Sharing image may not show

A page names the picture it is shared with, with og_image, and the file is of a kind that some link previews don’t show: a WebP or an SVG, say. Statac uses the picture all the same. It is published as it is, and page.card answers with its address, exactly as for any other picture.

A picture several pages name is told once, with how many pages there are, where the first of them names it.

What you’ll see

warning  Sharing image may not show: `content/cover.webp` is a WebP
  For a picture more link previews show, save it as a PNG.
  More: https://statac.dev/e/image-may-not-show/

In the terminal the message also names the file and line where there is one, and marks the exact text.

Why Statac warns

A link preview is made by the site or the program a link is pasted into, each with a reader of its own for the picture. Some kinds of picture are read by some of them and not by others, and which those are changes from year to year. A PNG is the kind most widely shown. Where a preview can’t read the picture, the page is shared with no picture at all, and nothing on your own site shows that it happened.

Statac goes by what the file holds, not by its name, so a WebP saved as cover.png is told as a WebP.

The picture is yours to choose, so Statac uses the one you name, never sets it aside for the kind of file it is, and never draws a card in its place.

How to fix it

For a picture more previews show, save it as a PNG and name that with og_image.

Where the previews that matter to you show the picture as it is, nothing needs changing. Once you have understood it, quieten the warning by name.

Example

In content/post-1/index.md:

og_image: cover.webp

With cover.png beside the post and og_image: cover.png in it, the warning goes.

In statac.yaml, to stop it being shown:

quiet: [image-may-not-show]

Its name

Name	image-may-not-show
In the terminal	statac explain image-may-not-show
To stop showing it	quiet: [image-may-not-show] in statac.yaml, once you have understood it. Statac still counts it.