Image Hosting is back

[dodgechargerfan]

All the pics are there.

The existing thumbnails are over sized for the template - at the moment.
I'm working on that. it's a small thing that I just need time to locate.
once I track that down, I can rebuild the current thumbnails to fit better.

New thumbnails should be rendered fine. There is an error message that is generated at the top, but it still works.

But I figure it's not worth keeping the feature closed up. It's still very usable - especially for new pics.

To access: click the menu item at the top.. and then there are more menu choices just below... like upload. That's a pretty good one to have....

 

[dodgechargerfan]

Thumbs are rebuilt now.

A few images generated errors related to the image files themselves. So, if you have an image that has an oversized thumbnail, that file was problematic for the thumbnail generator.

I wouldn't worry about it at all.

If the wonky thumbnail bothers you, delete the image and re-upload it - but you'll likely have to go back to the thread where you originally posted the image (if you did that) and update the link to the image.
Or not, it's up to you. The images probably still work just fine.

Also, the layout for viewing the images that you uploaded (and when viewing others images) has changed. I think for the better. There's more images per page - 27 at the moment, and depending on the size and shape of the image, you get the linking code right under the thumbnail. Bigger thumbnails push the linking code out of the frame so click the image and you get the links on the full size view.

 

[dodgechargerfan]

So, how is this different than the Albums, you ask?

Glad you asked. It's not much different really.
The reason we have this is because it was available before the board software itself had albums.
This was the only way to give you guys a way to dump images right here on the board and then be able to easily link them in to your posts.

Now that we have albums, this is a little bit redundant.

However, I like vBImageHost for hosting "shtuff" and albums for hosting car stuff.
"Shtuff" being funny pics or other stuff that might be handy to have "linkable" in order to use it in several posts.

Here's a peek under the beanie:
If I have a pic that is relative to one post - like pics from a for sale ad that I found while cruising kijiji, craigslist, ebay , etc. - I'll just add it to the post as an attachment
If I have a funny pic that I might use over and over again, I'll put it in vBImageHost and then I'll always be able to gon in there and grab the link code to use in any posts. It's always in there under my images. So, I can always find it.
If I have a pic of my car(s) that I want to share - and have show up in the banner at the top of the forum home page, I put it in the albums.


So ,with that stuff in mind, one might be thinking, "Do we really need both vBImageHosting AND albums? Couldn't we just combine the two?"

The short answer is yes. There's even a converter in the works to transfer the images in vBImageHost over to the albums system. Pretty cool.
I've asked the developers for some specific features. Most notably, I don't want the images that get transferred from vBImageHost to show up in the banner - at least not by default.
That means making the images private by default (I think. I've only looked at this for about 5 minutes in total). If there are some good pics that you would like to see up in the banner, then you just need to make them public in your album.
We'll cover the specific details of that when the time comes.

I'm open to thoughts on whether to keep the systems separate or not. It works for me since I don't have to worry about a picture showing up in the banner if it's in vBImageHost. I like the compartmentalization. (Quick! Say it 5 times fast!!)

 

[dodgechargerfan]

"Hey DCF! What about that Garage thingy we used to have?"

Yep, it's still there, but under wraps until we get the bugs worked out.
Development hasn't been halted, but it's not advancing very fast at all, as far as I can tell.
I took a run at the code to see if I could clean it up enough to make it usable, and there's just too much for me to cover in what little time I have to spend on this stuff.

I may look at replacing the feature with something similar if someone comes out with a solution that will convert what we already have in place.
There are some great ones out there, but none of them matter until there's an importer to transfer our current content.

Until then, know that the pics and bios are still here. You just cant' see them.