Just want to re-iterate the image posting guidelines, because there's a lot of new members lately and perhaps not all of them have read the guidelines. Also there's been quite a few images posted that are well above the 60k limit so it's a timely reminder.
There are 2 reasons why the 800x600 60k limit needs to be followed and enforced:
1. Dialup users - we have many. Not everyone can afford broadband, or has access to broadband. We still have a lot of dialup users and we need to be considerate of how long it takes for the pages to load for them.
2. Database size! The forum database is growing at a massive rate, and a large percentage of the size of the database is due to the attachments table. Size growth due to more members and more posts is fine, but if everyone starts posting 150k images it's going to get out of hand and the database backups will take longer and use more bandwidth!
3. Aesthetics. The 800x600 limit is mainly due to aesthetic reasons, to avoid the thread getting horizontal scroll bars and making posts hard to read. Of course it's also to help keep the file size down.
So, to re-iterate the rules:
Please keep attached images to 800x600 60k or under.
If you want to show a higher resolution, less compressed version, please upload it to your own webspace (or other freely available photo site webspace) and provide a link to it.
To check your image size, in windows explorer, right-click on the image and go down to "properties". You'll see the size (in bytes) and the resolution. Anything over 60000 bytes and 800x600 will exceed the limits.
To resize them (both in resolution and file size), use a program like "irfanview" (fast & free). You can resize the image to under 800x600 and save it as a compressed jpeg to get it under 60k file size.
Thanks for your co-operation in this, and i'm happy to hear any constructive comments or suggestions.
"3. Aesthetics. The 800x600 limit is mainly due to aesthetic reasons, to avoid the thread getting horizontal scroll bars and making posts hard to read. Of course it's also to help keep the file size down."
People still use 800x600? 1024x768 seems to have been the norm for the past few years.
No way MiG. The vast majority of people use 800 x 600 as shown by those websites that log visiting browser settings. I tried to use 1024x768 on my 17" monitor for a while, but found myself having to get too close to read small fonts with comfort. As I tend to adopt a more 'laid-back' posture at the PC I went back to 800 x 600.
I personally don't think 1024x768 is really comfortable on less than a 19" screen. But then my eyes aren't that young anymore.
Then I guess you wouldn't be a fan of 1600x1200 on a 21" monitor like I have. Only a $350 monitor too (second hand IBM P275, same as sony G520).
The thing is though, resolution should be just that, resolution (not size). You can adjust the font sizes so that at high resolutions you get smooth large letters instead of blocky large letters like you get with low resolutions. People who use tiny fonts should have something unpleasant done to them. It's silly having letters approximated by 10 pixels. The World Wide Web Consortium agrees with me too. http://www.w3.org/2003/07/30-font-size
However, images don't get scaled so they end up small.
It is weird that digital cameras are getting higher and higher resolutions when people are still viewing (most people don't print) the photos with 800x600 displays.
I'm just thinking out loud, and I don't know how hard this would be to setup/implement; but is there any chance of getting a page/script setup that would allow people to upload their pictures/images to a folder on the iceinspace server (browse, upload image and then provide vB code to paste into the forums). Something like this would stop the database from growing too quickly (but not the total size of the site), but allow people with no webspace to continue adding pictures to the forums. To avoid abuse you could use some form of authentication first (ie. using forum user/pass?), and if possible add a limit so the pages are only available on the forums. I'm no web design/code guru so I don't know if this is even possible (mojo?).
I guess, though, that something like that could be abused easily, and cause more work for the admins. Like I said I'm just thinking out aloud.
It's an idea, Thiink... It could be done with access to forum members only. That's not too much of a problem. But from my point-of-view, uploading attachments means that it will just give me a headache months from now when i need to delete attachments and i don't know who's uploaded what. Or people uploaded files that were never linked to any post. It needs to be integrated with the forum.
But I agree. The way vbulletin stores attachments is an admistration nightmare and a PIA for users because of file size limits. If there wasn't restrictions, the daily backups would get ridiculously large very quickly. Right now, we're just trying to defer the inevitable because the daily database backups are growing exponentially as it is. I'm downloading gigabytes a month just for backups because i can't do incremental backups with the database.
The options are, either upgrade the forum to the new vbulletin that apparently has a sane attachment config, or change forums entirely. I'd prefer to go to the free and open source phpbb.
As it stands, it's ridiculous having image forums without allowing large high resolution images to be uploaded. And the actual image size should be automatically changed to a tumbnail/link if it's bigger than the forum. But this version can't do it.
I've spent some hours converting vbulletin to phpbb and it seems to work, but it doesn't have everything we need without alot of addons. So i'm waiting for the new phpbb to go stable, and then we can see if we will spend more money on ongoing forum fees with vbulletin or go with the free phpbb forum.
Stand-by. The attachements on this forum bother me as much as they bother you.
cant the board generate a thumbnail that it displays on the thread which the reader can click to open in new window? i think i've seen it in another board similar to this. That'd save your dialup users. Then dimansions would be of now concern, only filesize. One less thing to worry about i guess.
With respect to our less fortunate members I would like to suggest the following. Limit filesizes to 640x480, not the current 800x600. The attached file (for example purposes only) is 600x400 and is only 19.3K in size; compressed by Microsofts XP powertoy with only a couple of clicks. I'm sure the detail is sufficient for most users. That is approximately one third of the current 60Kb recommendation.
Last edited by acropolite; 29-05-2005 at 01:19 AM.
