captions for any that are important to a post - my cell reception is crap and my internet connection regularly decides to not connect. Even without disabling the images, they just won't load.

>98 PawsforThought: could you take a screencap of your "read in 2026" books in cover view and occasionally update the image attached to the post?

>117 keristars: No, that’d be a heck of a lot more work for me so keep doing and updating. And I wouldn’t be able to edit/line break how I wanted. If that means some members don’t want to visit my thread, so be it. I’m not posting to have tons of visitors anyway.

>118 PawsforThought: I guess it depends on how quickly you read/how often you'd need to update the image. I average about 50 books a year, so I guess it wouldn't be too awful for me. :)

>119 keristars: Well that’s fifty times you’d have to screenshot, save and upload an image. Instead of just pasting it he image you already have.

>120 PawsforThought: once a week! I do understand your point though. :)

>121 keristars: Once a week is way more than I would ever consider acceptable. I am on LT because I enjoy it and luckily most things here work quite well and are not annoying or very time-consuming. I want updates to be easily and quickly done, not require five more steps than necessary.

People are acting like images in threads are a new thing! They're not, and they're extremely common in the most active groups.

I took four of the most popular groups—75 Books Challenge for 2026, Club Read 2026, 2026 Category Challenge, and The Green Dragon and selected the most recent non-pinned post, and all of them have lots of images in them!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/379818
https://www.librarything.com/topic/379269
https://www.librarything.com/topic/375389
https://www.librarything.com/topic/377191

>123 timspalding:

Helps to illustrate the diversity of users and their activity here. Many frequent / active users don't visit the most common or active Groups or Talk threads. Probably obvious in retrospect but might not be the first assumption for many of us.

>123 timspalding: People are acting like images in threads are a new thing! They're not, and they're extremely common in the most active groups. I took four of the most popular groups ... and selected the most recent non-pinned post, and all of them have lots of images in them!

🤣 Evidence that there is little overlap between LT members who participate in the most popular groups and LT members who participate in the New Features group?

Edited to Add:
Thank you for making such spaces for all of us!!

>124 elenchus: Yes, I'm not interested in those groups specifically because of their (in my opinion) over-use of images.

>125 LeslieWx: Evidence that there is little overlap between LT members who participate in the most popular groups and LT members who participate in the New Features group?

I'd say so. I follow the LT "site news" sorts of groups (Bug Collectors, etc.), because I want to take care of my own catalog. :-) But if it's a popular group, it's almost certainly going to be talking about something that I find extremely dull. Why am I likely to find it dull? Because, well, I'm the sort of person who cares about the details of cataloging. :-p

>127 waltzmn: Thanks for writing that paragraph for me :) Someday I'll finish cataloging the books in the house and get back to discussing the finer points of lumping/splitting old Congregational hymnals with you!

Gotta say that anything about bugs, which includes bugs and new features, is the BEST place for image. It allows members who aren't HTML jockeys to upload screenshots of broken things!

>129 timspalding: Gotta say that anything about bugs, which includes bugs and new features, is the BEST place for image. It allows members who aren't HTML jockeys to upload screenshots of broken things!

You're obviously right. On the other hand, given the number of "bug" reports that aren't actually bugs, anything that slows down bug reports might be to the good. :-p

>130 waltzmn: A bug is merely a feature which has not yet been documented, eh?

https://www.wired.com/story/its-not-a-bug-its-a-feature/

>126 JacobHolt: Yes, heaven forbid people should post images of the covers of the books they're reading, or images of the charts of their reading progress for the year.

>1 timspalding: Many thanks for adding this feature! A lot of people have had trouble understanding how to do this in the past even though we had instructions pinned to the group page.

>132 clamairy:

I can't blame them. It wasn't easy.

>132 clamairy: Looks like he'll never get a thread topper from me! Ha!

>133 timspalding: The question is what do I do with that niche skill set now that it is no longer needed?

>134 Bookmarque: Bwahaha. Not a chance.

>135 clamairy:

As a programmer in age of AI, my feelings exactly.

>136 timspalding: As a programmer in age of AI, my feelings exactly.

Hey, it could be worse. At least you know PHP. Imagine being a Pascal programmer in an age of AI. Which is what I am. :-)

>137 waltzmn:

They say that AI is rewriting all the COBOL and FORTRAN. Maybe you're next.

