Topic: Image Handling Options in 2.1

[ModelBoatMayhem]

Excellent!  - What will be the image handling options / policy going forwards? We REALLY need 'one click uploading / resizing' built in and more image storage options, e.g. off server.   

[Kindred]

we are in RC. There will be no major code changes which are not required to fix problems and it is unlikely that any new features will be added at this point

[ModelBoatMayhem]

we are in RC. There will be no major code changes which are not required to fix problems and it is unlikely that any new features will be added at this point

When will they be looking at those options?

... or should I start looking elsewhere? 

[Gwenwyfar]

That's what mods are for, you should be looking at those.

[ModelBoatMayhem]

Over the many years I've used SMF, the standard answer to 'It's stopped working', is 'Uninstal any Mods!'   
 
1. Most Mod also 'break' when updates released, 
2. Many Mods are years out of date and   
3. Often the Mod has left the planet or otherwise lost interest! 
The main reason I've stuck with SMF is that it is very stable.... WITHOUT Mods ..... but it's feeling very old and creaky these days...     

[Gwenwyfar]

Over the many years I've used SMF, the standard answer to 'It's stopped working', is 'Uninstal any Mods!'   

That's because we need to know whether you have an issue with SMF or with a mod.

1. Most Mod also 'break' when updates released,

If you are talking about large updates, ie: 2.0 to 2.1, yes. Otherwise, no, most mods do not break between minor patches.

2. Many Mods are years out of date and   

Some mods simply do not need an update. They still work fine even if they are years old. Minor patches don't really change much in the SMF code for them to need to update their mod every time a release is made, and that is the idea.

3. Often the Mod has left the planet or otherwise lost interest!

Assuming you meant "mod authors", that is true, but that's really to be expected when they are giving out mods for free. They can't hang around forever. In those cases you're still likely to find someone else to help you.


All that said, there's different types of mods out there, some more stable and well built than others. The auto-resizing feature you mentioned might still be added in a future version, but SMF is built on the premise that you'll use mods for extra features not in core.

[Kindred]

I was going to answer point by point... but looks like Gwenwyfar has already done so...

Basically, the only thing that I would correct is your initial statement and Gwen's response.

The first response has never been "uninstall any mods".
Although that is actually the first response to most queries over at WordPress (uninstall all other add-ons)...  At SMF, our initial repsonse is (invariably) What version of SMF, what version of php/mySQL, what is yoru forum URL and what mods do you have installed.

Typically -- most questions/problems are actually answerable with the facts from those questions -- at least 50% of the issues have actually already been reported (usually regarding a specific mod) and many of those are fixable with a quick code edit or two (which again, many have alreayd been provided)

Yes -- adding mods adds complexity to your site. However, the reason those mods exist is that complexity was desired for some, but not for most - which is possibly why it was not included in the code product -- and also why someone saw fit to make it into a packaged mod that can often be installed with a total of 3 clicks...

The system that allows for the simple application of mods is one fo SMF's primary strengths and allows site owners to take the core system and customize it -- while also allowing others to do their own cusotmizations, resulting in very different sites from the core product.

At one point in 2.0, I had 250+ mods installed on a site with fairly minimal manual edits (all because of overlapping code edits, but all simply resolved). The result looked very little like a standard forum when all the options were turned on...
On that forum - while I was running tests, I was able to update through 3 versions of SMF 2.0.x without breaking anything....

[m4z]

Excellent!  - What will be the image handling options / policy going forwards? We REALLY need 'one click uploading / resizing' built in and more image storage options, e.g. off server.   

Who is this "We" you're talking about, and why is one-click uploading so important to them that everybody has to drop everything else to implement it right now? Also, why is the current 2.1 situation so unbearable to you?

• "reply" button,
• text field (and type your reply),
• open attachment menu,
• drag-and-drop image,
• "upload" button,
• "post" button

Sure, you could remove step 3 by always having the attachment menu open, but depending on the forum, it will never be used and always take up space.
I think the first priority of a forum should not be images, but text "uploading". Image uploading enhancements, especially when you want to do them without posting text in your "forum", is exactly what mods should do.

