Monday, January 29, 2007

Testing using Blogger to host pictures for the profile photo, sidebar, etc

I have done a previous post describing how one can use Blogger to host the photo for the profile, for putting in the sidebar, for use in the <img> tag (see post Tip: Getting Blogger to host your photo for the profile, sidebar, etc.. That was for the old classic Blogger. However when I tried the method to change the profile photo for this blog, I met with a problem.

Jordan (Blogger Employee) has kindly given me and 3 others the Blog*Star award, and the award with a package containing a Blogger T-shirt, a Google water bottle and 5 Google ballpoint pens. I uploaded the photo of me in the T-shirt in front of my computer with the Google water bottle and the ballpoint pens in this post: Google Blog*Star Award 2006. The URL of the photo in that post is
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtpX5o6twXdj-PiE9zylTL4EqPYW8VOiv8YutRczzcm1jDYCH6Py9-XnfLcUaEe0o5ln6NSDzlCVDuF8BmOASh2wpk7G_wTpNtjhQK_DB0mGCn9DY4NQtL3WTuNYbbAMOicDdmnxXJc0/s1600-h/BlogStar.jpg

I tried replacing the current profile photo with that new photo by putting the photo URL into the Photo URL field and tried to save. Back came the message:

Cannot find file at specified URL: link is broken (failed request)

I also tried to use the photo URL for the <img> tag in this post: Testing to see if using Blogger to host photo for the <img> tag will work with the New Blogger and what I got in place of the photo was this:
testing <img> tag
No photo, just the description I put in the alt="" attribute in place of the photo.

Another test. I tried to add the photo into the sidebar by using ADD A PAGE ELEMENT > PICTURE, then in the "Configure Image" pop-up, I ticked "from the web" and then pasted the photo URL into the URL field and tried to save. This resulted in an error message "Please specify an image".

Conclusion. It is no longer possible to use Blogger to host the photo for the profile, sidebar, etc.

Update 4 February 2007: Here is a work around: Click on the photo in the post to go to the enlarged photo. Don't use the URL you see in the address bar. In the menu bar, click View > Source to see the source file, and there copy the URL in the src="URL" and use that. The source file I got is as given below:

<html>
<head>
<title>BlogStar.jpg (image)</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
if (top.location != self.location) top.location = self.location;
// -->
</script>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOtpX5o6twXdj-PiE9zylTL4EqPYW8VOiv8YutRczzcm1jDYCH6Py9-XnfLcUaEe0o5ln6NSDzlCVDuF8BmOASh2wpk7G_wTpNtjhQK_DB0mGCn9DY4NQtL3WTuNYbbAMOicDdmnxXJc0/s1600/BlogStar.jpg" alt="[BlogStar.jpg]" border=0>
</body>
</html>


The actual URL of the photo from the source is "http://lh5.google.com/
_jizoPL28qCY/Rb6YrgUk7qI/AAAAAAAAAA0/0ydsqfz-BIk/s1600/BlogStar.jpg

I put it into the "Photo URL" and it worked. This tip was provided by my online friend sookietex of Public Domain Clipart

2 comments:

. said...

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I was convinced that Blogger would not accept an animated gif as a picture page element until I read your post and tried your work around.
Instead of saving it properly, Blogger either kept saving the .gif file as a static .png file or it refused to accept the url for the file that I was grabbing from the address bar.

As soon as I used the url from the page source, the gif was saved and rendering beautifully!

Thanks again!

Manature said...

Hi .

Glad the post helped you.

Peter
Dummies Guide to Google Blogger