Pascal was my first "real" language, after BASIC. Turbo Pascal on the Mac! I loved it.

I don't love PHP, although I'm fond of it. Mostly I love building things, which is why, actually, I don't mind the age of AI. I don't need to write the 10,000th implementation of a script that iterates over some bunch of data and does some thing to it.

Ai helped code up this feature, of course.

>138 timspalding: Pascal was my first "real" language, after BASIC. Turbo Pascal on the Mac! I loved it.

FWIW, I learned BASIC, FORTRAN, Pascal, COBOL, and C, in that order, plus a bunch of job control and other languages that were machine-specific. But the only ones I did serious coding in were BASIC, Pascal, and C, with Pascal being my favorite. Pascal I originally learned on DEC machines, but did my programming on the Mac. But I was pre-object-oriented programming, and was away from coding for a long time, and it's not financially viable for me to learn OOP -- no one is going to hire a 64-year-old programmer, especially in the era of AI. So, even though I still program some odds and ends, I'm basically out of it. And none of my old code works, because it was 68000 code for Mac!

>139 waltzmn:

LibraryThing doesn't use any OO code. Well, it has a little, from programmers who snuck it in. We've stamped it out gradually.

no one is going to hire a 64-year-old programmer, especially in the era of AI

This is an interesting one, actually. Maybe no one will hire you, but sometime soon we're going to see articles on how AI extends the value of old programmers. Younger programmers are good at raw speed, and keeping lots of code in their head. AI is better than them at those things. What are older programers good at? Architecture, design, seeing around corners. They're experienced in a way AI cannot be. Mark my words, that's going to come out of all of this.

>139 waltzmn: Hey, hang on to those FORTRAN books! A huge amount of operational numerical weather prediction code is FORTRAN (b/c it's so awesome for differential equations), and it's not yet clear that AI is actually going to be able to recode it successfully -- you know, down to 1 digit in the double- or quad-precision that's required if you're solving the equations of motion and thermodynamics out for 10 days or so.

>140 timspalding: This is an interesting one, actually. Maybe no one will hire you, but sometime soon we're going to see articles on how AI extends the value of old programmers.

Agreed, actually. The great skill that AI doesn't have is the ability to create the broad ideas for software; the AI can do the grunt work, but the big picture? I suspect we're going to see a flowering of new coding by people who can create a vision and have the programming knowledge to describe it. NOT vibe coding; system design. But that isn't the same as the ability to juggle pointers in Pascal, e.g.

And the reason I was away from programming, and missed the OOP revolution, is because I'm autistic and people won't hire me anyway. :-/

>141 LeslieWx: Hey, hang on to those FORTRAN books!

Yes, and I have a math degree. They talk about how old FORTRAN code is being preserved when much newer code is being dumped, because the FORTRAN does things that no one wants to re-code! Unfortunately, my books are all from the FORTRAN IV, era, pre-FORTRAN 77. So I still would have some re-learning to do. And I'm still autistic and can't get a job. :-p

>141 LeslieWx:

Didn't you hear? We don't need "weather prediction" anymore. It's blasphemous and suspiciously related to the climate hoax. /s

>142 waltzmn:

Yes. I agree. I hear about people who don't know about programming vibe-coding and I really fear for what they produce. Right now I'm working on the LT app, a lot of which has been coded by AI. If I just asked it to build and build and didn't understand and review what it was doing, the code would have 40 different data structures—each one with kinks and bugs—to hold the same core book data. You need the big picture, you need vision, you need discipline, and you need to know how things go wrong. Some of that can be taught—"Every now and then ask it to look at several files and see if it can be refactored!" But mostly not.

juggle pointers in Pascal

(unpleasant flashback)

>142 waltzmn: I learned and used other languages and software packages (Pascal, Perl, NCL, Igor, MATLAB) after I learned FORTRAN, although most of them I only used for classes or a few specific projects. But I continued to use FORTRAN at least through the 2010's, and that meant I had to modernize my code. It wasn't as bad as I feared, although if you woke me up in the middle of the night and had me write FORTRAN it would probably be FORTRAN 77.

All that old COBOL code lives on mainframes and you can't move it to a Windows or Linux server environment by just rewriting the code. You have to rearchitect the whole system which AI isn't ready for yet.

