Automatically downloading/hosting images is nice, but there needs to be a way to opt out for some images.
For example, this gif is dynamically generated as a countdown to a specific date: http://gifcountdown.com/america-chicago/1431176400/141414/0f0f0f/aaaaaa/fdfdfd/faedad/true/counter.gif
[edit: if that link gets cached as an image, here:
http://gifcountdown.com/america-chicago/1431176400/141414/0f0f0f/aaaaaa/fdfdfd/faedad/true/counter.gif
]
If I embed it with html tags, Discourse will download and cache the current version, making it outdated when people come back and look at it later.
Is there some property in the tag I can add to tell Discourse to keep the external reference?
edit: Didn't realize simply pasting the image link on its own line would embed it -- testing to see if that's cached as well.
Also, I'd love a Discourse plugin that would let you post auto-converted time/dates like that.
edit2: It seems to cache images even if they're just posted as links, whether or not they're on their own line (if they weren't on their own line, they change from a link to an embedded image, which changes the post's formatting -- is that intentional?).
edit3: found the remote download whitelist, which helps, but it'd be nice for users to have that ability on a case by case basis. The formatting change still seems weird to me.
edit4: I can't get the remote download whitelist to work