[ModelBoatMayhem]

Who is this "We" you're talking about, and why is one-click uploading so important to them that everybody has to drop everything else to implement it right now? Also, why is the current 2.1 situation so unbearable to you?

• "reply" button,
• text field (and type your reply),
• open attachment menu,
• drag-and-drop image,
• "upload" button,
• "post" button

Sure, you could remove step 3 by always having the attachment menu open, but depending on the forum, it will never be used and always take up space.
I think the first priority of a forum should not be images, but text "uploading". Image uploading enhancements, especially when you want to do them without posting text in your "forum", is exactly what mods should do.

'Text isn't the only Medium!

'The "we" is the 7,000+ members of my Forum.
 
I don't want / expect it "now" but it doesn't even appear to be on the books.
 
v2.1 - Only geeks ( like me ) want to resize photos for uploading! Everyone else wants / Expects 'Single Click' photo uploads... you must have you visited some of other Forums and other social sites on the Global Super Highway?
 
I understand if it's just too difficult coding-wise, beyond the scope or outside the SMF remit... I just think SMF missing a major trick here and any new SMF user, it will be very high up on their list of core requirements!

"especially when you want to do them without posting text in your "forum", is exactly what mods should do." - I don't even know what that means?!?
 
It's currently 2019, so if 'the governance' of SMF  say that 'One Click'  photo / video uploads will never become a core option, best to  say so now.
I'm sort of locked in to SMF for now but not out of loyalty ( this is the internet after all! ) but just because it a major pain in the arse to move or convert to a new platform but it won't always be a deal breaker.
Please don't take this as criticism of ANYONE associated with the coding of SMF, I think you are doing a sterling job as you are doing it as hobby not a day job, many personal thanks.SMF has always been a friend to me, especially as it's "free"..... I  just have concerns for it's future. 

( Many thanks for your time and the very considered replies so far. )   
 
 
 -

[Arantor]

Please don't take it as criticism when that's *exactly* what it is? And you clearly don't think it's a sterling job because of the intensity of your reaction here.

The problem is, if SMF were to stop and implement this now, it'll be another 2-3 years before 2.1 comes out which screws it up for everyone. It's already been too long getting here. This should not be considered for 2.1 - but maybe for 2.2.

That also said, the mentality of SMF has always been about people *talking to each other* with pictures being attached to a message, not the core of the message. 2.1 does improve this, you can now put attachments into the body of the message with little effort, but the reality is that the core priority of SMF has always been - and should always be - people writing messages for each other. Everything else should, and must, by definition be secondary.

I'm not saying it can't be improved, but it must be done carefully - and we must remember not to build for the minority. One of the open source organisations I work with has exactly this problem; they've just geared up having spent most of the last 6 months on a new feature that, as far as I can tell, only one of their customers is going to use and that it flat out doesn't work for any of their other customers without code changes which, frankly, their customers are not in a position to make anyway.

The majority of forums are not visual or heavy on attachments - we have sufficient evidence to support that position. The vast majority are text based, exchanging conversation - that absolutely must be the priority. Would that change if the features were better? Maybe, but unlikely.

Also, what does 'one click uploading' even mean? I literally do not understand how to do one click uploading in ANY platform. Every single platform I can think of requires a flat minimum of 2-3 clicks to do anything (yes, that includes Facebook). As for resizing, I'd strongly make that configurable rather than the default, there are plenty of times when I've uploaded large images with the intention of them NOT being resized and been frustrated when platforms do resize them, but those are cases you don't run into like sharing large structure diagrams of systems that have hundreds of tables. Just saying - if we support your use case, we have to support mine too as mine is just as important to me as yours is to you.

[m4z]

'Text isn't the only Medium!