>146 jjwilson61: All that old COBOL code lives on mainframes and you can't move it to a Windows or Linux server environment by just rewriting the code. You have to rearchitect the whole system which AI isn't ready for yet.

"All you have to do is change the ENVIRONMENT DIVISION." It says so right here in the documentation. :-p

>147 waltzmn: I am now having flashbacks to COBOL coding. Thanks SO MUCH. /s

I'm not quite old enough to have been around when COBOL was hugely popular, but in the early 1990s, I worked for a company that wrote HVAC dispatch software, and that was in COBOL, and I was responsible for maintaining and updating that. It's really not terrible, and I've never understood the general disdain for COBOL as a language. It's very verbose - but, because of that, it's also very easy to understand what a program is doing. Converting it to a modern language, though, is not for the faint of heart at the scale that financial companies and such would require.

>148 ljbryant:

Where but LT could we just randomly start a thread about obsolete programming languages....

I am now having flashbacks to COBOL coding. Thanks SO MUCH. /s

Sorry. It really was meant as a joke. :-)

It's really not terrible, and I've never understood the general disdain for COBOL as a language.

Possibly the time when you were doing it matters. I learned COBOL c. 1981, and we were still having to use punch cards. If you had a professional to do the keypunching, the verbosity wasn't so bad, but if one had to use the keypunch machine one's self (as I did), the verbosity mattered. There's no backspace key for a keypunch machine!

Then there was the code size -- another effect of the verbosity. I seem to recall that, on one system, if you did the same task in COBOL and FORTRAN, the COBOL machine code was six times as large. Even if that didn't strain the machine's resources (and it sometimes did!), it's like the snobbery you see from C programmers when they compare their code to Pascal: sure, it's completely incomprehensible and only the programmer understands it, but hey, it's really efficient.

But I think the real reason is scientific programming. Need a sine function in COBOL? Forget it. Exponential function? No way. Ahura Mazda forbid you need a Bessel Function. You just can't do it without an extremely painful function-pass-and-external-link to code in a language that can actually do math. If you had a dumb linker, well, you're in Ahriman's hands....

COBOL was good at what it did, at least if you had the hardware for it. But what it did was mostly business tasks. So of course scientific programmers are going to hate it.

>149 waltzmn: I think you mean the source code is 6 times larger. If you really meant the machine code then you had a really bad compiler. I did system programming on Burroughs, later Unisys, MCP mainframes and the OS is written in Algol, which is a predecessor of C, not machine code. They have a pretty efficient Cobol compiler.

Our customers were banks and insurance companies

>150 jjwilson61: I think you mean the source code is 6 times larger.

No, I meant what I said: the machine code. There weren't many optimizing compilers in the 1970s! My guess at the time was that it was because of all the different data representations -- 99999V99 being different a different variable from 99999.99 from 999999V99 and so on. But I don't claim to know.

>151 waltzmn: If you're running it on a system where the machine code and the memory architecture is optimized for handling Cobol data types then the generated code can be smaller.

>140 timspalding:, I can do OOP but generally find that procedural works for my tasks. I use OOP only when there is a specific advantage in using that structure.

I started with BASIC in 1981 and got my VIC-20 in 1982. The high school had TRS-80s.

Since May I have used systems like Claude Code to produce some code under close supervision. One of these is a sophisticated system to take an image of a typed page and identify the make and model of the typewriter that made it. It is fully documented and commented Python code. So it avoids the usual AI “black box” and randomness problems.

James

>144 timspalding: Right now I'm working on the LT app, a lot of which has been coded by AI

Just curious, which AI are you using?

>154 civitas:

Claude Code, mostly. I started on Cursor.

I decided to try and mess with this feature, so I took a small screenshot (using snipping tool) from my computer, tried to add the .jpg file with the Image option, and it just keeps coming up blank. I tried resizing the image, that did not help. Any thoughts?

P.S. Just for fun I tried uploading it to my Junk Drawer the old fashioned way, and that way it is a blank, but black, image.

>156 Karlstar: Is the jpg blank/black on your computer? (just to verify!)

And were you screenshotting video or an ebook? Hoopla prevents all screenshots of books I read through them, which drives me batty since they also prevent copying text. (I was trying to put a recipe in my notes app to make it easier to refer to)

>157 keristars: It was a screenshot of a TV image on youtube, paused, so not a moving image. It shows up fine on my computer in paint, windows viewer, google drive, etc.

