Photos via link and "add link" button - customization request

There are occasions when MP invites you to link to an external photo location rather than upload a photo.

Could this functionality be implemented anywhere a photo is included, or is this by design to ensure that certain photo's don't vanish due to closed accounts and dead links?

I keep detailed photosets on Flickr and would contribute considerably more content to the site if I could link to my photo on Flickr (I understand the implications of this).

Maybe this is already possible and I'm just a retard.

Also, why not permit rudimentary html? The "add link" button is really clunky if you try to do it after the narrative is written.

I appreciate the work of the developers. This is a fine site. These would be nice enhancements.

Chris D wrote: Also, why not permit rudimentary html? The "add link" button is really clunky if you try to do it after the narrative is written.

Are you sure html is not permitted? The below photo is linked from my blog without using the upload feature:



The html is "img=...", where ... is the web address and use the left and right arrow thingies (not sure what you call them) instead of " "

comprende?

EDIT: Here is the html:

html

I guess I'm just lazy. Maybe it's easier the way it is, but I'd like to be able to add a link with real html.

as in

cropped text

etc.

That doesn't work here.

Chris D wrote:I guess I'm just lazy. Maybe it's easier the way it is, but I'd like to be able to add a link with real html. as in etc. That doesn't work here.

Ok, that's over my head. Good luck with all of that!

Out of curiousity, what is the difference between that and what I just did? Isn't the goal to link a photo from an external web page without uploading the photo to MP?

Monomaniac wrote: Ok, that's over my head. Good luck with all of that! Out of curiousity, what is the difference between that and what I just did? Isn't the goal to link a photo from an external web page without uploading the photo to MP?

It is, but I learned to write simple html a long time ago and have retained some stuff. Many sites (like flickr) permit the use of simple html to make what would normally be text be more than text. I don't know why that's not possible here. Maybe it's hard to set up. If it is, then no worries.

I don't want to dwell on it, since the bigger issue for me is the complete inability to link to external photos in things like routes, etc.

Chris D wrote: Maybe it's hard to set up. If it is, then no worries.

I don't think it's hard to set up so much as it is a security risk. Allowing anything beyond basic formatting could potentially open up the site to malicious code from outside sources.

I haven't done any coding for quite some time, but I imagine that the site admins have to write specific code to allow certain HTML tags and to block out the rest (the bad stuff). The more stuff you want to allow, the more specific you have to be. And anyone who has worked with Regular Expressions will tell you it's a huge PITA.

Taylor Ogden wrote: I don't think it's hard to set up so much as it is a security risk. Allowing anything beyond basic formatting could potentially open up the site to malicious code from outside sources. I haven't done any coding for quite some time, but I imagine that the site admins have to write specific code to allow certain HTML tags and to block out the rest (the bad stuff). The more stuff you want to allow, the more specific you have to be. And anyone who has worked with Regular Expressions will tell you it's a huge PIA.

Taylor has it correct. It is a significant security risk, only mitigated by lots of code writing (which Flickr has the army of engineers for, and we do not).

You can easily put an external photo link in a Comment to any route or area via the same method described here.

Andy Laakmann wrote:It is a significant security risk, only mitigated by lots of code writing (which Flickr has the army of engineers for, and we do not).

Thanks. That's all I needed to know.