Using Discussion Forums in Etudes

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Attachments

Add Attachments

You can easily add attachments to your discussion posts. Here is the procedure, using an image as the attachment.

• After typing the text portion of the post into the editor window, click on the Attach Files button at the bottom of the window. (Note, a post must have some text in the window as well as the attachment, even if it's a simple, "Here is my file.")
• Next, locate the file on your local computer that you want to attach. Notice there is a 3-item limit. It's a very good idea to put a description in the box to make your posting accessible.
• Click on the Submit after attaching the files you wish, remembering that 3's the limit.

One thing to be aware of when adding attachments to posts: only images and media files appear embedded (inline) the posting. Other attachment types will come in as something students can download onto their own computers before opening.

Allowable Extension Types

This is a list of file types that can be added as attachments to your discussion posts. Your files must include one of these suffixes to upload as an attachment.

File types which are NOT allowed include: .exe, .bat, .pif, .bin.

You can attach up to 3 attachments maximum per post. The default file size limit is 5MB per attachment.

Note: Text must be included in the message window of the post that you are including an attachment. You cannot post a message with attachments but no text in the window. The browser will refresh and your post will not be accepted without any message. Add something like, "Attached is my project."

Delete/Remove Attachments

If you post an image that is so large that it takes up more screen space than is available, it makes the window too wide to fit in the monitor window, so viewers have to scroll back and forth in the entire discussion list. If you post an extra-large image, you should either remove it or shrink it down and repost. If not, the instructor will probably edit your the post to remove or shrink the size of the attached image.

Here's an example of an enormous image posted by a user.

In order to scroll to see the entire image in the discussion forum, the viewer will either have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the horizontal scroll bar, or use their arrow keys to move to the right. (It depends on your browser exactly how to handle this issue.) And the worst part of it is that all the other posts in this list will also be too wide now, even those without large images. What can you do to fix the problem?

• Click on the edit button at the top right right above the image. (You may need to scroll right to see it.)
• That will open up the editor window where you can scroll down to the Attachments area.
• Click on the Remove link and then Submit. That will get rid of the image.
• You can open the original image in a photo editing program, such as Photoshop Elements, and resize it so that it's no larger than 600 pixels wide, and then reattach it to your message.

Images should probably be no larger than about 600 pixels wide.

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Content originally developed by the ETUDES Consortium Project.
This version is licensed under Creative Commons, Sarah Phinney, 2007.

12/28/06