Forum Update Tuesday Dec 8

[Pschitt]

Another question about image size albums.

I noticed that small image are enlarged when displayed in my personal album, so they are now displayed in really poor quality.
I always paid attention to post light images for quick display and now they look so bad. Is it possible to display images in original size when they are narrower than display zone (like in a thread)?

About my personnal album, images now sort in kind of random order, no more in upload chronological order. Do you plan to change that?

Many thanks for your work to keep that forum our favorite. :d3:

 

[macmcintire]

I'm curious as to the meaning of the membership titles -- junior member, senior member, etc.? How many levels are there and what are the qualifications for the various levels?

 

[joey2cool]

Photo Album Benefits

Now I will be able to categorize each album. This should reduce a member or myself from having to hunt down a particular picture. By adding information to the album title, it should make things easier to find things.

Agreed. It could also be advantageous to put all your photos in albums and then use links to them when posting.

Not sure, but this could allow you to edit or delete photos in closed threads that can no longer be edited. Please chime in if the link function won't work in this way.

 

[daveb-SMB]

Another question about image size albums.

I noticed that small image are enlarged when displayed in my personal album, so they are now displayed in really poor quality.
I always paid attention to post light images for quick display and now they look so bad. Is it possible to display images in original size when they are narrower than display zone (like in a thread)?

About my personnal album, images now sort in kind of random order, no more in upload chronological order. Do you plan to change that?

Many thanks for your work to keep that forum our favorite. :d3:

I noticed the same thing Claude. It is a shame loosing the quality of the images especially the scenic shots like yours. My guess is the amount of bandwidth pictures take up but they also might of selected a size that loads faster for long threads with lots of pictures. I don't know what the upper management plans to do but it will be addressed. Seems there is a lot of tweaking that still needs to be done and I'm sure they're doing everything they can to make the site work as best as possible.

 

[daveb-SMB]

Agreed. It could also be advantageous to put all your photos in albums and then use links to them when posting.

Not sure, but this could allow you to edit or delete photos in closed threads that can no longer be edited. Please chime in if the link function won't work in this way.

In the past we didn't want members to delete photos in posts because it put holes in threads. It happened in a few instances so it was locked up and if you wanted to make a change like that you'd have to contact Jage to change or delete it.
I do not know how the new management plans to deal with this but I do like the idea of multiple smaller albums over one huge one. I've got over 350 pics in the old album and even I have a hard time finding a specific picture. Many are of vehicles being build at SMB, other are for trip reports. At least now I can name an album to give me and other members a heads up to what is in it. Persons wanting to look at builds would be able to go directly to that type album rather than looking through trip report pictures provided I labeled it correctly.

 

[Pschitt]

Dave, is it already possible to split my actual album in several others? If so, what about the pictures appearing in my threads? Will those stay linked?
Thanks

 

[daveb-SMB]

Dave, is it already possible to split my actual album in several others? If so, what about the pictures appearing in my threads? Will those stay linked?
Thanks

I have yet to get an answer to that Claude. I'd like to do the same. I'm guessing the links are specific to the original picture but I assume you could post a duplicate picture in a different album however I doubt you'll be able to change the link in a post. Just guessing here and all I can say at this point is I don't know

I also wonder if a new album picture that's resized automatically by the site will produce a better quality image...I've yet to try it. I haven't tried to see if an attached picture holds a better quality either when clicked on to show a larger size.

 

[daveb-SMB]

This picture is an example of the quality taken from my old album. When you click on the bar to expand it, the quality is so poor that the text in the image is difficult to read.

 

[Pschitt]

I have yet to get an answer to that Claude. I'd like to do the same. I'm guessing the links are specific to the original picture but I assume you could post a duplicate picture in a different album however I doubt you'll be able to change the link in a post. Just guessing here and all I can say at this point is I don't know

I also wonder if a new album picture that's resized automatically by the site will produce a better quality image...I've yet to try it. I haven't tried to see if an attached picture holds a better quality either when clicked on to show a larger size.

Thanks for your answer Dave.

About the resizing of images in albums, it probably preserves quality if resize = reducing size but it lowers quality a lot if resize = widening. In my personal album, pictures are 800 pixels wide, so they are widened -> quality is really poor now... Really hope there is a way for the developpers to only resize if the width exceeds the display size.