>158 Karlstar: That's odd! I have only posted images from my phone so far though, but some of them were screenshots. Now I feel compelled to try it myself.

Edited to add: It worked for me. (It's the daily temp and wind speed from my weather station.) I'm using Chrome and Windows 11. It's the first time I've done a screenshot on my newish laptop. I'm so used to pasting it into MS Paint that I didn't realize you can save and edit it automatically.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/377226#9165038

>159 clamairy: I've tried a couple of different things, no luck.

>157 keristars: To more specifically answer you, it was a screenshot of a video on youtube, showing a single image (Jeopardy question, so a very simple test on blue background).

>160 Karlstar: Time to open a bug report!

Uh oh. It's not working any more.

In a message, I can upload. It tells me it is finished. But it's stuck there, with that message, with the message I was composing (not yet saved) grayed behind it, and absolutely nothing I can do. Well, except refresh page which means I lost my message and probably added an orphaned image.

Same thing if I edit a saved message and try to add an image. Stuck with no where to go.

>162 DebiCates: > 163 Hm. Checking on this.

>163 DebiCates: What browser are you using? I've tested on everything in my arsenal and they are all working correctly (including mobile devices and all desktop browsers, new posts and editing old ones). But give me a clue and I'll do my best to track it down.

>165 conceptDawg: I played around with it and discovered that apparently it is only manifests (not releasing me back to the message) if it's an image from the web that I'm uploading. Works fine if I upload from my local computer.

However, I can upload that same image from the web, it finishes, and releases me back to my junk drawer.

Sorry I didn't give you this information before. I do know that I should.
I'm on Lenovo laptop,
OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Version 10.0.26200 Build 26200
Chrome Version 146.0.7680.178 (Official Build) (64-bit)

The source image that i was testing with is at the location
https://poets.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/NPM21_PosterWebLarge-1325x2048.jpg

Here's a screenshot of where I get stuck when I try to upload from the web to a message. I can upload the screenshot here because it's on my computer. It does successfully upload and you can even see it puts it in the message. Just never releases me to that message.

>166 DebiCates: Behavior verified on Chrome 146.0.7680.154, Windows 11 Enterprise 25H2, trying to grab the same picture.

>166 DebiCates: Are you able to grab other images from the web? I think it might just be that one image... I'm on my Mac (using Chrome) and the upload is also hanging on that image using the web grab option.

Nope, I'm seeing this on other grabbed web images (tested on poets.ca, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com). The "Upload complete!" box just hangs with a full (finished) blue bar, and the attached thumbnail on the Talk post, but the box never closes so you can finish posting.

I didn't see anything obvious in the dev console... hmm.

>166 DebiCates: & >168 kristilabrie: Thanks for the detailed reports. This is fixed now. Should be released in the next few minutes.

More New Features

* You can now look at all of the images that you've uploaded/used in talk in your Talk Images gallery. This means you can edit images that you've used in talk. Or delete them. If you delete them the message still shows a "Deleted Image" placeholder until you remove it by editing the talk post. That way if images get deleted there is a contextual remnant for others.

* For talk images, there is a new option on the image uploader to browse your galleries for an image you may already have. Now you don't have to upload the same image again just to use in Talk message! More importantly for many here, you can include your uploaded book covers in conversations. Just select the "Or choose from your gallery" link on the image dropzone popup.

* Talk images now use the content you put in the description field for alt and title text on images. (hover over the image below to see the alt text on this image)

So, to test it out I added a picture here in this discussion earlier on. I followed the link in >170 conceptDawg: to my Talk Images gallery. I edited it to add some text, then decided I would make it my primary picture.

Does this take time to change? It's been a few minutes and my old picture is still my profile picture. When I look at each of the pictures in my gallery, they both say they are my primary picture.

Now that I've taken time to type this, i'll check again to see if it just took a bit of time... Still the case, unless it takes longer than a "few" minutes.

>171 LibraryCin: I just noticed a bug in the editing pipeline. Working on a fix now.

>171 LibraryCin: That should be fixed now. But let me know if it's not for you.
Occasionally, our read-servers can get behind our main database and could contribute to not seeing updates immediately but I think it's been fine tonight.

