Wedge
Public area => The Pub => Features => Topic started by: dwx on July 7th, 2012, 02:25 PM
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While I've been waiting for you guys to finish Wedge, I've been struggling along with vbulletin 4.2. One of the many things they don't handle well is thumbnail generation, and I found a cool library called "Jcrop" that combines some jquery and php code to intuitively allow users to select an area of a photo to generate a thumbnail.
The code could also be used to resize and select an area of a photo to use as an avatar. Or for any other purpose where there is a size restriction and the user must decide what part of the image to show.
It's released under MIT's open source license, so I think it's free for you to use. Or at the very least, you maybe you'll find inspiration here. :P
Here's a link to "Deep Liquid's" website with the Jcrop code and demo: http://deepliquid.com/projects/Jcrop/demos.php?demo=live_crop
I know that the same effect can be achieved by uploading a custom thumbnail at the same time the photo is being uploaded, but Jcrop is a LOT easier, and would allow the wedge admin to specify the size and shape of the thumbnails.
dwx
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Interesting, very interesting.
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A ruby equivalent was around at the time I worked on AeMe and I actually had a to do entry to implement a Js+Php clone. Jcrop I found out about after I ended work on AeMe though. I think. Or an equivalent.
It is true that I haven't reevaluated this when including AeMe into wedge. Perhaps I should.
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A ruby equivalent was around at the time I worked on AeMe and I actually had a to do entry to implement a Js+Php clone. Jcrop I found out about after I ended work on AeMe though. I think. Or an equivalent.
It is true that I haven't reevaluated this when including AeMe into wedge. Perhaps I should.
I figured that Jcrop code would be more useful as an inspiration than anything else, and by the time you were through rewriting it, it would be 4 lines of code and compress down to 12 bytes! :D
The other thing I've been thinking Jcrop would be useful for is an intermediate sized "preview" image. A smaller subsection of the full image that could be used for an inline preview within the text of a post. Or even with the post text wrapped around the preview image. :cool:This would allow posts to look more like full-on blog entries.
dwx
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I figured that Jcrop code would be more useful as an inspiration than anything else, and by the time you were through rewriting it, it would be 4 lines of code and compress down to 12 bytes! :D
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I figured that Jcrop code would be more useful as an inspiration than anything else, and by the time you were through rewriting it, it would be 4 lines of code and compress down to 12 bytes! :D
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Well... technically all the Wedge JS becomes one line ;)
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but not 12 bytes :P
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Just a joke, since both Nao and Arantor are both quite skilled at optimization. :P
Uniform thumbnail size is a feature that really improves the "look" of a gallery, or even an embedded "gallery" attached to a post. Their are a lot of ways to do this, but when I found Jcrop, I realized it was a good way to make relevant thumbnails quickly and simply, and a better alternative to overcropping the center of the image to the minor axis to create a thumbnail.
First of all, when I worked on AeMe, as I said I found out about a library to do cropping, but it was written in Ruby. Of course some of it was JS so I considered converting it to clearly use JS+PHP, it was actually in my to-do-list with a high priority. I also found out about Jcrop a few months after that. Anyway, what happened is that I try to fix bugs before adding major features, and I was at a point where I was considering dropping my work on AeMe to focus on non-SMF stuff, so I naturally never implemented that.
Secondly, and I think it's more important, the main reason I didn't implement that is because I was never sure about the upload process being too long already. I wanted to make it simpler, not more complicated, and adding an extra step like this, while certainly helpful in most situations, is not always going to be desired especially when you're trying to turn AeMe into a "perfect gallery", something that could be used stand-alone...
So, my plans were to use it only when requested -- i.e. keep the main file around, generate thumbnails and previews, and then if the user wanted, they could go to the item page, click a "Edit picture" button or something, and have the choice to (1) rotate the picture (and related thumbnail and preview), (2) resize and/or crop the picture, (3) crop the thumbnail or preview based on the stored picture.
I'm NOT very good at implementing good UI (it always takes me weeks to do that when others could do it in days), so at that point it became a low-priority item, even though it was officially high-priority. It's mainly because of UX (user experience), which I wanted to be 'perfect'.