I was mainly referring to the pre-Internet definition of the term "forum", but I really do think text is the primary Thing in online forums as well; I don't want the conversation to be polluted by images too much. But that depends on the kind of forum or site, and I probably avoid the kind of sites you're referring to. I receive enough picture posts in instant messaging group chats.

you must have you visited some of other Forums and other social sites on the Global Super Highway?

I actually haven't used such sites too much in the last 15 years, unless you count Github, bug trackers, mailing lists, and support forums of big corporations, which are mostly glorified text-only mailing-lists with a web UI (and always terrible to use).
(The only reason I got involved in SMF was that I needed an excuse to invest more time into my private server, so when a friend asked me to host a small private forum (which is, incidentally, about writing texts), I said yes; he had used SMF before. My primary reason for using this forum is improving SMF with bug reports etc.)

especially when you want to do [image uploading, or benefit from image uploading enhancements] without posting text in your "forum", is exactly what mods should do."

I don't even know what that means?!?

You didn't specifiy how this one-click uploading should work and where your starting point was. I assumed you meant from "I'm currently viewing the topic, and I only want to upload images, (mostly) without postling text", hence the steps outlined above. Maybe you meant from "I've already clicked 'Reply' and typed my answer", in which case we currently have only three clicks.
If you really find these three clicks unbearable, go look for a Modification package, because (as Arantor has explained much better as I did) you're probably hugely over-estimating the importance that other forum users put on images, which are a side note in most forums.

[ModelBoatMayhem]

Also, what does 'one click uploading' even mean? I literally do not understand how to do one click uploading in ANY platform. Every single platform I can think of requires a flat minimum of 2-3 clicks to do anything (yes, that includes Facebook). As for resizing, I'd strongly make that configurable rather than the default, there are plenty of times when I've uploaded large images with the intention of them NOT being resized and been frustrated when platforms do resize them, but those are cases you don't run into like sharing large structure diagrams of systems that have hundreds of tables. Just saying - if we support your use case, we have to support mine too as mine is just as important to me as yours is to you.

 
 
"what does 'one click uploading' even mean?" - Semantics,  no need to be pedantic.   
 
Yes, resizing, reformatting  & storage options would be a must.
 
..... ah well, dreams and wishes!..... sigh.   


 

[SychO]

meh just resize it using bbcode options

[Arantor]

Sure there's a need to be a pedant. Partially because I earn lots of money being professionally pedantic (it's called being a developer and I make good money spotting things other people don't because I'm professional-grade pedantic). Partially, though, because if you want to argue semantics, one click uploading exists. It's called drag and drop - you click, drag the file onto the SMF window and you're done, one click. The fact that this relies on however many clicks it takes to find the source and have both source and destination window on screen is not relevant. But that's my point: you cannot just be vague about this because someone *will* take your words and use them against you

So, when you say 'one click uploading' what the hell do you actually mean? How do you refine it from 'drag and drop here' or 'click browse, find file, press upload'? Or is that part not the part you have a problem with, and it's the post-processing that needs attention? (This matters because it affects what work is potentially needed)

They're not dreams and wishes, they're entirely achievable, they just need to be realistic and realistically unless you want to make 2.1 be even later, they can't be in 2.1. But they're certainly candidates for improvement in 2.2.

I get why you might want resizing on the server - to save space. I get why you might want to push everything out to S3 for storage. But we also have to be realistic about building features that only a minority of people could use (because S3 might not be viable for many users; it will also inevitably lead to people wanting Azure and similar storage choices), and honestly I don't think people understand just how involved that *really* starts to get. I know because I do this kind of thing professionally on scales that scare people; I have one site that I manage currently moving 300GB of files over to S3 (and no, that wasn't a typo, they really do have three hundred gigabytes of files), and that gets... complicated for many many reasons.

