Problems with the painful procedure for placing pictures...

[doctorwayne]

It would appear that the KB limit is the determining factor if a picture will fit in the Gallery - I just now re-sized a number of pictures to 2,000x1,500 but the KB size was 475. The only way that I could find to reduce that was to further re-size the pixel dimensions of the picture (and it seems to be pretty much hit-or-miss thing as far as the resultant KB size is concerned). I selected 800x600, and ended up with a size of 60.7KB, which went into the Gallery just fine.
I did, however, discover (and discoveries like this almost don't even surprise me anymore) that I could exceed the 100 picture per subalbum limit - I had 94 pictures in my "Locomotive" sub-album, so was offered on six upload windows. The fifth picture which I was trying to upload, however, was too big, so I got the "Your file it too large" message (for some reason, that message always gives me a bit of a thrill ). After re-sizing the offender, I proceeded to upload the 6 original pictures, which were accepted. Upon viewing the sub album, I discovered a total of 104 pictures therein - it turns out that the first four photos from my initial attempt were accepted, before the fifth image was rejected for being too large. For some reason, I was still offered 6 upload windows for my second attempt, resulting in the total being 4 images over the limit. Just as odd as this, after deleting the duplicates, I attempted to upload another batch to the same sub-album, only to be told that I had reached the limit.
So, in summary, the limit per sub-album is still 100, which is workable as long as we can get rid of the cap on the number of sub-albums. And the KB size of the picture seems to be the determining factor in deciding whether or not the Gallery will accept a photograph, as, in my attempts at least, all pictures anywhere near the pixel dimension limit far exceeded the KB limit.

Wayne

[Spitfire]

Okay, I thought that originally we were planning to be able to upload pictures directly to the Gauge's server. In fact I thought that was one of the main reasons to spend money on a dedicated server as opposed to using one of the free forum sites out there.

Now I find we are having to link to pictures hosted remotely. Okay, I have my own server space, and although that adds an extra step to the posting process, I can live with it.

However, since photo's are posted remotely, i see NO REASON for any limitations on file size. There should be none of that squeezing or cropping going on. The only reason for placing a limit on pic size is if they are being hosted here at the Gauge. Which they're not.

If this is going to operate with the same restrictions as there are at a FREE forum, than what was the point spending all that extra money, in which I have a vested interest, to have a dedicated server???????

Val

We can - whenever you post a picture in a post - it's going to big blue's part of the server.. not in the gallery. I just set the display size to 2000 X 2000 and the size is now 250 k (not 125 k)

Let me know (With Links Please) if this fixes or messes anything up..

I think tomustang is right though - this may be something in the programming of the board itself. And were here ona private server so we don't have slowdowns for picture loading and page loading during peak hours, and also for pat's help in coding all this,. If Don & I were doing this (Learning as we go) we wouldn't be open yet

We have nowhere near the time or knowledge Pat has as far as detailed coding and server operation.. and we need that whenever there is a problem.. Like this one...

And who said we "have" to link remotely, or was that the size restrictions here?? I may have just fixed that

Let me know if anything is wrong.. With links!!! We really NEED to see what the problems are.....

Thanks!!!!!!!

Hey Mikey

I posted 2 photo's here: http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=535

They are hosted on my own server (Parkdale Yard) and should look like this:
http://www.parkdaleyard.com/houses4.jpg
http://www.parkdaleyard.com/houses5.jpg

When I first posted the photos in the Scratchpad, the forum software was cropping off the right side of the photo. Now, it is horizaontally compressing the photo instead.

I have a lot of photo's I would like to post here. They're already uploaded to my server, so I wasn't expecting to have any problems. I really don't have the time to open them all up in Photoshop and re-size them to fit what seems to be changing parameters anyway.

I have a suggestion. First, it makes sense to have a size restriction on any photo's that are uploaded directly to the Gauge servers - ie the Gallery section. I would suggest that you make it 600 x 400 or 800 x 600 - standard sizes on Photobucket.

For photo's that are remotely hosted, there should be no size restrictions.