Deleted images now indicate as such in talk posts that they have been included on.

>170 conceptDawg: WOW

Love every one of those features. I don't have time just now to play with them, but I hope to tomorrow evening.

Really great stuff, Christopher!

>170 conceptDawg: * You can now look at all of the images that you've uploaded/used in talk in your Talk Images gallery. This means you can edit images that you've used in talk. Or delete them. If you delete them the message still shows a "Deleted Image" placeholder until you remove it by editing the talk post. That way if images get deleted there is a contextual remnant for others.

My experience:
For a web pic it shows you a linked URL where it was grabbed from.
Also provides links to Talk Topics messages where that image was used.

Brilliant!

>174 conceptDawg: Can we get a deleteflag number that corresponds to the DMCA takedown language?

>170 conceptDawg: * For talk images, there is a new option on the image uploader to browse your galleries for an image you may already have. Now you don't have to upload the same image again just to use in Talk message! More importantly for many here, you can include your uploaded book covers in conversations. Just select the "Or choose from your gallery" link on the image dropzone popup.

Just tried that out. I love that I can choose from any of the galleries now available. That works beautifully! And certainly will save member time uploading repeats and save server storage too.

QUESTION: if I upload something into the Talk gallery, but end up not using it, will it disappear at any point by some system maintenance? Or will it stay there even though I didn't end up in a talk message...yet?

>170 conceptDawg: * Talk images now use the content you put in the description field for alt and title text on images. (hover over the image below to see the alt text on this image)

Another excellent feature. And if I didn't add a title, it displays simply "Image attachment" when one hovers.

Kudos on these wonderful enhancements, Christopher. They are going to rock my world.

>178 DebiCates:
QUESTION: if I upload something into the Talk gallery, but end up not using it, will it disappear at any point by some system maintenance? Or will it stay there even though I didn't end up in a talk message...yet?

You can't upload something to the Talk Image gallery directly (the button was there for a short period, but is gone now). So you must use it on a Talk post for it to even get in there.

>180 conceptDawg: Right. What I mean is if I am in Talk and I add an image, it completes the upload, then if I "x" the image, it is still there in the Talk gallery. The question is will it be always available? Not cleared out by some system maintenance or something?

(I know I could delete it myself by going to my profile then the Talk gallery. But sometimes I may want to use it for a different Talk, just not the one where I changed my mind after adding it.)

Ah. Yes. They should stay. I won't say that they will stay forever because we could decide to only show "active" Talk images in that gallery. But for now, the will stay. It's any image that you have uploaded via the Talk mechanism or attached to Talk.

>173 conceptDawg: Ok, it now looks like I am unable to use that picture as my profile picture now. And maybe that's how it's meant to be and that's ok. I can always also upload it to my gallery and mark it as my profile pic from there.

>182 conceptDawg: That's fair. Thank you for the answer.

>147 waltzmn: This is a bit off subject. . .

Learned Fortran in 1968 using an IBM 1130. Learned COBOL in 1971 from the manual and given the worst dispatch program in the place. Had to go to 15 different outputs but we only had 6 tape drives. . . wasn't allowed to use the DASD stuff.

I found out very quickly if you misspelled ENVIRONMENT on an RCA Sectra 70/45 it crashed the system and a restart took 30 minutes (from a tape. . wasn't allowed to use the DASD stuff etc etc etc)

IBM 370/158 was a bit more polite. The program would crash with an 0219 and then it printed 1/2 a box of paper

That's enough ancient history for now.

>185 ulmannc: FWIW, I ALSO learned fortran, as my first language in college. I knew a few other langs by that point but nothing at a occupational level. I grew up helping my mom lug punch cards around and eventually changing tapes when hanging aournd for her job as a night-time data manager. Never learned COBOL.

>185 ulmannc: >186 conceptDawg: I never used FORTRAN outside of college, even though it was the second language I learned (after BASIC). In the odd ways of the job world, BASIC was the first language I programmed in professionally, not because it would have been the best choice (this was when FORTRAN, Pascal, and C were all in use, and C increasingly becoming the first choice) but because of my weird job situation. I got a job in what was euphemistically called "process control" -- which was industry-speak for wastewater management. The company didn't run the sewage systems; they designed the equipment. And they were just transitioning from analog equipment to digital.