It might seem like resizing to a max size is probably not a huge feature though it gets complicated when we support GD and multiple connectors for ImageMagick which all have to be done in different ways - and then people will want all the tooling as well to resize all existing attachments to the new setup. Which will naturally need to cope with those unusual sites that have thousands and thousands of files, so it needs to be able to resume where it left off and do it in chunks. Which is no longer 'just add a resize instruction' but probably several days of full time work.

[ModelBoatMayhem]

I actually haven't used such sites too much in the last 15 years, unless you count Github, bug trackers, mailing lists, and support forums of big corporations, which are mostly glorified text-only mailing-lists with a web UI (and always terrible to use).

That says a Lot!   

"In 2019, it is estimated that there will be around 2.77 billion social media users around the globe, up from 2.46 billion in 2017. Social network penetration worldwide is ever-increasing. In 2017, 71 percent of internet users were social network users and these figures are expected to grow."

especially when you want to do [image uploading, or benefit from image uploading enhancements] without posting text in your "forum", is exactly what mods should do."

I don't even know what that means?!?

You didn't specifiy how this one-click uploading should work and where your starting point was. I assumed you meant from "I'm currently viewing the topic, and I only want to upload images, (mostly) without postling text", hence the steps outlined above. Maybe you meant from "I've already clicked 'Reply' and typed my answer", in which case we currently have only three clicks.
If you really find these three clicks unbearable, go look for a Modification package, because (as Arantor has explained much better as I did) you're probably hugely over-estimating the importance that other forum users put on images, which are a side note in most forums.
 
 

Please see statics above.
Different platforms and target audience maybe .... but how did they get so big...... by making things SO EASY that it's actually intuitive.
   
"If you really find these three clicks unbearable, go look for a Modification package..."
But it's not just that, is it,  It's the re sizing that SO MANY users seem to struggle with.
Of course I could open up the the server to allow any size images but who can afford that kind of server space if they are running SMF?!
( Incidentally, I did do that in the early days, circa 2003,  after uploads of 8Gb of images in the first year SMF broke, crashed the DB and my VPS was blocked until I gave them a lot of money! )
If it's only me crying out for 'One Click uploads', ( or "Simple Image upload" an approved MOD that also broke SMF! ), so be it, as you infer, maybe I've outgrown SMF target demographic.... 

NB: Incidentally, I'm currently using Chevereto... but after sales support can be .... temperamental!   
 
 
 
 
 

[ModelBoatMayhem]

It might seem like resizing to a max size is probably not a huge feature though it gets complicated when we support GD and multiple connectors for ImageMagick which all have to be done in different ways - and then people will want all the tooling as well to resize all existing attachments to the new setup. Which will naturally need to cope with those unusual sites that have thousands and thousands of files, so it needs to be able to resume where it left off and do it in chunks. Which is no longer 'just add a resize instruction' but probably several days of full time work.

 

Please don't take this as criticism of ANYONE associated with the coding of SMF, I think you are doing a sterling job as you are doing it as hobby not a day job, many personal thanks.
SMF has always been a friend to me, especially as it's "free"..... I  just have concerns for it's future.

[Arantor]

I'm just trying to be realistic about what that would need to support what you're asking of it - but reiterating that it isn't criticism is somewhat disingenuous, because it is still criticism as 'it doesn't do this thing that I really want it to do', even if it isn't really negative.

Honestly, I get your use case, but I would respectfully suggest that it was never intended as a major feature in SMF the way you're using it. That's not to say SMF can't support your needs but a picture-first forum is not what SMF was designed to do at all; its core was always text optionally supported by pictures - consider even the very fact they're called *attachments*, as attached to something rather than the main feature.

Have you outgrown SMF's target demographic? Possibly - because the original target was posts of text. Does that mean SMF can't support you? Not at all, it just means that unfortunately what you want (and need) probably shouldn't be SMF's most pressing improvements. But that doesn't mean SMF can't be improved to support what you want - it just means it has to be balanced alongside other needs and considerations, and some of those are 'effort of implementation', and nothing can fix that other than time and effort being applied.

