• Drawing Training Grounds New Submission Template

    See that Twilight Sparkle? That's me right now after stressing about this all day.

    An awesome coder brony named Calamari has built up a script for us to use that makes it so poor Phoe doesn't have to upload 300 images every night for the drawing training ground. 

    All information can be found after the break!



    Now it's really simple to use, but requires you to upload to an external hosting site (Like Imageshack.com).


    The website can be found HERE!

    The steps required!:

    1.) Fill out your name

    2.) Copy paste the URL from Imageshack/photobucket/ect after you upload an image, and paste it into the Image URL box. [IMPORTANT] Image URL's will end in .png/.jpg/.gif/.ect, not .html or .htm! Make sure your copy pasted url has this or the uploader won't post it! It also needs to be an OPEN website, where everyone has access to the image.  Image URL's from your E-mail Won't work because that is personal.

    4.) Click "Preview" to check out your image and make sure everything went in alright

    3.) Tell Phoe how awesome she is for dealing with 600 image uploads the past 2 days.

    Websites for Image Hosting:
    Picasa.com
    Imageshack.com
    Photobucket.com
    Tinypic.com 
    Freeimagehosting.net
    Deviant Art's Direct image URL


    How do I get my image URL?
    If you have never used an image hosting site before, it's pretty simple.  I'll use imageshack as an example, since that's the one I use most often for quick uploads.

    1.) Save the image somewhere on your computer.

    2.) Go to Imageshack.com

    3.) Click "browse" and select your pony image

    4.) Upload your image

    5.) Create an Imageshack Account so you can use their direct link (It's easier this way)

    6.) Copy the address in the bar that says "Direct Link" and paste it into the URL box on the submission website

    If you guys have any questions, feel free to email me

    I don't want this extra step to deter anyone from enjoying the event, so don't be shy in asking.  If you cant figure it out at all, feel free to email it to me and I'll do it for you later, just include your name.

    If this doesn't work, we will move on to either ponychan (who graciously offered us an entire section for the event) or Flickr, but from testing this thing out, it seems absolutely perfect.

    72 comments:

    1. tinypic.com is another good image hosting site.

      Also, I'm glad this was sorted out. Was a bit worried that this awesome idea would get shot down by technical difficulties.

      ~Scratch

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    2. signed up on Imageshack in ten seconds flat! Hope to be of sevice! (thanks Phoe!)

      -The obsessor

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    3. You're awesome, Phoe! We all love you!

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    4. btw, for the new submission website... I'M LIKING THIS IDEA!!

      the obsessor

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    5. imgur.com is another great image hosting site.

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    6. Excellent. This will greatly help Phoe with the burden she has to go through.

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    7. I use photobucket. A big hassle, but eh.

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    8. This sounds like a decent solution. One *minor* extra step for us, and a HUGE load off of Phoe's shoulders.

      Thanks for all your hard work, Phoe!

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    9. Great Idea! I salute Phoe for taking the time to upload them all, I'm glad we can lessen the burden for her. I'll will use imageshack even though I have photobucket but Imageshack been more kinder to me. As that said good luck everypony on today's Theme! Will start on mine first thing in the mourning. Nite all :3

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    10. Glad that you guys managed to work something out that would still allow every submission to be seen, rather than choosing a random 50 to post.

      And lord knows Phoe needed this! She's been working her flank off, and I sincerely hope she knows how much we appreciate her time and effort.

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    11. ~Create an Imageshack Account so you can use their direct link
      >>Bah, nevar

      ImageShack.com
      Choose pic, do not image resize
      Upload now
      Copy "Link" (above grayed out direct link)
      Paste "Link" in browser
      Right click image, "View Image"
      Copy *that* URL

      Or if you prefer something that doesn't beg for your email, try
      [link]
      (they also purportedly host your image forever, where imageshack, et at, do not, [unless you sign up])

      I salute the efforts of Calamari, nice work.

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    12. I guess I could try this...I don't like having to upload things to image file places, but I wanted to do this because Phoe was running it. I'll see.

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    13. Should work perfectly with a deviant art account too.

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    14. I usually upload my drawings anyways, so this should be no problem. I've had a photobucket account for ages, though maybe I should make another on imagur or something so I don't fill my photobucket with ponies.

      In fact, I had to upload Day 2's entry to Photobucket because Facebook refused to upload it! I think Facebook is anti-pony, guys!

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    15. By the way, could you stick a button for that submission template somewhere on the home page?

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    16. Dropbox is the best filehosting, hands down.

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    17. HEY, just like from my song thatIcompletelydidn'tstealfrompinkimenadianpieatall. You got help! way to go!

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    18. I like this a lot

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    19. Mmm, I'm finding it impossible to access the submission website (meaning the kidsquid one). Is it just me, or is the server down or similar?

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    20. Thanks for bearing with us and uploadind those 600 images phoe :D you're awesome ^_^

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    21. Hopefully that actually got sent, I have a lot of script blocking setup on this system.

