Holy Crap,

[LGM Guitars]

God, what is it about the picture rules on this site that seems so hard for people to understand!!!?????

Every day I see the rules being broken for pictures, the only reason I'm getting more and more pissed off is because I was definitely TOLD about the rules. Between the picture rules and all the other ridiculous crap that's been happening here lately I'm getting tired of coming here.

At this point, when it's a member who's been around for a while, if you post a picture that is NOT within the rules I think it should be a 2 week suspension, nobody seems to be paying attention as it is. And although not a rule, it was REQUESTED by Admin that you do NOT quote a message with the picture in the quote, we don't need to see the same picture 10 times in one post!

Done venting now......

[feylya]

A quick forum code hack would solve all of those problems tbh.

[westhemann]

i have been taking them down as quick as i catch them...but i find it more and more difficult to read every post...

to be honest...there are whole sections i rarely visit anymore( i won't say which ones though)so i am sure alot slips through...though i know lovekraft frequents the one i visit the least...so i doubt he lets anything slip through.

buit that is what the report button is for...

[westhemann]

oops...i found it...and the bad part is i have been in there before...but to be honest,i wasn't thinking about it...but yeah,that is one heck of a picture to get hit with 10 times in a row

[GregP]

I don't know the thread in question; however, it gives me the chance to comment that I really liked what one poster did recently (can't remember who it was, but it was someone new) in putting thumbnails of the larger pics. JPGs that small are only about 3k in size, which isn't enough to cripple even dial-up users.

Would the mod team consider allowing thumbnailed pictures to exceed the normal quantity rules? Even 10 of those thumbnails will be less size than some of the single pics I've seen around here.

Greg

[haggardguy]

I know the thread in question and its somewhat more pleasent now that it has been moderated. Thanks team

[thegarehanman]

that was me

edit: the thumbnails i mean

Edited July 12, 2005 by thegarehanman

[Mickguard]

that was me

edit: the thumbnails i mean

←

So how do you make those--and will they work with photobucket? Definitely very friendly

[rocksolid]

could you use thumbnails as long as the total amount of pixels is still within what the maximum size picture could be? as in using 4 small pictures a quarter of the size of the maximum allowed size? or go even fifths or sixths?

[Kevan]

Once again....

From the thread here, pinned in the Announcements section:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...=ST&f=1&t=11235

"Posting Of Pictures:

- ALL pics are to be no more than 640x480 pixels.

- ONE PIC PER POST., except in the Tutorial sections, where you are allowed up to 10 pics per post.

- All subsequent (following) pics in a post are to be linked. DO NOT USE THE "IMG" TAG for pics 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

- DO NOT HOT-LINK TO PICS NOT OWNED BY YOU AND ON YOUR OWN SERVER. Use the URL tag instead to provide a link to the pic.

- ABSOLUTELY NO PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL IS TO BE POSTED. Posting of such will result in an IMMEDIATE ban from the site. "Guitar porn" excluded. :-)

- When quoting a post with a pic in it, CHANGE THE 'IMG' TAG TO A LINK, or remove it from your post.

- Keep the pics on topic in each thread."

[GregP]

Ayup, but that was written before thegarehanman's clever thumbnails idea or the fact that it actually uses less bandwidth. Also, at the end of the day it makes things a LOT easier for the user because we don't have to follow blind links and hope that it's a shot that we want to see.

I think it's great, and to not at least -consider- the possibility would be missing out on a great opportunity.

The thumbnails idea would work fine in conjunction with PhotoBucket. When you're in your paint program, you just save an extra copy reduced by a bunch and upload both to photobucket. Then you use forum jiggery-trickery to link them all up. Pretend that the curly brackets below are the square brackets that you use for forum code:

{url=http://img.photobucket.com/GregP/mytestphoto.jpg}{img}http://img.photobucket.com/GregP/mytestphotosmall.jpg{/img}{/url}

The first URL is just cut and pasted from the "http" line of your Photobucket picture the same way you'd cut and paste your IMG tag line. Then the next URL actually includes the "IMG" tag and is cut and pasted from the IMG tag line of the small version in your photobucket album. Then the small picture becomes the link to the big picture.

Easily done, will save bandwidth, and will make revealing new works and tutorials a pleasant experience again, instead of the unfriendliness of the plain URL tags. Keep in mind that PG's bandwidth wouldn't be affected at all, AND the users would likely save bandwidth, too. Consider:

- User posts one photo at 200K, and then links to the rest.

