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Images and Image storage

Started by airdave, September 30, 2019, 01:08:52 PM

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airdave

I'm looking for advice or opinions on how to handle images on my forum.

I have a quiet forum...600 members, but really only about 1-2 dozen regularly active posters.
So the load is not impressive.

I post a lot of images myself, but I direct link to images stored at mediafire.
Its a forum for and about scale models, so photo images are quite essential to discussion.

My forum was originally hosted on a friend's webspace, so I had limited disk storage (1.5Gb).
While the forum itself only used about a third of the diskspace, I knew that allowing image attachments could eat up that storage real quick
So, for 8 years I have pushed my members to use external image storage and direct linking in their posts.
For the last 3 years, I installed an add-on image thing that allowed you to add images directly into your posts but with remote storage
(It worked intermittently it seemed, images were slow to load, and some people reported security warnings)

Now that I have moved my forum to my own webhosting, and have more storage space available (10Gb), I am rethinking allowing image attachments.

But I am unsure of how much space this would occupy and whether its a smart thing to do.
Does anyone have any idea of what amount of my disk storage will be swallowed up by member's attachments (specifically jpeg images).

Or, should I install an Image hosting add-on? and if so, which one works best?

Or, should I leave it as "no image attachments" and continue to push the external storage/direct linking option?

Your thoughts?

vbgamer45

I prefer using your own space for image storage. The issue with third parties is they tend to come and go and you can loose images. And most webhosting plans today offer a lot of space.
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peterbehlendorf

I generally use imgur for hotlinking, it's been used by reddit for years and I don't see them blocking it anytime soon.

Maybe silently allow attachments so that a good portion of your user base continue to upload elsewhere?

Sir Osis of Liver

Quote from: vbgamer45 on September 30, 2019, 02:03:23 PM
I prefer using your own space for image storage. The issue with third parties is they tend to come and go and you can loose images. And most webhosting plans today offer a lot of space.

^ This.  The many photobucket images on your forum are blurred with a watermark over them, basically useless due to a change in photobucket's usage policy.  You have plenty of host storage for your forum.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

shadav

Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on October 02, 2019, 12:50:40 AM
Quote from: vbgamer45 on September 30, 2019, 02:03:23 PM
I prefer using your own space for image storage. The issue with third parties is they tend to come and go and you can loose images. And most webhosting plans today offer a lot of space.

^ This.  The many photobucket images on your forum are blurred with a watermark over them, basically useless due to a change in photobucket's usage policy.  You have plenty of host storage for your forum.
and you can use smush.it on attached images to help lower the file sizes as well, there's a mod for it ;)

Tricky-Ricky

I would say if you have 10gb of storage host the images yourself like vbgamer45 image hosts are to unreliable opening and closing all the time along with pointless link backs and watermarks can well make your forum look untidy

airdave

yes...thanks.

I will not add any more of the image apps, since I agree they are too unreliable.
Annoying ads, sometimes the links don't work, and sometimes the sites are down completely.

I will continue to push the idea of remote hosting images and using direct links to include images in posts.
This has always been my request and recommendation to all my members.
This is what I still personally do (my images are all stored at mediafire).

But, since my forum is extremely slow (activity wise) I have decided to turn on the image attachment feature
and I will monitor the amount of storage it uses in the first year.
I don't think its going to be a problem as long as file sizes are kept down.
I have set limits for attachments...and added explanations on how to reduce image file sizes.
I've even recommended a simple image resizer.



Sir Osis of Liver

I use this mod on one of my forums, it resizes attachments to specified width/height and saves the resized image file.  Saves a lot of space, and allows uploading images directly from phones without having to resize them.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

GL700Wing

Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on November 13, 2019, 09:56:40 PM
I use this mod on one of my forums, it resizes attachments to specified width/height and saves the resized image file.  Saves a lot of space, and allows uploading images directly from phones without having to resize them.
I use the Automatic Attachment Rotation (and Resize) mod on all my forums - in addition to automatically rotating images (a big bonus for photos taken with smart phones) it also has more advanced image resizing than the Resize Attached Images mod (which hasn't been updated in more than 6 years/since SMF 2.0.4).

