Thumbnail galleries

[Phoenix2k]

I originally posted this for UBB, but something tells me it's about time I change software ;) I'm sick of dealing with complicated hacks, and I was simply wondering if the following feature would be hard to create for vBulletin :

Basically what this hack would do is to create thumbnail gallery where people could post their wallpapers and other graphics, have them sorted in different categories etc. and all of this based on the VBB community software.

I created some screenshots to illustrate what I'm trying to explain.

Posting a 'New image' (instead of 'New Thread')

http://www.plastiqueweb.com/images/misc/upload.jpg

This is what the post would look like :

http://www.plastiqueweb.com/images/misc/post.jpg

And finally, the alternate forum display page with screenshots :

http://www.plastiqueweb.com/images/misc/display.jpg

Now I don't know PHP that good at all, so I think it's rather pointless that I try to go further than this.

I was just hoping that someone would catch this idea and develop it. Knowing the capabilities of PHP, this type of feature shouldn't be too hard to create. The real problem would be to get it to blend with the forums correctly.

I know for a fact that this feature would be perfect for many sites out there and I'm sure all of you digital art lovers would like it too! :)

Ovegrow's (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16182) hack is the closest thing I've come to finding something similar.

Tell me what you think.
Pe<|ce ;)

PS. I originally posted this in the 2.0 suggestion forums, but I realized that this might be a better place to discuss it. Sorry about that :(

[BradC]

This seems like a great idea to me... the hack for ubb... might be able to be ported over to php to work... but don't look at me.. heh, I am just now learning php.. so I can't do it yet..

[Phoenix2k]

Thing is, this hack doesn't exist even for UBB. I thought I could try to make it in PERL, but I gave up :D I realized that it would be a lot wiser to use PHP for this hack, and that's what lead me to VBB in the first palce :)

I was inspired by Skinz.org (http://www.skinz.org) who have a beautifully built engine for rendering their pages (all in PHP of course). I thought it would be great to get the same kind of display system for the forums, in this case VBB. Implementing this to UBB was a lost case. Too much hassle... :)

But if there's an inspired PHP coder out there who could pull this off, I'd be happy to give him/her a lollipop ;) This feature would be great for graphic sites and others who would want to display pictures.

[Freddie Bingham]

It could be done but you could encounter problems making the thumbnails.

1 - You could use the GD library to do it with 2 caveats.. firstly it's thumbnails look like crap and secondly gif support has been removed (though you can still find it or use an older version). Using the GD library really isn't an answer if you want everything to work and look great.

2 - You can use a external source to creade the thumbnails such as imagemajick or NetPBM (http://sourceforge.net/projects/netpbm). You have to go out, get these packages and install them on your system first though.

[tubedogg]

I like this idea...I don't have much use for it, but the screenshots look cool LOL :)

On a slightly related topic...I'm so mad about GD not supporting GIF anymore. I have a thing that dynamically generates the date and a couple other words in a very small font, and it looks like crap in JPG :(

[Phoenix2k]

Here's something pretty close to what I had in mind, although I have to admit the display sucks :
http://www.imagearcadia.com/

Perhaps this hack could be included in future versions of vbPortal? ;)

[Freddie Bingham]

tubedogg: http://www.rime.com.au/gd/

[tubedogg]

Thank you, Freddie :)

Unfortunately, I'm on a virtual host and he probably won't like the idea of installing that (he's in England and the server's @ VDI). But thank you for the link anyway, I'll send it to him. :)

[Phoenix2k]

Well, this is turning out to be a lot more complicated than I expected...

I found a php script (http://dougiamas.com/photoframe/) that would do the job (create the thumbnails) but it needs that GD thing installed, which makes this hack a pain - if not impossible - to install for many people out there.

On the other hand, I did run into a free perl script (http://www.matrixvault.com/cgi/Auto_Image.shtml) that would generate the thumbnails without having to install anything extra on the server. I included the code as an attatchment.

Any ideas on how to proceed? or should I just forget about this and move on with my life? :p

[tubedogg]

Actually that PERL script appears to just resize the images via height & width tags, it doesn't actually create thumbnails (at least that's what I got from reading the site).

[Phoenix2k]

Crap, I was in such a hurry when I posted that message, I didn't have the time to read the details :D

I wonder if it's even possible for a perl script to resize an image in the first place? Perhaps it needs an external application to do it (like GD) anyway?

I'd hate for this idea to come to an end just because it's not possible to resize an image :(

I'll ask the other sites what they use to generale the thumbnails...

[floleb7]

why people don't upload image and thumb ?
it will be easier to do

[etones]

when i was with my old old virtual host.. i needed image magick badly (to resize 4000 images on the fly :D ).. anyhow, they installed it for me.

www.positiveinternet.com

ask your host.

[Phoenix2k]

floleb7 - asking users to make their own thumbnails would indeed be an answer to the problem, but how that works in reality :( Well I just know for a fact that some people might concider that as a waste of time or just a pain in the ass, especially when they know the server could do it for them ;)
The proof is out there. A lot of sites are using some type of script to generate their thumbnails, so it's just a question of finding one that works for everybody. I'm waiting for an answer from a few people to see what they're using to generate their tumbnails. Hopefully they'll be able to give us a hand...

etones - image magick ?

[floleb7]

generally the prog for this works but you need to have your own server for use it

[Phoenix2k]

Without a doubt :p

Do you know where I could download it?

[Freddie Bingham]

Your best bet is to support multiple converters, i.e. Netpbm, ImageMajick and GD.

