[IMG] Tag (whats the point)

I really dont understand what the point of having the [IMG] quick copy code box is for.

I enabled it, made my site so all groups can view large images, removed hotlink protection from both the gallery settings and my server. The I viewed a large image on my gallery and copied the [IMG] code and created a test thread to see if the large image from the gallery was shown in the thread on the forum board.

All it showed was a link to the image. I have my forum board setup so it does display images and not links to them in the main admin settings. Is this how the IMG tag is suposed to work with the gallery. Because it doesn't display the image I'm thinking because it gets an ID link for the image, rather than a .jpg link like this below.

Content visible to verified customers only.

What am I missing here?

[ConqSoft]

What is the URL inside the IMG tag that you are trying to use? If it doesn't end with .JPG, .GIF, etc, then you'll have to enable the Dynamic Image URLs option in vBulletin's settings, to allow that to be shown.

Ah dam, you right Conqsoft. I forgot about that you have to enable that feature so certain characters can be used like "?" etc.

My mistake, thanks for reminding me.

I just want to touch a bit further on the gallery images.

What I'm tying to achieve is to not allow regular Guests visiting the site to view full size images (allow thumbnails only). But at the same time, I want to let search engines like Google index my images from my site. So when it comes to people doing image searches in google. My sites images will be index and show up to help boost the site hits.

Now my way of thinking is like this. If you use the .htaccess file that comes with the gallery, were it put's it in the main gallery folder. That basicly stops everybody outside the site from hot linking to them (google included along with every other image search engine). But from what I've seen so far, that gallery .htaccess file only stops Full Size images from being linked to and not thumbnails. (It seems thumbnails can still be linked to). I'm presuming this was done so search engines like Google can still index your thumbnail images without stealing to much bandwidth in displaying them. (correct me if I'm wrong on that).

But I have another option open to me, instead of using the gallery .htaccess file. I have the option to use a same file from my server instead were it puts the file in my ROOT directory to protect every single image on the site from being liked too outside my domain (including thumbnails). However, I can add other domains to allow. Like for example by default my server .htaccess file if I used it only has.

Content visible to verified customers only.

So what I'm thinking is: If I added Google to the list like this: Which I can do from the server .htaccess file options there to allow other referers

Content visible to verified customers only.

Would that then stop normal guest from viewing and even linking to thumbnail images. But still alow Google to index my gallery along with full size images.