Change the image upload so that a thumbnail is shown and the full size image linked

Question

The current image uploading creates markdown like this:

![alt text][1]

[1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJD.jpg

This means that a potentially large image - often the case with our images - is displayed in the post which slows down the page load.

Imgur creates three smaller versions of the image referenced by l, m and s being added to the filename. So in the case above we also get:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJDl.jpg
https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJDm.jpg
https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJDs.jpg

What I would like is for the markdown to be changed to this:

[![alt text][1]][2]

[1]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJDl.jpg
[2]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rstJD.jpg

(or something similar). This looks like;

(image stolen from a recent question)

This would use the largest thumbnail as the inline image, thus improved page load times, but create a link to the full sized image so we could see the details if we wanted.

Answer 1

I would like to add my support for such a request. On gardening, where we have a slightly different, but related problem with people uploading a lot of pictures (especially in identification questions), all full sized, which makes you have to scroll a lot to see the question/get to the answers. I've spent a great deal of time fixing these to use medium images and link to the hi-res ones by manually changing the links as outlined in this answer.

It'd be nice if this option could be selected via a checkbox when uploading. In addition to keeping the total post length low, it also lets you view images side-by-side and neatly formatted like in this question or this one. An example of a post that just dumps images, making you have to scroll down a lot is this recent question (I stopped fixing posts because it gets tiring after a point and SE showed no interest).

I'm glad that this was asked on DIY too, because the request on Gardening (which was quite similar in spirit) was completely ignored despite repeatedly prodding the SE team.

Answer 2

Here's a userscript that provides an improved upload dialog with resizing/linking options.

https://stackapps.com/q/3507/10098