Inliners International Forums General Discussion General Forum Information File Manager vs Image Manager for Photos

Greetings . . .

I wanted to start a thread to discuss the technical details behind photo hosting here at the II Forums. I realize that it is not as simple as Drag-and-Drop – but we have great capabilities for creating detailed illustrated posts.

First let’s start with the basic usability pros and cons. The File Manager is just a click away whenever one is creating a new Discussion Forum post. The Gallery Forum requires as special visit to upload photos before going to the Discussion Forum to start a new thread or to enter a response.

Let’s dig into the details.

With the last change made to the Gallery Forum “Photo Library” the Image Manager will accept up to 20 images in each gallery posting – and will accept un-cropped images up to 3MB – scaling them down to a reasonable size for rendering. Take for example the image of the piston from the Unicorn Chevy Six post:


The utility automatically creates the IMG tags to the file on disk. The uncropped version of the file is handled only once during the upload. Once re-scaled the image lands on disk it can be referenced by image tagged link in a Forum post or anywhere else you choose on the internet with the https: URL
|img]https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/gallery/19/full/491.jpg[/img| - which is what one includes in a Discussion Forum thread.
As a result there is no reason to use the “Enter an Image” widget in the discussion forum:

Simply copy and paste the Full size link from the gallery post:

in between the lines/paragraphs of the post where you want it to appear.

Now let’s dig into the technical details of how an image ends up on our screens.

When a post is selected from say the Active Topics list - there is one call to the PHP hypertext pre-processor to fetch the discussion thread from the SQL database underneath the site - look closely at the URLs and you will see the reference to ‘ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php’. Once fetched from the database the pre-processed content is sent to the user’s browser for rendering – including URL references to images in flat files on disk. This image of a piston is just 16 kilobits – the Image Manager utility compressed the already small (23K) image that I screen captured from the HP Monsters video.

Now let’s look at what happens when we use the File Manager to house images. Take for example TTW’s posting on converting to an open driveline:
https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=98845#Post98777
again notice the call to PHP to fetch the thread.

Closer inspection of the images in the thread reveals TTW’s technique – placing File Manager calls between image tags
|img]https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbt...haft-whoops.jpg[/img|
Notice the call to PHP in the URL. This call back to the pre-processor on the server is necessary because the File Manager’s disk cache is not housed in a publicly addressable directory. There is overhead in every call and each image is a separate call. This overhead includes updating the download counters:



Moreover this single image is 248K and TTW has asked for that size limit be increased – because cropping high-res photos by dimensions (width/height) yields widely different file sizes (read trial & error hassle . . . pita).

But compare this one file to the Unicorn Chevy Six posting that contains 27 images – the whole lot comes in at under 850K.
https://www.inliners.org/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=98918&page=1

One thing that comes to mind is the desktop tooling one might be using for cropping/scaling. I like the TechSmith ‘Snagit’ tool. I used it to capture the photos for Unicorn Chevy Six post with the video running in YouTube. You issue the Snagit capture command and the browser screen freezes the playback so that you can capture a still image. The same can be done with Raw photos downloaded from one’s phone or digital camera. View with them with the native PC/Mac photo browser and Snag cropped scaled down images for upload to the II Forums.

I am happy to assist anyone in getting their content online.

Regards,
stock49

stock,

I don't think you should assume that, it has more to do with the UI on the person's computer, in my case it's Xorg running on Linux using Firefox.

In Beater's case it's a Mac most likely using Safari. Even drag/drop will work on Linux if using the File UI, I am presented with that when I upload an image. I just don't use it as I just click. You don't need to worry about drag/drop, let Beater worry about that if he uses it, it's built into the Mac UI.


That would all be good if we could automate the entire process of storing the image in the folder and making it usable, but on other forums the members don't need to worry about that. Why would someone will willing to do that here if they don't need to do it somewhere else? They get the same information, there's some pretty sharp guys on some of those other forums, IMO.