This is the list of packages I install (and this is the order I install them in to ensure there are no installation errors) for attaching/viewing images in posts and PMs:

New Hooks
Custom View of Attachments
Highslide Image Viewer
PM Attachments
Improved Attachment Error Handling
Post and PM Inline Attachments
Image Processing Memory Limit
Automatic Attachment Rotation (and Resize)
Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful ...

airdave

#9
I appreciate the input here.
Thanks Sir...looking at that mod right now.

Thanks GL.
...but, 8 mods just for Image handling?

Doesn't so many mods result in conflicts and errors?

I have no problem looking into these...in fact I am going to check them all out right now.
But it concerns me (probably needlessly) to see so many mods just for the same problem.
(Keeping in mind, I currently have no members actively posting! lol)

This isnt a priority thing...I'm just trying to head off any future worries.
If the forum ever does become an active place, and people want to start posting attachments, I don't want to be slammed.

.........
Okay...re your list of Mods...

New Hooks...searched, no result, can't find it.
Custom View of Attachments...searched, no result, can't find it.
Highslide Image Viewer...not sure I want this mod.
PM Attachments...not interested.
Improved Attachment Error Handling...probably beyond the needs of my forum.
Post and PM Inline Attachments...again, probably beyond the needs of my forum.
Image Processing Memory Limit...I'll wait to see how many images are being posted. I have a feeling loads will be very low.
Automatic Attachment Rotation (and Resize)...this looks like what I want to use.

GL700Wing

Quote from: airdave on November 14, 2019, 09:17:30 AM
Thanks GL.
...but, 8 mods just for Image handling?

Doesn't so many mods result in conflicts and errors?
No - and I have these mods running on three different production forums which between them have 5,000 members (largest forum has 2,800 members) and 22,500 attachments (largest forum has 11,700 attachments).

QuoteBut it concerns me (probably needlessly) to see so many mods just for the same problem.
These mods do different things but together they enable image thumbnails to be displayed horizontally (rather than vertically) at the bottom of a post (particularly useful on mobile devices), the use of a pop-up image viewer, the sending of attachments via PM, the ability to insert attachments into a post/PM rather than just having them displayed as thumbnails at the bottom and the automatic rotating/resizing of images.

Quote.........
Okay...re your list of Mods...

New Hooks...searched, no result, can't find it.
Custom View of Attachments...searched, no result, can't find it.
Highslide Image Viewer...not sure I want this mod.
PM Attachments...not interested.
Improved Attachment Error Handling...probably beyond the needs of my forum.
Post and PM Inline Attachments...again, probably beyond the needs of my forum.
Image Processing Memory Limit...I'll wait to see how many images are being posted. I have a feeling loads will be very low.
Automatic Attachment Rotation (and Resize)...this looks like what I want to use.
Links to mods ...

New Hooks - https://dragomano.ru/lessons/add-custom-hooks5
Custom View of Attachments - https://dragomano.ru/mods/custom-view-of-attachments
Highslide Image Viewer - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1450
PM Attachments - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1974
Improved Attachment Error Handling - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3255
Post and PM Inline Attachments - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=3770
Image Processing Memory Limit - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=4111
Automatic Attachment Rotation (and Resize) - https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=4087

Forgot to mention I also use this tip/trick to control the size of images displayed in posts/PMs using CSS: Auto resizing of images in posts, etc by CSS
Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful ...

Tricky-Ricky

I find it a little strange that smf still does not have an image upload system like most of the big players in this day. I think for most forums its a must people want to see the content and to be honest a forum full of image host images is a turn off.

Arantor

Quote from: Tricky-Ricky on November 14, 2019, 08:25:34 PM
I find it a little strange that smf still does not have an image upload system like most of the big players in this day. I think for most forums its a must people want to see the content and to be honest a forum full of image host images is a turn off.

Sure it does, it's called "attachments".

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