[Phoenix2k]

Yeah I'm looking into ImageMagick right now :) The installation notes seem clear enough. I'll install it on my server tomorrow- that is, if the hosting company agrees :D

I got a reply from Jark (Deviantart) and he recommended it. That's what they use on their (http://www.deviantart.com/) web site so I think we're definitely on the right track. I just have to find a good script that knows how to use this so I can test it out. Jark would have made one if only he had the time, too bad ;)

[floleb7]

but it will require a own server ?

[Phoenix2k]

Um.. few problems.

1. ImageMagick is not that easy to install after all. Lots of files... loooots of files.. 618 files (12mb) :(

2. I was told that the application would disrupt our apache server so I won't even be able to test it out :(

I give up... the development of this feature is way too complicated for a beginner like me and I've been struggeling with this idea for months. Guess I'll just have to build the galleries manually until something similar comes along ...

Anyways, thanks for the support guys :)
Peace.

[Overgrow]

Bingo.. you see my problem and why my post was so wishy-washy. Imagemagick is a pain in the ass for a novice to install plus you must have your own server. I don't know of any possible way for a shared host to install an image processor.

Having said that, you can still have a successful gallery without thumbnails, but the page loads are horrendous. My gallery.php gets over 2000 hits a day from the users browsing each other's photos. I built the script with variables for number of pics per page, num of rows/cols per page, etc.. so if you want to show 4 per page, it would be a bit faster.

DAMN I want it like freddy's, sizing on the fly! We're having our own server built now... (yea, 165 online last night & a shared host! haha I'm query-cache-man! no other way our site would still run)

[Phoenix2k]

Yeah too bad indeed. Our dev team has been discussing building our own server (since one of the staff members works at a hosting company), but for now we're all too busy to even start thinking about it seriously.

Have you released your image hack by any chance? That'd be great to have for the time being until something else comes along...

Oh and yeah, Freddie's hack is just about what I'm looking for :D With a few enhancements like popularity, resolution etc. it'd be perfect! :)

[Freddie Bingham]

I wrote my gallery in a couple hours to get something up that would categorize all the attachments in one place. I hope to include something with v2.1 that is a but more comprehensive if I have time.

[Phoenix2k]

Sweet :D

I did see the "if", but this feature would really be something man :D It'd bring a lot of people to vBulletin that's for sure ;)

How exactly would it work though? Separate different types of files into different categories or something in the lines of that? And if you were to create a gallery similar to the one you have on your site, how exactly would you be able to bypass the need for an external application to resize the images? Inserting the images as is, would probably create a lot of problems for large sized images (in pixels).

It'd be great if the user could choose a category to put his files into, rather than have a script doing it automatically according to the file format. The category list could be generated according to the file type one uploads, that way you would reduce the risk of having an image put into the wrong category.

You must be very busy, but I'm just excited someone at least took the interest in this idea :)

All the luck in case you start developing this for 2.1 :)

Peace,
Phoenix.

[ScottW]

Check out PhotoPost -- it uses the VBulletin user DB:
http://www.techimo.com/photopost/index.html

ImageMagick isn't THAT tough to install in unix.. Most web hosts will help with the install or do it for you. Under IIS, installing ImageMagick is simple with ppm.

[ExcErr]

i like this idea, but remeber, all users files must be saved as FILES! NOT STORE IN DB!!

[Overgrow]

Way to dig up an old thread :D

For a site that relies on their images, storing them in the DB is not feasible-- they have to be in the file system. It's harder to protect the images in private forums but not impossible.

Update... gallery now gets 40,000 hits a day and uses real thumbnails with Imagemagick routines. Each user has a personal gallery which they control and I have a new postbit routine which displays thumbnails in the forum:

http://www.overgrow.com/edge/gallery.php
http://www.overgrow.com/edge/showthread.php?s=&threadid=110741&perpage=15&pagenumber=3

(don't click if easily offended)

[ScottW]

FYI PhotoPost (http://www.photopost.com) is now 100% PHP, stores its images on disk (so browsers can cache), integrates with vbulletin for one unified login, and integrates with vbulletin and/or vbportal header/footer.

[Jadelit]

yes but I love overgrows threaddisplay.. any way you can tell us how you did it?

[ZiRu$]

dope idea

[Geographic]

Anybody got something like this?

Overgrow are you willing to share? It'd be funky if you would.

Geographic

[gopherhockey]

Originally posted by ScottW
FYI PhotoPost (http://www.photopost.com) is now 100% PHP, stores its images on disk (so browsers can cache), integrates with vbulletin for one unified login, and integrates with vbulletin and/or vbportal header/footer.

THis looks nice. Anyone out there using it? Feedback on how you like it? I'm concerned about purchasing something like this without knowing just how well it will integrate into vbulletin.. the look & feel, users etc.

I know that drkfusion was going to come out with a Gallery 3.0 package and promised it would be posted before he left the vbulletin scene this month.. but haven't seen that one yet. I'm holing off on this until I see if he actually does release it.

[Smoothie]

THis looks nice. Anyone out there using it? Feedback on how you like it? I'm concerned about purchasing something like this without knowing just how well it will integrate into vbulletin.. the look & feel, users etc. http://www.macfora.com/gallery/

[Smoothie]

Originally posted by forumsinfo
Is it a hack. Can I look take a look at that code? Yep, heres the code; http://www.photopost.com

[GoTTi]

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45876" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showt...threadid=45876</a>

this is a simular kinda hack...

Check it out.

[GoTTi]

Here it is...i guess i missed its release

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48243

[Overgrow]

My gallery hack is the ugliest piece of code alive :) Also it is hardcore integrated into vBulletin-- you must pull out your attachment code and upload only images. It's not meant for general release, sorry.