So my boss had come from a background of systems built out of mercury switches that turned on pumps, and had no computer training at all -- but he was in charge of programming projects nonetheless. He had taught himself BASIC by playing with the interpreted BASIC on IBM PCs. So the decree was that we would program in BASIC because BASIC was good enough for him, so it must be good enough for us.

It was Microsoft's compiled BASIC, thankfully, but still, it was BASIC. And after I left that job (for which I was terribly ill-suited), I eventually ended up programming databases. It was still programming, but of a very specialized kind. (Anyone else ever use 4th Dimension? I thought not. :-) So OOP left me behind, and I still do my programming in databases.

Is it possible to add a dropdown to my books so I can quickly grab a cover even if I haven't uploaded it? For example today I posted in my thread at the Green Dragon three books I got recently and for two, I uploaded covers so could find them easily in my gallery, but the third I used someone else's cover so couldn't get to it. I had to upload a duplicate so it could be found in my gallery. Having a pointer in the dropdown to my books would make this easy and I wouldn't have to upload another image. Make sense?? Oh and a search bar in that dropdown choice would keep things quick and easy, too. Is this a pony? LOL

>170 conceptDawg: I tried this out, another brilliant addition. I just have 3 2* questions:

In Talk Image gallery, will the image uploaded to create a group be added down the line?

If an image is deleted, is it still stored in the cloud?

(I also noticed as I was playing around with this feature, a second copy was created in 'talk images' of an image that was already in 'gallery'. To this image I added a title/desc but when it appeared in 'talk gallery' these details were missing, I thought at first I had not saved it and then realized a copy was created. Not sure if this is what's supposed to happen - just letting you know.)

* third one got answered as I played around with this.

Why is my picture so tiny? Oh, whoops—-when I actually posted it, came back to normal size. Good.

OK it is now "dumb question" time again. I took a picture of the cover, uploaded it after cropping it and it is sittting in my junk drawer. I want to add it as the cover. I think I got it into the user generated cover but I can't figure out how to get it into the cover field. Look at https://www.librarything.com/work/36307104/covers/313194633 to see what is going on.

If I'm on the wrong topic to ask this question, please direct me to the correct topic.

>192 ulmannc: Simply click on that cover and select "Use this cover"
Let me know if you don't have that option. But the fact that you uploaded the cover for that book it's likely already ON your book. Are you not seeing it on the book?

>189 AnishaInkspill:
In Talk Image gallery, will the image uploaded to create a group be added down the line?
Possibly, but no promises there. It's a pretty niche use.

If an image is deleted, is it still stored in the cloud?
It is still "stored" as a file, yes. But the references to it in the database are marked as deleted. So it is possible to retrieve it but currently that would be manual work for a staff member to flip some bits around in the database.

>194 conceptDawg: re a group image, yeah, Possibly, but no promises there. It's a pretty niche use., I am just thinking out loud here, I can see what you say but what if the image has a broader use than just the group, I'm going to guess you're going to say load it in twice, where one is for a talk, then it will be available in the gallery, which I can do, and am guessing from your answer, that this would be a lot of work where it would be hardly used. Which is fair enough.

re: image marked as 'deleted', I'm still, thinking out loud here, so it's described as 'deleted' but really it's not visible but still stored; I am just intrigued, why describe it as 'deleted' and not something like 'no longer shows / visible'? As i think the latter, though wordy describes the status better (where I am guessing this is how it works across all platforms and this is universally excepted, again fair enough, it just doesn't make sense to me, as I say this lightly as I am amused by this but I'm also just intrigued why it's done like this).

>195 AnishaInkspill: Yeah. That's how 'deleted' usually works in the computer world. Things are rarely ACTUALLY deleted because it's easier/safer to just set a deleted bit on a row in a database vs actually removing the row and then having to cascade to find places that might reference that row across other parts of the database.

>196 conceptDawg: that makes sense, thanks

>193 conceptDawg: "Simply click on that cover and select "Use this cover"
Let me know if you don't have that option. But the fact that you uploaded the cover for that book it's likely already ON your book. Are you not seeing it on the book?"

When I go to the cover space there is no such term "Use this cover". What I end up doing is when I'm in the "change cover" screen, I drag the cover from the "junk drawer" I want to use for the cover and drop it on the existing cover. It then shows up there and in the Member Uploaded area. It took me a while to figure out that cut and paste doesn't work here. Thank goodness I have 2 monitors so I have the "change cover" on one monitor and the"junk drawer" on the other monitor.