 

[daveb-SMB]

That's possible. I do know that the old site only resized the pics you put in your album and resized them to 800x600 IIRC. Attachments were a bit different and if you were not careful, a large file posted produced a picture that was difficult to download not to mention hard for some of us with small screens to view w/o having to scroll.

 

[Janet H]

Another question about image size albums.

I noticed that small image are enlarged when displayed in my personal album, so they are now displayed in really poor quality.

We're still looking at image issues - thanks for being patient.

I'm curious as to the meaning of the membership titles -- junior member, senior member, etc.? How many levels are there and what are the qualifications for the various levels?

Those titles are a software default and based on post count. They could be changed especially if someone some good ides. Often you see these titles (which are based on post count done up to match the topic of the forum. For example at a sailing forum, they might say deck hand, first mate, skipper, etc. They can be fun or informative or entirely goofy.

 

[larrie-SMB]

Something you may want to consider for a future update.

Several of us have posted how to videos. Right now those are buried in the threads and you have to search to find them. It would be cool to also have them be accessible in their own section like a Wiki.

 

[daveb-SMB]

Any news about missing images in some threads?

Claude, I was told this issue was taken care of. I'll be looking it over but if anybody has pics missing in threads, could you post back with a link to that thread.

 

[ctb]

Ok, Ok..getting better each day...seeing pics, no ads where pics should be...a few pics in forum pages still missing...but, I can see the difference....thanks for the tips from other users on ads etc...getting better...

 

[Andy R]

I do know that the old site only resized the pics you put in your album and resized them to 800x600 IIRC.

Alright so here's the deal on the album pics. We imported them and resize them all down to 700px max. The problem was that many were small photos when users had uploaded rather large high resolution photos. We don't want to loose the HiRes photos since the gallery of our community is tremendous resource. So we reimported the photos bringing in the original that was uploaded to the old site. The photos in the gallery now are the original uploaded so some might be rather huge. That means they will take a bit of time to download. Once they are downloaded they will resize automatically in your browser. So if you have a nice big monitor they will be very large and crisp images. If you have small monitor they will be small and crisp. The downside to this setup is you have to download the whole file before they will show (stinky on a slow or paid connection like a Mifi). Ideally we could have a middle sized image like 800px which you could then click on to access the original but that's not something we can code up right now. So for the time being we'll have to deal with very large originals in the gallery.

We are looking into some possible image issues related to small images showing up in a larger format than they were loaded. We have to try and find these same images on the old site so please hang tight while we work on that. Thanks for your patience.

 

[daveb-SMB]

Looks much better now Andy.

 

[Jeffrey-SMB]

Hi Janet, just wondering if the layout can be made 'wide' to fill the browser window. On another forum I use (same software) you can see the choice for this near the bottom right..

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/general-cycling-discussion/

 

[ctb]

Andy, I will say you are on it and not shy about diving in and taking any and all that comes your way...bully for you! Glad to see things getting better each day...all the explanations really do show you're trying eh?!!

 

[ctb]

Ps...Andy , any way we can get the badge thing and reward with no ads at all? Some user was spouting off about those of us with no badge but still complaining or even (inferring here) saying anything at all...I can be a bit slow at times i.e. Didn't catch on to the 'search' option for a year...until daveb gently clued me in (daveb rocks)...so by the time I figured out how to 'get' a badge...option did not work anymore....just wondering...get a badge, no ads would be awesome! And I wouldn't get the holier than though attitude from some of the less cool crowd...again way to go andy

 

[daveb-SMB]

Ps...Andy , any way we can get the badge thing and reward with no ads at all? Some user was spouting off about those of us with no badge but still complaining or even (inferring here) saying anything at all...I can be a bit slow at times i.e. Didn't catch on to the 'search' option for a year...until daveb gently clued me in (daveb rocks)...so by the time I figured out how to 'get' a badge...option did not work anymore....just wondering...get a badge, no ads would be awesome! And I wouldn't get the holier than though attitude from some of the less cool crowd...again way to go andy

Not speaking for Andy but that is supposed to be in the mix down the road. I was told it will depend on participation and/or a minor contribution depending how Andy decides to go. And if you can't yet, the plan was privileged members should be able to turn off the ads.