Advanced Photo Uploader
I wanted to talk a little bit about a new feature that will be added to Family Connections 2.2, which is very close to being finished.
Background
Some of you may already know that my family also uses Family Connections, so a lot of new features are added or changed as a direct result of something that has happened on my family site. And since I started FCMS the thing that has caused the most trouble with the site is the Photo Gallery.
About the problem
The reason the Photo Gallery causes so much trouble doesn’t really have anything to do with the Photo Gallery, but has to do with how much memory it takes to resize a large resolution photo. To save on storage/bandwidth and fit the photo neatly within the design of the site, all photos wider than 500px are resized. And nowadays that’s pretty much every digital camera, in fact, some cell phones probably produce photos larger than that.
Most web hosts these days have set a limit on the amount of memory each user can use to somewhere between 8MB and 16MB. The problem is, if you try and upload a photo from a 7 megapixel camera you will need around 34MB to resize the photo, so FCMS just outputs an error.
What are our options?
Really there isn’t anything special FCMS can do to fix this problem, the issue is with memory, not the way FCMS resizes photos. So the only two options would be to 1. increase memory or 2. resize the photos before you upload them. The problem with #1 is that not everyone can change that setting, the problem with #2 is that it adds an extra step to the process and requires additional software.
If anyone has ever used sites like Facebook to upload photos you might be wondering how they get around this problem.
Advanced Uploader to the Rescue
The solution is to use something called Java, which is a small piece of software that users will download that will allow the photos to be resized on their computer before being uploaded to FCMS. The great thing is that it’s is integrated nicely into the site and users won’t even really notice any difference.
Categories: News.
I totally agree with this solution. My family has tried to upload a few full-sized photos to the site and it just creates a problem…throwing off the css and unable to create thumbnails. It is difficult to find a comprehensive solution to the photo gallery without incorporating third party scripts, but this is a good step in the right direction. Once the images are uploaded at a reasonable size, other features/mods could be incorporated such as slideshows in the future.
Yea, the addition of a slideshow will probably be the next thing added to the Photo Gallery. Either 2.3 or 2.4.
This is great news. I take it this will also allow for multiple uploads.
Yes. I was able to upload 20 in just a matter of seconds.
After you upload them, you are taken to a screen to enter in the caption and tag any users, it works a lot like how Facebook does it.
great! you could check gallery 2, they’ve allready integrated such options. Since it’s open source, you could could give it a look how they do it.