Now, I'm still considering dropping attachments altogether from Wedge, and using AeMe instead. But first of all I'll need to fix some bugs (and even before that, try to spot them all), then work on a parallel implement of attachments vs uploads, and finally get rid of the attachment system and have someone develop a converter (or do it myself within Wedge...)
It's not an easy task, let me tell you. And it's not helpful that none of us is being paid for it...I figured that Jcrop code would be more useful as an inspiration than anything else, and by the time you were through rewriting it, it would be 4 lines of code and compress down to 12 bytes! :D
The other thing I've been thinking Jcrop would be useful for is an intermediate sized "preview" image. A smaller subsection of the full image that could be used for an inline preview within the text of a post.
As a reminder, AeMe has pictures (limited size but usually large), previews (usually 600x400 or something, for use on item pages) and thumbnails (usually 150x100 or something, for use on album pages). Depending on the type of preview (site homepage or blog), I'd automatically attach the thumbnail (on the left of the text preview) or preview (on top of the text preview, or in a carousel for instance).
Don't believe that just because it isn't in Wedge yet, I haven't thought about it a lot already ;)
Just check out http://nao.noisen.com for an example of how I want Wedge blogs to look like. And ideally I want to simply take the first graphic element in each post, get their thumbnail and offer this as post preview in smaller post lists. (eg site homepage, of which I currently have no example for you, except on sites I'm not related to.)
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Secondly, and I think it's more important, the main reason I didn't implement that is because I was never sure about the upload process being too long already. I wanted to make it simpler, not more complicated, and adding an extra step like this, while certainly helpful in most situations, is not always going to be desired especially when you're trying to turn AeMe into a "perfect gallery", something that could be used stand-alone...
So, my plans were to use it only when requested -- i.e. keep the main file around, generate thumbnails and previews, and then if the user wanted, they could go to the item page, click a "Edit picture" button or something, and have the choice to (1) rotate the picture (and related thumbnail and preview), (2) resize and/or crop the picture, (3) crop the thumbnail or preview based on the stored picture.
I'm NOT very good at implementing good UI (it always takes me weeks to do that when others could do it in days), so at that point it became a low-priority item, even though it was officially high-priority. It's mainly because of UX (user experience), which I wanted to be 'perfect'.
(http://wedge.org/pub/feats/7508/very-cool-thumbnail-generation/do/dlattach/?attach=3836;image)
I've attached a screen shot, but you can see it shows a large-ish preview that can name, add a description, add geotagging, add individual photo descriptions, add tags, and set the read access permissions. This would be a great place to add Jcrop style selection of the thumbnails, it would be especially easy if the thumbnail size was selected at the top along with the album name. Then thumbnailing would be as quick as dragging open a box on each preview (as seen in the 150x150 fixed ratio thumbnail selection in the Jcrop demo(http://deepliquid.com/projects/Jcrop/demos.php?demo=live_crop)). There's a real benefit to adopting a UI that's similar to facebook's UI, not only do you get the benefit from their design refinements, but the users are already know how to use it!Now, I'm still considering dropping attachments altogether from Wedge, and using AeMe instead. But first of all I'll need to fix some bugs (and even before that, try to spot them all), then work on a parallel implement of attachments vs uploads, and finally get rid of the attachment system and have someone develop a converter (or do it myself within Wedge...)
It's not an easy task, let me tell you. And it's not helpful that none of us is being paid for it...
The other thing I've been thinking Jcrop would be useful for is an intermediate sized "preview" image. A smaller subsection of the full image that could be used for an inline preview within the text of a post.
As a reminder, AeMe has pictures (limited size but usually large), previews (usually 600x400 or something, for use on item pages) and thumbnails (usually 150x100 or something, for use on album pages). Depending on the type of preview (site homepage or blog), I'd automatically attach the thumbnail (on the left of the text preview) or preview (on top of the text preview, or in a carousel for instance).
Don't believe that just because it isn't in Wedge yet, I haven't thought about it a lot already ;)
Just check out http://nao.noisen.com(http://nao.noisen.com/) for an example of how I want Wedge blogs to look like. And ideally I want to simply take the first graphic element in each post, get their thumbnail and offer this as post preview in smaller post lists. (eg site homepage, of which I currently have no example for you, except on sites I'm not related to.)