One other thing. I do have a selected blank cover coming up when I add a record and that makes everything act as a change cover. If I try to use the Add a Cover function, it pops up the one where you can drag a cover in and when I drag the cover from the junk drawer I do that I lose the screen and the picture fills up the entire tab.

Bottom line is I now have a way to move images around that works but I'm not sure if that is the way the system was designed to work.

>198 ulmannc: Just skip the junk drawer step. You must be using the image uploader to get the images into the junk drawer, right? Well, that SAME uploader pops up if you click the "Add A Cover" green button near the top of the Change Cover page. Then you goes directly on as the cover of the book, no junk drawer needed.

>199 conceptDawg: Got it. Thanks.

>1Oh yes I happened to see this icon on my thread and that's exactly what I have been wanting an easy way to get my on post And I expect here is where I can get some of my questions answered. number one when it says gallery does it mean my gallery on my computer or does that mean the gallery that is on here that I need to download my gallery to. if so how do i do that, And does size matter Do I need to come up with a way of downsizing some of my photos That's it for now i'm just so excited this is happening It's been a long time in coming so thank you for whoever decided to do this

>93 perennialreader: love it

>201 cindydavid4: "Gallery" is your Gallery page on LibraryThing: Gallery Page

There is an "Add Picture" button (on the right if you are on a deskop computer, near the bottom of the page if on your phone). Click that and you can add/upload pictures from your computer/phone to your LibraryThing gallery. In most cases you do not need to downsize (although you can crop and edit the image during the upload process if you wish, we give you the tools to do that).

Please, PLEASE do not enable moving gifs on this site.

>203 conceptDawg: Any further consideration to add our library to the gallery selections so we can easily put a cover shot into talk? It would be pretty darn handy.

>204 the_red_shoes: They've been around for ages. Here is a thread from 2018 where Tim posted one (message 152):

https://www.librarything.com/topic/294318

>205 Bookmarque: You can select Book Covers when adding an image to a message in talk. Isn't that what you are asking for?

Yes and no. Those are ONLY the covers I've uploaded - I'd like to choose from books I've cataloged regardless of whether or not I've contributed a cover personally.

>204 the_red_shoes: They have been enabled for quite some time now.

>205 Bookmarque: Yes. I've been giving it some thought for a "good" way to do that. Remember that we have some members that have 40,000 books in their libraries. So solutions have to fit all manner of libraries. But, yes, thinking about it.

>207 bnielsen: They mean the ability to pick ANY book cover from their books (possibly even amazon ones).

>209 conceptDawg: Thanks. I hadn't thought of that possibility (it could multiply the choices by a lot, but yes, I can see the value of it). I scan all of my covers, but someone else might not scan any cover at all, so I can see that they'll probably want to see all covers. Point taken!

>209 conceptDawg: Thanks...I hope you can find a way.

>209 conceptDawg: Wouldn't the ability to copy image link (hosted on LT) and paste into 'grab image' be the most straightforward way? Honestly, for those of us who've uploaded many covers, even if it's mine, that would be far easier than wading through my gallery.

>212 SandraArdnas: Many people don't have the technical knowledge to do this. But also, I'd rather we made a systemic way to do it so that 1. it's easy for people if there is a need for it; 2. the images continue to work if we change how images are created/named in the future, etc. If it's built into the system it's easier not to orphan images and they can be presented in better ways too.

ETA: it would also be MUCH better since it would mean that the system would RE-USE an existing image instead of uploading a new one. Better for our storage and processing costs. ;)

>213 conceptDawg: Shows what I know about how things work behind the scenes, haha. It would never occur to me there is a difference in processing as long as it points to within LT.

Perhaps something like a mini-workbench for images to be pasted in Talk. I'm full of ideas, but equally oblivious to actual technical aspects, so ignore if that is again not particularly feasible

If people can easily post member covers to talk, but not Amazon ones, it might discourage the use of Amazon images.

>215 MarthaJeanne:
Perhaps posting an Amazon image from work covers could even create a copy of it as a member-uploaded cover.

>216 Nevov: We can't do that due to copyright issues, sorry.

>203 conceptDawg: ok thanks so much for you help!