You mentioned that bigger photos mean there may be complaints from some people about having to scroll. So, to accommodate this possibility, it actually means that I have to spend hours re-sizing and re-uploading all my images just because a few people can't be bothered to scroll!!!! And this isn't even a real issue yet, just something you anticipate. It hardly seems fair to me.

cheers
Val

[jmarksbery]

I have noticed that on some pictures with a scroll bar from side to side and up and down that if I click on them they will fit the page full size with no bars, I thought that rather nice.

[ngauger]

I have noticed that on some pictures with a scroll bar from side to side and up and down that if I click on them they will fit the page full size with no bars, I thought that rather nice.

Where???? That's what we're trying to figure out... please post a link. And I still like the avatar!! ROFL!!!!!

[jmarksbery]

For example the last picture posted on the Mogollon in the Layout forum had scroll bars, I clicked on it and it was full shot!
Don't ask me, I don't have a problem with that. I thought it was neat.

[ngauger]

For example the last picture posted on the Mogollon in the Layout forum had scroll bars, I clicked on it and it was full shot!
Don't ask me, I don't have a problem with that. I thought it was neat.

Ok - that image is just tall .. That's fine that it's adding scroll bars. I like the full size when you click it too!! Nice!! LOL Now, all we have to do is see if the board frame can be turned off and allow for wider pics..... Thanks for your help!!!!!

[ngauger]

Hey Mikey

I posted 2 photo's here: http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=535

They are hosted on my own server (Parkdale Yard) and should look like this:
http://www.parkdaleyard.com/houses4.jpg
http://www.parkdaleyard.com/houses5.jpg

When I first posted the photos in the Scratchpad, the forum software was cropping off the right side of the photo. Now, it is horizaontally compressing the photo instead.

I have a lot of photo's I would like to post here. They're already uploaded to my server, so I wasn't expecting to have any problems. I really don't have the time to open them all up in Photoshop and re-size them to fit what seems to be changing parameters anyway.

I have a suggestion. First, it makes sense to have a size restriction on any photo's that are uploaded directly to the Gauge servers - ie the Gallery section. I would suggest that you make it 600 x 400 or 800 x 600 - standard sizes on Photobucket.

For photo's that are remotely hosted, there should be no size restrictions.

You mentioned that bigger photos mean there may be complaints from some people about having to scroll. So, to accommodate this possibility, it actually means that I have to spend hours re-sizing and re-uploading all my images just because a few people can't be bothered to scroll!!!! And this isn't even a real issue yet, just something you anticipate. It hardly seems fair to me.

cheers
Val

That's just it Val, We're only changing the settings to allow for larger sizes, not smaller, we're relaxing our original tight restrictions, although, I'm going to have to ask Pat if we can go to half a gig

The pictures you point to, I see - They were proportionately resized so their width would fit inside the "frame" of the boards, I agree, there should be some way to post them full size...(make the board stretch horizontally)!!!!

My original thought was that the board was actually shrinking the width and leaving the height intact, which would produce a vertically stretched image, and would not be viewable, so I'm glad it's proportionately shrinking them, at least.

I set the dimensions to 2000 x 2000 so anyone "can" post here from photobucket for example, so we have no real size restrictions, I also turned off the thumbnails - same reason. Don, Pat & I want everyone to be content when they visit Big Blue.

We really are trying to listen to everyone's issues and repair them, but this may be something built in to the board's design, so we may not be able to fix it.. and this would be the same issue, whatever server we were hosted on, since it seems to be in the coding of the board..

Something that I'm at a loss to explain, because some designer had to purposely do that. There must have been a lot of complaints about scrolling on the last version to give them the idea to change it.