      If there isn't an entry by ChaosDrop in the Day 3 post I'll know I failed too unblocked something. lol

      This comment box hates me It only works in my RSS reader Failed to let me post in IE9/Aurora/Opera 11.50

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    22. Thank you so much, Phoe~ You're just simply a darling<3

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    23. I hope we don't have trolls here. This system seems a little exploitable.

      Also, *Hugs Phoe*.

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    24. ♪♫ Problem! ♫♪ There is no "date" field? A date field would be oh-so-handy for us ponies that, for whatever reason, submitted a drawing a day late.

      Also, why no love for Flickr? Just curious 'cause I doubt Kidsquid is going to block links to Flickr. Flickr has hosted my images for, like three years now, and for free. None of them have been dropped. Ooo! Maybe it's the bandwidth! Is it the bandwidth? I've never come close to using up my bandwidth.

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    25. If your image is really long or wide you can use imgur.com. They won't suto-resize bigger pictures like Photobucket and Imageshack might.

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    26. What should the standard image attributes be?

      Should we post what day the art is for in the comment box?

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    27. Phoe is the best at being awesome! *waves pom poms around*

      ...actually that gives me an idea for today's submission.

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    28. @Anonymous

      Well, they should be images, I guess. That's an attribute, right? Uh...

      But telling me which day the art is for sounds fantastic, yes.

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    29. @Frith

      You can still put something like "THIS IS FOR YESTERDAY, DAY 2!!" in the comment field. It should be pretty obvious that your image doesn't belong to this day, and with the comment Phoe can easily add it to yesterday's article. If that is possible, by the rules.

      >Also a big friendship cookie and an achievement to Phoe, you are fucking awesome.

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    30. @Quill

      Using the comment box will work, but it is labour intensive. A dedicated date box (with drop-down menu) could be part of an automated process.

      @ Awesome Phoe: image attributes in this context refers to width and height, usually expressed in number of pixels.

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    31. Thank you for even hosting this idea and putting up with so many submissions! This is a great new idea :D

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    32. So how exactly do you see the drawings? Do you have to submit something before you can look at them?

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    33. Great! This will be so much better than making someone upload everything manually.


      Phooooeee you're awesome, thanks for putting up with our silliness!

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    34. @Anonymous

      What this does is compile a big ol' list of everypony's submissions for the day. I have a special Admin version of the page that allows me to see each and every picture. I get to make a quick look through everything, make sure the rules are being followed, and then push a big shiny button that takes them all at once and turns it into code I can use on Blogger.

      You'll see the images in the usual post as I've been making the past two nights. It just won't break me into tiny pieces to do it anymore!

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    35. "Tell Phoe how awesome she is for dealing with 600 image uploads in the past 2 days."

      Challenge accepted.

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    36. @Tosxychor

      I'm using the nonstandard port 1080 and a javascript redirect. It's possible that one of those is causing the problem for you. Does this URL work?

      http://72.211.146.193:1080/cgi-bin/submit.cgi

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    37. @Frith

      Having a date is a good idea. I can have it auto-fill the comments field with the current date.

      You should be able to use flickr just fine (or any image hosting for that matter, I tested it mostly with deviantArt and random images from around the web). The image needs to be publicly accessible, however. If you can only see it due to entering a password, my server won't be able to access it. It also needs to be a direct link to the image, so make sure your URL ends with jpg, png, or similar.

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    38. @Frith

      Having a date is a good idea. I can have it auto-fill the comments field with the current date.

      You should be able to use flickr just fine (or any image hosting for that matter, I tested it mostly with deviantArt and random images from around the web). The image needs to be publicly accessible, however. If you can only see your image after entering a password, my server won't be able to access it. It also needs to be a direct link to the image, so make sure the URL you got ends with jpg, png, or similar.

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    39. @Chessie2003

      Yep, but be sure to copy the image URL (for example, copy the download link) not just the dA page.

      Only mentioning this because I checked and saw a few submissions where HTML was posted instead of their image. That won't work.

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    40. @Frith

      Trying to respond for the 3rd time now, maybe something I said triggered the filter. Good idea re: date, I'll have it automatically enter the date and time (from Phoe's perspective) in the comments field.

      Flickr should work just fine, but be sure you're copying the URL for the image itself, not just the page with the image on it. Be sure your URL ends with jpg, png or gif, instead of cgi, html, php (etc)

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    41. Nice job to Calamari for simplifying this, and nice job to Phoe for being a master of the arts. -rimshot-

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    42. Does deviantart work for this too?

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    43. @Anonymous

      It does, but you're going to need to right click on your picture and hit "view image" to get the actual URL of the image. If you send the link to the DeviantArt page, it evidently makes things go all kersplodey.

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    44. Thank you, Phoe *bear hug*

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    45. Allrighty, uploaded today's image.