I have tried to explain this to you several times. All images compress differently, and you have chosen an uncommon resolution for the images, 720x960 or 960x720 (portrait vs. landscape). 720x960 resolution is like the red headed step child, please read this link, which I have sent you in the past.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1867938

Once we get past the black sheep of resolutions, I mentioned that all images do not compress the same. I have told you this multiple times. Some images in that resolution are not under 400k, I don't know what formula you use to calculate the size, but I have told you, IT DOESN'T WORK. For my images I see about 50% fit within the 400k, so rather than waste my time over and over and over and over, I just make the images 640x480 as I'm assured those will be under 400k. Otherwise I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall every time I post. Quite honestly, 640x480 is such a low resolution I posted pics that do not work really, but posted them anyway. The choice is yours again.

*IF* this was up to me, which it is not, I would allow 1024x768 images and however big they are I wouldn't care, I would store them and pay for it by distributing an electronic version and allow members the choice.

I don't know how to make it any clearer:

Nobody will use the galleries or anything that is not dead simple to use. Until this forum is easy for all the members to use you have failed. You can fix it, but to this point these forums are not successful today because of how it is setup/configured.

Either you want to understand how to make it easier to use, or we can just continue with it as it's been, and I'll be quiet. And eventually this club, not just the forums, but the ENTIRE club will go down the toilet in a spiral and even the Tidy Bowl man won't be able to save it with his little boat.

I can almost understand some of that. I understand enough to know that these images must be stored somewhere, they take up space, and someone pays for that. I understand that very high resolution or very large images take longer to load for users with older slower equipment. I understand that the highest resolution in not necessary for our purpose here. But to paraphrase an old Buffy Saint Marie song:

Don't ask why of me.
Don't ask how of me.
Don't as understanding of me,
Post me post me now!

And thank you for trying to explain this to me again. I actually am getting more from it with repeated reading. My MAC is old 2015 with the latest OS but it can do a lot more than I can.



I was able to post pictures in the gallery and then put this one here. I tried using just the File Manager and it posted a LINK to the picture. Attachment ?

The biggest thing to know. That link for the image, just click on it. It will open the image, now highlight the URL for the image, then click on the arrow for previous page.

Edit the post, insert an image, give the URL for the image in your post. When you save it the pic should display.

I was trying to explain to you that there is an option in most browsers to open an image in a separate window, or a new tab. If you do that you will be left on the webpage in your current window/tab and the image will open in another. Copy the image URL the same way, edit the post and insert an image, use the image URL, and save it, your pic is now in your post. Either way it's pretty much the same thing.

As another alternative, some browsers will allow you to right mouse click on the link above, and copy it, so you really don't need to open the image if you don't want to, but you can only see those image links prior to editing, so if there is 3 images, you would need to go back and forth 3 times, unless you do as I do and open each image in a new tab of it's own and get rid of the tab after I use the image URL.

I don't know if that is easier or more difficult to understand.

Crap! I though I was getting close. I'll post my content that needs pictures on the HAMB and post a link to it here or just skip here. It's faster.

My '26 Roadster Build

Bite your tongue! I'm wanting to make it easy enough for even someone like you to use it. We're getting closer, looks like we can post 1024x768, but we need it to be simple in your post, as it is on Stovebolt. The only reason I use Stovebolt as an example is that they use the same forum software.

"even someone like you" Gee thanks that builds confidence.

This will be a topic at our chapter meeting on Saturday. I'd like to be able to demonstrate how to post a picture. But maybe someone there can show me.

I tried what you said above. When I tried to post the URL using the "Enter an Image" box it would not post. When I used "Create a Link to a Webpage" box it posted the same link and looked the same.

I agree that a easy way of putting pictures on the forum posts is needed. I currently use Imageshack, but also pay for it's service.

Thanks, Tom. We need to work together to make it work.

I have many pictures stuck on PICASA which was free until they told me it wasn't and they opened my content. God Bless google!