The image for a comment will live elsewhere, on a Web site under each poster's control. But then the text of the comment will be posted to the chat page, including links to images, either in-line or indirect.

This strategy assumes three things:

1. A graphics editor that can output a GIF file for a diagram (preferably two color, with the background transparent)

2. Enough html knowledge for the two "tags" that can be used in the text part of comment to get the image involved:
A. In-line mention:

<IMG SRC = "http://www.your-place.edu/diag.gif">

B. Link to other page:

<A HREF = "http://www.your-place.edu/diag-page.html">

3. Write access to a Web site to put the GIFs and pages. Or write access to an ftp area, and then use

<IMG SRC = "ftp://ftp.your-place.edu/pub/your-area/diag.gif">.

The tricky part of this whole scheme is to arrange things so that the main chat page will load in reasonable time.

Basically we have a conflict here -- on the one hand, the point of a Diagrams Chat page is to have images of diagrams. And on the other, images take a long time to load, so as more and more accumulate on the chat page, loading time will increase. I don't know how to solve this inherent problem, but here are a few thoughts ...

1. Remember in-line images, ie

<IMG SRC = "http://www.your-place.edu/diag.gif">

will appear directly on the chat page.

2. Please keep in-line images small: let's say 3000 bytes or less.

3. Note the GIF format compresses blank space in diagrams; for reference the two color diagram below is 570x220 pixels, but only 2879 bytes.

4. Refer to a larger image by having a 3K thumbnail of it link to another page with the full size image.

5. And yes the 3K limit discriminates against color and/or figures with solid areas. However: the 3K limit is a courtesy since a lot of folk have small pipes; two colors and line art only are sparse but sufficient for many diagrams; and you can always put up a two color thumbnail linking to the full color image.

Sample diagram: 2879 bytes, 570x220 pixels, two colors (transparent bg counts as one color).