      Is there anyway to know that we did it right other than just preview before submit? x.x

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    46. @ZAquanimus

      Doing the Preview is right, because that shows that the image is accessible. When you submit, the server also downloads your image and records its dimensions (so it can be resized for thumbnails later). In summary, if the submission reports success, it really is. :)

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    47. 'Tis arright if I use dropbox, right?
      It seems to work, anyway.

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    48. Phoe-tobucket all the way!

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    49. To 78.48.134.79 and 80.210.166.104, thanks for the free security check. Did I pass? :)

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    50. Awww man. Now I can't use "I don't want to make Phoe's job any harder" as an excuse not to do this.

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    51. Uh, I'm doing these on an iPad and it can't upload to the internet... any tips, anyone? I need a workaround b/c i won't be able to move them to my comp and then upload for the entirety of the event.

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    52. @Kjh242
      Photobucket and Dropbox both have apps to upload thinngers to the interwebs thing.
      At least photobucket should have one for ipad.

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    53. my tablet is rebelling D: it's an old intuos2 and i somehow changed how the pen moves acrossed the screen... it used to work like a touchpad (where i more 'pushed' the mouse where i want it) and now it's set to the screen proportionaly to the tablet (where a spot on the tablet is the same spot on the screen). how do i reverse this or am i just crazy and thats how it's supposed to work?

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    54. @Facelessguru

      I was playing around with a Hackintosh install and noticed that it recognized my Bamboo Pen tablet, but used it as a mouse (relative positioning). When I installed the Wacom drivers, it then worked in tablet mode (absolute positioning). I can see advantages to both ways, but the absolute positioning is the way tablets generally work. Still, it's a tool, and if another way works better for you, do it that way! Maybe there's a setting you can change?

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    55. @Kjh242

      You could still email it to Phoe if the iPad gives you that option. I'm pretty sure getting a couple emails for weird situations is fine.. it was just the overflow of hundreds that was causing a problem.

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    56. @anon thanks for clearing that up for me and for the better wording i found the newer versions do but this one doesn't. oh well need to learn it anyway so ill put up with it but not till tuesday :D for now i'll stick to the ol' pencil

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    57. Last-minute submission... Hope it isn't TOO late.

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    58. You may want to take Picasa off that list... no matter what I do I cant get a link from there that the template will accept no matter what i try :( Unless someone has a hint...?

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    59. @calamari
      Unfortunately not :( I have to say though, I'm behind a public firewall that allows pretty much only html ports.

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    60. @Tosxychor

      Unfortunately I can't change to a standard port (believe me, I'd love to). Go ahead and email your submissions to Phoe.

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    61. @Kt Kat

      I use Flickr not Picassa, but perhaps my work-around will work for you. One option for posting images from Flickr is to select "grab the html/bbcode" option. This gives you html code for embedding the image in posts in blogs, forums abd such the like. This is good part: in the code there is a "IMG SCR=" statement followed by http address of the image ending in a string of number and letters and .jpg (or .gif or .png or whatever format you saved your image in).

      In summary:
      Get embed code.
      Copy the part in that code that is a http address that ends in .jpg
      Paste into submission form.
      Put your hooves in the air!

      And another thing that looks like it works too: I can right-click on the image, choose a size, right-click again, select view image, and in the address bar you get the address for the image (ending in .jpg).

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    62. @calamari

      That worked. 8^) Thanks for reiterating that the image address must end in an image file designation, I nearly tried to submit what Flickr gave me, which was a link to a page, not the image itself.

      You asked for suggestions to reduce the loading problem. It's not fool-proof, but this would work: Provide two image submission fields, one for a thumbnail and one for full size. Specify that the thumbnail must be maximum 400 pixels wide. That will reduce the bandwidth and make loading the Equestria Daily page a breeze. As for the full size image links, either express them as a link below the associated image, or make the thumbnails link to the full size image page.

      So, submissions provide two links, one to a thumbnail, the other to fullsize.

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    63. @frith
      In that case, I'd like the fullsized image link to be able to link to an html page (such as a DeviantArt) instead of only image files.

      It means a little extra work, but as most upload sites have a resize feature, I could see this working.

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    64. @frith

      Thanks, I'd considered that too, but it seemed like it'd be too much hassle for everypony. I decided to generate thumbnails server side and send them to on sadpanda.us. I hope it works out!

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    65. img.ie is also a good alternative; load site, select / upload file, get link. Doesn't get any simpler!

      Additionally, o7 Phoe for all the hard work, and o7 Calamari for the ultra-helpful script. Salute!

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    66. @calamari

      Guess we'll see how it turns out tomorrow. Oh! And I love that the submission form requires neither cookies nor javascript to function. *yay!*

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    67. @frith

      Thanks for noticing that, I'm glad it was appreciated! <3

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    68. *cough* You got 4 and 3 around the wrong way

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    69. To make deviantART links work on the submission template simply go to the page with the picture, right click on the 'download image' link on the right upper corner, and then click 'copy link address'. Then paste it into the template!
      I'm a stupid, and it took me AGES to figure this out.

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