* Reader must download 200K, and then if his curiousity is piqued, another 200K (or whatever) per photo that he decides to check without the benefit of a thumbnail (some of the pics might not be of any interest to him)

End result is that the user has downloaded a minimum of 200K, and probably 400K or more because I don't know a single person whose curiousity is satisfied by looking at only one photo. Generally, I'll check out at least 3 or 4 before deciding I'd seen enough (for a guitar that doesn't interest me) or I'll check ALL of them for an intriguing guitar, despite the fact that some of them are just the back of the headstock, which doesn't normally interest me.

OR

- User posts 4 thumbnails at 5K each for a total of 20K

* User decides to only check out 2 of the big photos, for 400 extra K

End result is that the user has downloaded a minimum of a mere 20K, MAY end up downloading 200K or 420K but stop there. That's with the confidence of knowing that the other photos don't interest him, and having seen the small photos to at least get a more complete view of the project.

It sounds like a winner to me. It's the solution we've all been needing and wanting, so I don't see why it would be unreasonable to implement it.

Greg

[Kevan]

Greg- Not a terrible idea.

Right now we're frying bigger fish, so.....when we're done with that, we'll move on to dessert.

In the meantime, let's stick with the above rule.

Thanks everyone.

[lovekraft]

It sounds like a winner to me. It's the solution we've all been needing and wanting, so I don't see why it would be unreasonable to implement it.

Implementation is not a problem - however, since it appears that the simple directives "ALL pics are to be no more than 640x480 pixels." and "ONE PIC PER POST., except in the Tutorial sections, where you are allowed up to 10 pics per post." are too complicated for many of our members to follow, it doesn't seem prudent to do so. I occasionally use thumbnails for diagrams that are difficult to read at 640x480, so that anyone with sufficient interest can get a better look without bogging down the progress of more casual readers, but I don't see people who can't grasp the simple "single pic per post, 640x480 or smaller" rule being willing/able to generate a set of thumbnails and links that will conform to a (necessarily) more complex set of rules in order to actually save bandwidth. All I can see it doing is adding another opportunity for controversy every time a poster feels his pics are being unfairly edited by the Admins.

Feylya, back to that coding solution - that intrigues me. Obviously, it wouldn't do any good to simply scale the oversized pictures, since the entire picture would still have to be downloaded before scaling - do you suggest simply blocking oversized pictures, or are there other options? I'm obviously no PHP wizard, but I do know it sports a powerful set of data handling functions - any thoughts on how to do this?

[Mickguard]

Well, it'd be nice to see the thumbnails option implemented (maybe even a wizard in the html panel to encourage its use) --it'll look way cool for one thing.

In fact, it'd make sense to make ALL photos thumbnails --for a closer view, you'd have to click on them-- assuming the thumbnail size is set at a reasonable vieiwing size already.

Personally, I find it annoying having to follow the links--just to see the picture of someone's new piece of wood--because I have to close all the extra windows they open...but then, I'm on a 4 meg connection, bandwidth isn't my issue...

[LGM Guitars]

Only thing with thumbnails that I find on other boards (and I do think it's a good idea when everyone is smart enough to use the correctly) is that many times, somebody uploads the thumbnail, and only the thumbnail, so you click on it, and all you have is still the little tiny avatar sized picture.

[Mickguard]

Only thing with thumbnails that I find on other boards (and I do think it's a good idea when everyone is smart enough to use the correctly) is that many times, somebody uploads the thumbnail, and only the thumbnail, so you click on it, and all you have is still the little tiny avatar sized picture.

←

That's why it'd be cool if it's done automatically-- okay, I know nothing about coding, but it seems to me all I should have done is fill in that 'img' thing as usual --but now that 'img' thingamajig is coded to show the photo as a thumbnail --and clicking on it automatically enlarges the image (or takes you to the host site)

Just dreamin' ....

[Jivin]

Your right idch, that would be handy, and I am pretty sure there are plugins for Invision Board that use image editing packages for PHP to resize pictures in img tags down to thumbnails automatically, however generally they would only work on forums where users can upload image attachments to their posts. As we all know PG doesn't allow this for bandwidth reasons, so that is basically ruled out here.

Still, as Greg said, it would be easy for posters to handle it themselves. Simply make two versions of the image (large and small) and then when your posting just wrap the for the small image in a to the large one.

For the people who are unsure how to resize images with an image editing program or find it a PITA, windows utilities like this: http://download.microsoft.com/download/whi...wertoySetup.exe will allow you to resize photo's by right clicking on them and clicking "resize picture".

