Direct image upload

[Antechinus]

Something like this:

Hey looky here! You can upload pictures n stuff!

[ARG01]

Sure, why not? 

Or maybe "Click Here To Attach Images, Files Or For Additional Posting Options"

Just something to make it stand out more.

[Goldengirl71]

I posted an attachment that shows how to directly upload an attachment.  Personally, I will be honest in saying I would rather hear "we can't do it that way" or allow it, for our own reasons.  I don't expect anyone to tell me why it can't be done.  Just that we don't have that option.  I don't mind someone telling me a work-around, but it's not the same as "direct upload".  In that respect, I think I understand what Ron is saying.

I believe this (and I'll attach it again) must be a vbulletin deal, since it's on a vbulletin sites.  Maybe it's something someone created just for vbulletin forums like smf forums has it's creative bunch of people.  I googled it and couldn't find any instruction on how to create it, or anything on it at all.  Well, there was some discussion on another forum I found googling, but no answer, but they called it "direct upload" as well.

Anyway, I am not going to worry about it now, just wanted to say something after reading all the replies on here.  Been out-of-town, away from the computer, had to give it a rest:)

Denise

[Antechinus]

Sure, why not? 

Or maybe "Click Here To Attach Images, Files Or For Additional Posting Options"

Just something to make it stand out more.

Too complex. They'll lose it after three words. I like keeping stuff brief enough to be scanned in half a second with brain in neutral, because that's how most people tend to use a gui anyway.

[Antechinus]

abbynormal, I think I get what you want. That's just some presentation tweaks of what SMF already does. Implementing it would be fairly easy. As I understand it you want:

1/ Something that makes it obvious where the upload function is and

2/ Makes it look not gruesome and

3/ Displays full sized images in posts (not thumbnails) and automatically scales the images to fit the user's screen.

If that's all you want, getting it is not a big deal. 

[Kindred]

(and it IS the same as "direct upload" --- that is EXACTLY what attachments are... direct uploads from the user's computer to the forum server -   that's what we've been trying to say)

[Goldengirl71]

abbynormal, I think I get what you want. That's just some presentation tweaks of what SMF already does. Implementing it would be fairly easy. As I understand it you want:

1/ Something that makes it obvious where the upload function is and

2/ Makes it look not gruesome and

3/ Displays full sized images in posts (not thumbnails) and automatically scales the images to fit the user's screen.

If that's all you want, getting it is not a big deal.

That's it pretty much, thing is, and I know I mentioned this before but they're seniors, many don't have a lot of computer knowledge, and don't want to learn "new" ways.  So I'm shooting for simple.  Those that wanted a different forum, were all on one together already, including myself.  It had that feature (it's where I got the snip) so I know they will be comfy with it, as they know how to use it;)

Thanks Ant;) Denise
PS So you gonna tell me how ta do it??

[Antechinus]

Yeah, but I need breakfast first. It's early here. Give me a few hours.

[Goldengirl71]

Really, no hurry at all.  I won't even be on here the rest of today.  If you want to, and get the time, I will be around a bit each day, looking for other things I want to add;)

Thanks and have a great day:) Denise

[Chen Zhen]

Imo you can probably use one of these mods:
https://github.com/Spuds/SMF-ILA
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3770

Although whichever one you use will need to be adjusted to automatically put the necessary BBCODE in the post.
Spuds mod also requires a slight adjustment to the package-info file to be able to install it (remove CDATA and its contents) plus some css to perhaps display the images in div containers or span (<- display: block;).  Although if Antechinus is willing to create something with your exact specifics that is great.
Imo this thread should have been moved to mod requests.

Regards.

[Goldengirl71]

Appreciate you taking the time, and I will keep both of these in mind:) Thank you much, Denise

[Antechinus]

Ok, try this and see what you think. Save a copy of your default theme's Post.template.php, then upload the attached file to overwrite the existing template.

Also, add the following code to the end of your theme's index.css. Do this for any themes you will be using (default or custom).

Code Select Expand

.attachments {overflow: visible;}
.attachments img {width: auto; height: auto; max-width: 95%; max-height: auto;}

Last, go to Admin > Forum > Attachments and Avatars > Attachment Settings.

Set the values for "Resize images when showing under posts" to unchecked, "Save thumbnails as PNG" as unchecked, "Maximum width of thumbnails" as zero, and "Maximum height of thumbnails" as zero.

Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5) and then go to the posting page and see what you think.

[kat]

Just thinking out-loud, here...

If this uploading of pix was done, as standard, to have the images appear at max size, without having to click on a thumbnail, wouldn't that cause a pretty big performance hit? I'd've thought that having threads open, with all of the images being big, would cause quite a slowdown, in some circumstances... Am I wrong, in thinking that?

If that was the standard way of doing things, wouldn't we get a whole raft of complaints about SMF being incredibly slow?

[Antechinus]

Yeah, if you have enough big images on the page it will cause a performance hit to some degree. That's the trade-off with not using thumbnails. It's mostly a browser thing though. Image size doesn't affect the server much. So an image-heavy page might load slow for you, but wouldn't bother people who were looking at other pages.

[Arantor]

It's not quite as simple as that, I'm afraid. When you're talking 10KB vs 100KB or similar, that's not a problem. But when you're talking 10KB thumbnail vs 1MB+ digital photos (given the suggested audience in question) it starts to get a whole lot more funky.

You see, the server has to hold the connection open long enough to push the content through and no, that doesn't necessarily mean within a few seconds to push the entire file from PHP to Apache.

It's one of the things I've had to deal with for my gallery; how does one serve a 10MB+ file to the browser without hitting the various speed limits (PHP execution time, Apache server timeout)? Answer: more arcane and voodoo crazystuff than the attachments code is.

[kat]

I was remembering my days on **shudder** dialup. Some people, of course, are still stuck on that, poor buggers.

[Arantor]

Yup and that's the worst case: because it forces the connection to be held upon longer, to the point where the server is more likely to sever it.

[kat]

I remember that my ISP had a two hour cut-off. Even uploading something at the start of the two hours often hadn't finished, before I got disconnected...

Days of horror.

[Goldengirl71]

Ok, try this and see what you think. Save a copy of your default theme's Post.template.php, then upload the attached file to overwrite the existing template.

Also, add the following code to the end of your theme's index.css. Do this for any themes you will be using (default or custom).

Code Select Expand

.attachments {overflow: visible;}
.attachments img {width: auto; height: auto; max-width: 95%; max-height: auto;}

Last, go to Admin > Forum > Attachments and Avatars > Attachment Settings.

Set the values for "Resize images when showing under posts" to unchecked, "Save thumbnails as PNG" as unchecked, "Maximum width of thumbnails" as zero, and "Maximum height of thumbnails" as zero.

Do a hard refresh (Ctrl+F5) and then go to the posting page and see what you think.

Wow, wish I could give you a HUGE "like" for how you give direction, so easy to follow, step by step, thank you Antechinus!  I will do it, just as you said, and keep you posted on how it goes, thank you again, for your time, and sharing your knowledge with me, denise

[Ron G4GWC]

Happy this item appears to be getting addressed, please let us know how it works out,
if it works ok my users will find it useful, my visitors are mostly elderly but tell me how simple it is to post pictures
on emails or on Facebook etc, I recon 2014 is with us. the future is know.
Next big issue is working my way around the documentation! then I can do my own mods.

best regards to all.