I only hope Pat can find a fix for it... We'll have to wait and see.... But for now at least he fixed the cropping problem, the pictures look good, even though they are reduced.

~~~ Thanks!

[doctorwayne]

I have noticed that on some pictures with a scroll bar from side to side and up and down that if I click on them they will fit the page full size with no bars, I thought that rather nice.

Where???? That's what we're trying to figure out... please post a link. And I still like the avatar!! ROFL!!!!!

To perhaps add to the confusion, my pictures HERE are in our Gallery (and placed there before you increased the size restrictions), but, on my screen, have the right side of the image cut-off. While there's no scroll bar showing, clicking on the image gives a view of the complete picture.

Wayne

[ngauger]

yeah - same here.. It's almost cut in half, because of my resolution, no doubt I'll let him know.... Thanks!!

[Spitfire]

The pictures you point to, I see - They were proportionately resized so their width would fit inside the "frame" of the boards, I agree, there should be some way to post them full size...(make the board stretch horizontally)!!!!

Mikey, I don't know what's happening on your computer, but on mine they are NOT proportionally scaled. They are, as I said above, compressed horizontally. You keep saying "enlarged vertically" and I'll grant you that's how it looks, but it's actually horizontal compression. What I'm seeing is that the height of the image is correct, but the width has been squeezed making everything appear tall and narrow.

Update: I've just gone back to look at my test images, and now we're back to the right side of the image being cropped.

BTW, I know this all sounds very negative, but I'm very appreciative of all the effort you're putting into this!!!!

cheers
Val

[doctorwayne]

This may be something that's not do-able within the Forum software, but would it be possible (and desireable) to place the posters bio info (from the left margin), the post sub-heading (Re: Problems with...), and the "EDIT", "QUOTE" buttons, etc. in a separate bar at the top of each post? This would free-up the entire page width for text and/or photos, and would also serve to further differentiate one post from the ones preceding and following it. Of course, I don't know if this will help with the picture width problem or not, but it may be something to consider.

Wayne

[ngauger]

This may be something that's not do-able within the Forum software, but would it be possible (and desireable) to place the posters bio info (from the left margin), the post sub-heading (Re: Problems with...), and the "EDIT", "QUOTE" buttons, etc. in a separate bar at the top of each post? This would free-up the entire page width for text and/or photos, and would also serve to further differentiate one post from the ones preceding and following it. Of course, I don't know if this will help with the picture width problem or not, but it may be something to consider.

Wayne

Don & I discussed this when we started the board, we didn't want to have "everything" in between the posts - it's too distracting when you have to read a bunch of posts in a thread...

And - no - I don't think it would help or change the problem with the pictures... Thanks for trying to help though..

[ngauger]

The pictures you point to, I see - They were proportionately resized so their width would fit inside the "frame" of the boards, I agree, there should be some way to post them full size...(make the board stretch horizontally)!!!!

Mikey, I don't know what's happening on your computer, but on mine they are NOT proportionally scaled. They are, as I said above, compressed horizontally. You keep saying "enlarged vertically" and I'll grant you that's how it looks, but it's actually horizontal compression. What I'm seeing is that the height of the image is correct, but the width has been squeezed making everything appear tall and narrow.

Update: I've just gone back to look at my test images, and now we're back to the right side of the image being cropped.

BTW, I know this all sounds very negative, but I'm very appreciative of all the effort you're putting into this!!!!

cheers
Val

Wow!! Ok - all 3 pictures look fine (Mozilla 800 X 600) the ones that are posted here just look smaller than the direct linked ones.. That's strange that it's being stretched on your computer though... I also checked at the higher resolutions - made no difference....

[Spitfire]

Wow!! Ok - all 3 pictures look fine (Mozilla 800 X 600) the ones that are posted here just look smaller than the direct linked ones.. That's strange that it's being
stretched on your computer though... I also checked at the higher resolutions - made no difference....

No no no!! They are not being stretched!!!! They were being squeezed -- then when I looked earlier today they were being cropped. Now, I just checked again and they're back to being squeezed. As in made narrower, compressed horizontally, squished along the lateral axis......

I've sent you an email with screenshots since we seem to be talking in circles here.

cheers
Val

[MasonJar]

Hi Val,

If it is any help, I see your photos in the test thread (moderator's scratchpad forum) and they appear fine in terms of no compression (or stretching...!). Right click-properties reveals "houses4.jpg" is 1152x572 pixels, and approximately 175K. "houses5.jpg" is 1152x569 pixels, and ~165K.

My screen is set to 1024x768, so I get a horizontal scroll bar in order to see the far right end of the images.

I am looking at the pictures with MSIE 6.0.x in Windows XP Pro.

Hope that helps.

Andrew