- Dan

[thegarehanman]

if you use this website to host your images, they give you the codes for the thumbnails automatically. actually, they give you tons of different codes so you can do just about whatever you want with your picture. this is the website i've been using:

http://xs.to/

[TenderSurrender]

Image Shack

They also give you lots of codes to use, including one that is a thumbnail linked to the orignal image!

~~ Slain Angel ~~

[GregP]

I don't think that it takes any effort at all to say, "OK, if you know what you're doing, use thumbnails. G'head." I mean, we're not running the United Nations. You're already fighting threads in which people don't read, follow, or understand the rules, so there'd be no new work added to the moderator workload.

At some point in time, you have to give the user base a little credit for being more than schoolchildren, whether some of us ARE just that or not.

I can definitely see how other things might be a priority over this; however, I actually thought it came up at the right time... we just upgraded the board, so I didn't think there were other major forum maintenance tasks that needed addressing right now.

Greg

[haggardguy]

I'm a schoolchild

I agree that its a good idea, I just need to figure out how use images on here at all..

[feylya]

Feylya, back to that coding solution - that intrigues me. Obviously, it wouldn't do any good to simply scale the oversized pictures, since the entire picture would still have to be downloaded before scaling - do you suggest simply blocking oversized pictures, or are there other options? I'm obviously no PHP wizard, but I do know it sports a powerful set of data handling functions - any thoughts on how to do this?

←

Basically, there's two main complaints that I can see on this forum about pics:

1) People don't like having to scroll sideways

2) People on Dial Up are crippled with big pictures

To solve the first one, I'm sure there a hack on the net or one could be written to simply resize the picture to 600 wide but the whole picture would have to be read.

To solve the second one, write code to get the file size of the picture. If it's over a certain size, eg 20K, don't display it. If it is less than 20K but bigger than 600 wide, the first bit of code should fix it.

As for pictures being displayed in Quotes, just disable tags in quotes. Or just allow one previous message to be quoted eg:

Bleh

I agree

Instead of:

Bleh

lol

OMG

I agree

Automated Image Resizers for IPB2

http://www.mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php?f=4552

http://www.mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php?f=4445

Reckon the first one is the way to go.

Edited July 12, 2005 by feylya

[Gorecki]

Basically, there's two main complaints that I can see on this forum about pics:

1) People don't like having to scroll sideways

2) People on Dial Up are crippled with big pictures

To solve the first one, I'm sure there a hack on the net or one could be written to simply resize the picture to 600 wide but the whole picture would have to be read.

To solve the second one, write code to get the file size of the picture. If it's over a certain size, eg 20K, don't display it. If it is less than 20K but bigger than 600 wide, the first bit of code should fix it.

As for pictures being displayed in Quotes, just disable tags in quotes. Or just allow one previous message to be quoted eg:

Automated Image Resizers for IPB2

http://www.mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php?f=4552

http://www.mods.invisionize.com/db/index.php?f=4445

Reckon the first one is the way to go.

←

You're certainly heading the right direction but the resizers you referenced doesn't do anything to conserve bandwidth usage. The first one is a client side javascript that will only make the image look smaller, byte size will remain the same. The second appears to be server side (didn't look that deeply) where the host gets the image, evaluates it and then sends it to the client (or not) multiplying the bandwidth usage by the host because it's going to grab every image regardless.

This is not a simple thing to resolve when the host server is not local. Anything that truly resizes the image at runtime would require server side processing to save the new dithered file locally. I wrote something similar to this some time ago. It used binary blobs out of a database and based on the call, blob'd to file the full image or a 25% (retaining aspect ratio) version for list displays. It works great but if you don't have control of the server, it's not happening.

[feylya]

You're certainly heading the right direction but the resizers you referenced doesn't do anything to conserve bandwidth usage.  The first one is a client side javascript that will only make the image look smaller, byte size will remain the same.

←

Yes, I know. I said that. LGM's biggest annoyance from what I've read over previous threads is the fact that large pictures will result in a scroll bar. That java script would solve that problem, even if the whole image has to be loaded.

In order to stop big pictures, filesize-wise, from being loaded, they'll need a server side script to get the file size of the image and then decide whether to post and resize it or to just provide a link.

[thegarehanman]

...or it could just be easy for us by using the image hosts we suggested that give you clickable thumbnails. Why worry yourself if it can be so simple?