It's a lot different if there were a company that could be engaged to support this with financial contributions - I work for an open source company, we normally support open source platforms like Moodle and Mahara, but I will raise the debate to see if we can provide support as crowdfunded developers. The only downside is that if that were a thing, I somehow doubt I'd be able to convince the powers that be to let me do it at less than cost price, so to fund a week's worth of development from one person is something like $4400 USD (excl. taxes). But if there was a serious willingness from the community to engage in that, and accelerate development, I can certainly see if my company can help.

Why do I point this out? Right now, the core dev team is solely volunteers, and that means their paying work in whatever format has to come first. I think it gets complicated if the project itself has to find ways to pay developers, but a third party might be able to make it happen - and if this were viable on some level, imagine what could be done with a week's funded dev time. 40 hours of dev by someone who does PHP all day long, doing nothing else, would be able to achieve quite a lot.

[Irisado]

'The "we" is the 7,000+ members of my Forum.

Is it though?  Have you received a written response from every single individual member of your forum which says that they all want this feature?  If you haven't you cannot claim that 7,000+ members want it because 7,000+ members have not stated that they want it.
 

v2.1 - Only geeks ( like me ) want to resize photos for uploading!

How do you know?  Have you asked everyone in the whole world?  How do you define a geek?

Everyone else wants / Expects 'Single Click' photo uploads

Again, how do you know what everyone wants?  Have you asked every single person in the whole world who uses forum software?

You are overgeneralising and making assumptions without having the evidence to support what you are saying.  Any argument that relies on the premise that 'everyone wants x' is patently false because there's no way that the sweeping statement 'everyone wants x' can be supported by evidence.

In my opinion, what you are really saying is 'I want this'.  That's fair enough.  You are entitled to make feature requests and to have your say.  Please just avoid dressing it up as something it is not though by trying to claim that 'everyone wants this' when you cannot possibly claim to know that.

[Arantor]

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence over a number of years both here and elsewhere to support the basis that it is *far* more than just ModelBoatMayhem that wants a better user experience (fewer clicks/easier to use) and features like resizing etc. I vehemently dislike that you've reduced the argument from 'all the people on one site' to '1 person wants this' simply because you don't have the evidence at hand to realise it's the case. You really, really didn't need to labour the point, nor counter-argue for a position that is almost as fallacious as the one you claim in the start of your post. I also suspect that no amount of evidence would be sufficient for you either, having seen previous debates.

The reality is vastly more complicated than argument by reduction, and it's a weird day when I'm actually arguing in favour of adding core features to a platform that I've long argued has too many features and choices, so... yeah.

[Gwenwyfar]

Also, what does 'one click uploading' even mean? I literally do not understand how to do one click uploading in ANY platform. Every single platform I can think of requires a flat minimum of 2-3 clicks to do anything (yes, that includes Facebook). As for resizing, I'd strongly make that configurable rather than the default, there are plenty of times when I've uploaded large images with the intention of them NOT being resized and been frustrated when platforms do resize them, but those are cases you don't run into like sharing large structure diagrams of systems that have hundreds of tables. Just saying - if we support your use case, we have to support mine too as mine is just as important to me as yours is to you.

 
 
"what does 'one click uploading' even mean?" - Semantics,  no need to be pedantic.   
 
Yes, resizing, reformatting  & storage options would be a must.
 
..... ah well, dreams and wishes!..... sigh.   


 

I also still have no idea what you mean with this. Maybe if you made an attempt to explain, we would.

Resizing however is what I was thinking about in my reply, because just a few users sharing photos of some 4mb each add up to a lot of space very quickly and it's hard to convince them to resize it. Then you also have that they might upload it from their phones where resizing can be even more of a pain to do. There are many situations where resizing can be useful.

Honestly thought, for my particular use case attachment limits per file type would also have worked, but since there is already a system to resize avatars I imagine it would not have to be built from scratch for attachments.