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Post a Story

Members post a story from the stories row at the top of the activity page, from their profile, or from any page that carries the posting form. This page walks through what a member sees, step by step.

Open the posting form

Section titled “Open the posting form”

The first circle in the stories row is the member’s own, labelled Your story.

  • No story yet: the circle shows the member’s photo with a plus sign. Tapping it opens the posting form.
  • Already has a story: the circle plays their story, and a small blue + badge on its corner opens the posting form. Tapping the circle and tapping the badge never do the same thing.

“Your story” is always the member’s own stream. Collections they have made show as their own circles further along the row, under the collection name.

In the Square and List display styles, “Your story” is a separate card at the start of the row instead of a badge.

Pick a photo or video

Section titled “Pick a photo or video”

Tap the picker and choose a file.

  • Photo: a preview appears with a pencil button to edit it.
  • Video: the first frame appears as the preview, with an X to remove it.

If the file cannot be used, the picker explains why instead of uploading it:

Message What it means
This file is too big - Choose one under 10 MB The file is over the Maximum File Size the site owner set.
Can’t use this file - Choose a photo or video The format is not allowed on this site, or it is not a photo or video. SVG files are never accepted.

Edit a photo

Section titled “Edit a photo”

Tap the pencil on a photo to open Edit photo. The editor has crop, flip, rotate, draw, shape, icon, text, mask and filter tools. On a phone the tools sit in one row along the bottom, and each tool opens as a sheet with the photo still visible above it.

Tap Save to keep the changes. The picker then shows the edited photo, and that is what gets posted. Cancel leaves the photo as it was.

Add more photos or videos

Section titled “Add more photos or videos”

Tap Add another photo or video to add up to the site’s per-story limit. With two or more items, each one gets a drag handle (“Drag to reorder”) and a remove button. Removing an item that has not been posted yet does not ask for confirmation.

Section titled “Add a link or set a duration”

Open Add a link or set duration on any item to:

  • add a Link and Link text (for example “Read more”), shown as a button on that item in the viewer;
  • set a Duration in seconds. Leave it on Auto and videos play to their end while photos use the site’s default Story Duration.

Add it to a collection

Section titled “Add it to a collection”

When the site owner has turned on Story Collections, Add to a collection lets a member give a set of stories a Collection cover and a Collection name (for example “Weekend trip”). A collection shows as its own circle in the stories row, under its name, like Instagram Highlights. Stories posted without a cover stay in the member’s own “Your story” stream.

Choose who can see it

Section titled “Choose who can see it”

Who can see this story offers the choices the site owner has enabled:

Choice Who sees it
Public - Anyone can see Everyone, including visitors who are not logged in.
Members only Anyone who is logged in.
Friends only The member and their friends. Shown only when BuddyPress Friends or PeepSo Friends is active.
Private - You and site admins The member, plus site administrators.

Share

Section titled “Share”

Tap Share. The button reads “Posting…” until the site answers, so a slow connection cannot create the story twice. When it is done the member sees one of:

  • Your story is live. The story is published and appears in the row.
  • Your story was sent for review. The site owner reviews stories before they appear (Default Publication Status on the User Publishing tab).

If the connection drops mid-upload, the member is told to check their stories before trying again, because the story may already have been saved.

Section titled “Related”