I just added the first post in the thread and added:
For the past year or more, we've set the max image & attachment size at 6MB on the forums, with a max of 10 images per post (previous to that it was 5), and each image could have dimensions up to 20,000 pixels in any direction (thumbnails are at 150 pixels are largest size).
Today I changed max image dimensions to 2000 in any direction. Anything larger than that will get auto-resized. It might make sense to reduce this further (to something like 1000, 1080, 1200, 1280, or 1600), but let's test a bit with 2000 first.
Several people have asked about having a max file size instead (that isn't as effective for lots of reasons, plus past a max file size the system will just reject the upload). And they have asked about auto-resizing images upon upload...which I'll address in this thread...
More:
Currently resizing occurs on the server side. The current version of Xenforo is 2.2. Version 2.3 is in beta and likely to come out in the next 6 months I'd guess. The new version will attempt to move much of the resizing to the browser itself so the server doesn't have to deal with it, and is also working to allow forums to convert images to .webp format, which will make them faster loading but makes doing anything with them less user friendly with people without modern tools.
Resizing in browser:
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-image-resizing-and-more.217014/#post-1650359
WebP conversion option:
https://xenforo.com/community/threa...-image-resizing-and-more.217014/#post-1650358
Can we not have a max file size instead of resolution? Also, how about limiting it to something reasonable to cover 90% of the cases but have a separate upload option for special cases. I doubt people are uploading massive images in order to take down the server.... Also it helps encourage everything to be hosted here rather than linking to outside resources.
Max file size simply blocks the upload, which is extremely user unfriendly. Xenforo treats an image as an attachment, and attachments can be jpgs or pdfs or other things. It doesn't try to resize. It rejects. And its like the correct decision. As far as linking to outside resources... for reasons well laid out in other threads, we'll continue to slowly end support for third party image hosting.
Max length in any direction 1000px
We may get there... for today 2000px (down from 20,000px) which is a big step in the right direction.
But it shouldn't give an error when uploading, it should just resize the pic.
That's how it should work.
You could probably also default on the medium photo size upload. That way if someone needed to post something larger they could.
I posted long ago that the medium photo size should be adjusted. Right now the size options are full size gigantic and ity-bitty.
That isn't technically simple... and would involve a substantial hijacking of how Xenforo works which would create more headaches when new versions come out. If someone really needs to upload something larger, there are other places on site to do so.
I don't think we should be involved in causing another low-res dilemma. The vast majority of images on older forum posts and VAPS are already quite small for today's standards. We are in the hobby of preservation and sometimes that means preserving photos of rare things in the highest resolution possible.
That's a trade off, isn't it. Xenforo's upcoming v3.3 with webp support may give us the best of all current worlds at this time. It may allow max resolutions with smaller file size, especially with some optimizations. Few people will be trying and printing full size posters from forum posts.
For the end users (myself included), I take photos with whatever the native setting are on my phone. If I have to modify to upload, I probably won't. Ideally, we should be able to upload whatever size image, and the server should rescale if needed/necessary and/or create smaller (thumbnail) for loading within in the thread...
My thoughts exactly.
Yep, 5MB is enough
Enlargements can be linked to from a small image for big schematics etc
We are currently at 6MB so 5 isn't too much different. It's just still way too much for an average forum post image. Now most images can be resized with 98-99% of the quality and 10-25% of the file size. Unfortunately, at the moment, there isn't a great way to auto process an image unless it exceeds the image dimension limits. Again, Xenforo 3.3 might help with this, so maybe we just have to get settings 'good enough' for now.
I've been paying to use Photobucket for 20 years now. Shit on Photobucket as much as you wish. The fact remains they are one of the oldest image hosts still around. and even though their pay tiers hit a roller coaster a few years back, my image links have never broken. The point is I've been on a strict 1024x768 size for two decades and I'm not even using 20gb for over 7000 images.
When Photobucket got rid of their free plan, it broke a lot of images here. We rescued 50,000 of them that we still haven't found the time to relink to the proper posts here. The problem isn't with Photobucket, it's will all external hosting in general. The Photobucket incident was just one of many issues external hosting has caused here.
I agree with this. if you could have it auto scale down to a reasonable size, that would be great!
Maybe a time limit on larger files and auto scale them down after a week?
Interesting idea, but images less than a week old get traffic and thus are part of problem we are trying to solve here.
Why not do the Pinside solution and implement the option for users to select what size they upload from a dropdown. It also always defaults to "medium" every time you want to make a post, but it gives you the option, thus allowing users to decide if their content needs to be original res or not. (thats a really BAD explanation of how its done, so if you're not a pinside user and you don't know what im talking about, go experience it before saying its a shit idea) lol. Personally I feel like a lot (but not all) of the development and ideas on Pinside are just better than most other online forums out there.
It's an interesting idea. I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the purpose of an add-on after Xenforo 3.3 comes out. I do worry though that it also might be too much feature creep. I myself like over-engineering everything and giving users lots of options, but many times users use tools that are simpler, and giving them too many options reduces use. I'd be curious how often on Pinside people choose a non-default size on upload.
Is there no way to automatically display a reduced size version with the option of clicking for "full size" that you could add some language like "click for full size (loading time varies depending on image size), or the option to download to your computer in full size or something to that effect? I also think that limiting size of certainly images is a big step backwards but I understand the speed issues...
This would require storing not only the display size of an image, but also the 'original'. I can suggest it on the Xenforo forums and see if it gets any traction, but I'm guessing it will not.
--
There was a mention in one of the posts about some larger images not getting thumbnails properly generated. If you have a good example (or better yet, something reproducible) please let me know. Is this for current threads or historic?
--
There are addons that will auto compress and auto convert existing images on the forum. However, the main ones are written by an add-on developer that IMO has a history of buggy and problematic code. So if we ever do anything on old images, it may likely be with custom scripting.
