mrs_webshot_gallery: New Webshot Gallery

marios · 2008-02-07 20:54:44

For Information visit the following link. I’m going to update this post later.
The plugin is already written. In the meanwhile, I might add some extra stuff on it until the ransom is met.

Until now, the plugin implements the following features:

Automatic thumbnail generation for your linklists
A link tag, that can be wrapped in your link forms (Which is something, that txp natively doesn’t support, and can be useful in other circumstances as well)
Caching to keep the thumbnail requests at a bare minimum and
A preference tab, which you can use to update your Service Settings within seconds to get rid of hotlinkers.
No need for external scripts to be dependent of ( Note: Some extra images need to be dropped inside your image folder, included in download )
Automatically calculate width and height and append to thumbnail img tags.
A plugin tag can be used to create cached thumbnail image from any arbitrary HTML/XHTML link.
Autogeneration of drop-shadowed thumbnails ( No CSS required )

This will also include thorough testing on 4.0.6 codebase under PHP v5

This Plugin automatically generates a linklist with webshot thumbnails, from your linklist tags.

This time the plugin is held for ransom, which isn’t usually my style.
(I have however a specific reason for that )

Possible features, that I’ve thought about myself to implement

A preference setting, to allow for automatic key updating at a predefined timeinterval ( For very notorious hotlinker cases ) enable or disable

~~Ability to set thumbnail sizes ( currently used is medium 90 × 120 )~~ (Doesn’t matter anymore. Size is autocalculated)

Ability to switch to another dedicated service, in case one service goes down ( I’ve made some extra research now on the available options, and it appears to me, that my initial choice was the most reasonable thing, so the only reason to have this, is to have a backup solution in case the service or Server goes down. )

~~Autogeneration of drop_shadowed thumbnails~~ (implemented)

Tabindex attribute

MLP Support ( To tell the truth, I couldn’t figure this one out yet, but I’m working on it )

Feature requests

~~A tag that can be used, to be wrapped around an arbitrary link anywhere in your pagetemplate or form, so a thumbnail for that link, will be the link content.~~ (implemented)

Current plugin status and Version history

version: 0.1 ( Initial version: Pre livetest and pre codebase 4.0.6 stable testing )
version: 0.2 ( Test version: Post livetest and pre codebase 4.0.6 stable testing ) Added: automatically append the width and height attributes for the img tags. Suppress error messages for testfunctions. Reordered positions for prefs in admin. Corrected documentation.
version: 0.3 ( Test version: Post livetest and pre codebase 4.0.6 stable testing ) Added: Have plugin-tag available, to automatically display thumnbnail link anywhere in page or form, when wrapped around according HTML code. The linktext will be used for alt and title attributes accordingly
version: 0.4 ( Test version: Post livetest and pre codebase 4.0.6 stable testing ) Added: Automatic shadowed thumbnail generation. For now this can be enabled or disabled from within the plugin tags. shadow=1 to enable, shadow=0 to disable.(Disabled by default) The markup also produces now an id, that matches the domain. Eg.: If your link was www.store.apple.com, then the ID of this link item would be storeapple, if it was www.alistapart.com, then it would be alistapart. (Don’t know what that’s good for, but it is here anyway, in case you want to do some fancy stuff with CSS). Documentation updated.
version: 0.5 ( Test version: Post livetest and pre codebase 4.0.6 stable testing ) Added: Thumbnails, that have been created with a drop shadow, will now be resampled to their original Size, so as not to mess up an existing layout, when switching from one mode to the other.
version: 0.6 ( Test version: Post livetest and local codebase 4.0.6 stable testing ) Added: Debuggingoutput, updated Helpfile. Testing on a Live Server, Textdrive in this case.

Reported Bugs

Shadow function might cause problems on some servers, such as when + Signs are found in the URL
Fallback from hash to md5 doesn’t work as expected.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2008-02-18 07:40:25)

colak · 2008-02-08 08:33:58

Hi Marios,

Looks very cool and very useful for those sites which maintain links but for some of us it might be of use if there was slightly more flexibility. That is, what if there was a class wrapped around a link anywhere in the page which would generate a thumbnail?

marios · 2008-02-08 08:56:26

Hi, colak

So basically, what you are asking for is to have an arbitrary single link to be wrapped around its generated thumbnail?
(By means of a plugin tag ? )

I’ve updated the post above and added your Idea as a featurerequest, before I receive clarification from you.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2008-02-08 09:04:09)

colak · 2008-02-08 09:16:55

marios wrote:

Hi, colak
So basically, what you are asking for is to have an arbitrary single link to be wrapped around its generated thumbnail?
(By means of a plugin tag ? )

Yep:)

Donation has been sent:)

marios · 2008-02-08 09:43:29

Thanks a lot for your contribution.

Requested feature will be implemented.

regards, marios

marios · 2008-02-09 10:19:07

The plugin is updated for Colak’s reqeuest. See for status above.

regards, marios

colak · 2008-02-09 10:52:14

cool… looking forward to it:)

marios · 2008-02-16 19:38:27

Update: I’ve made a small, research, what would be the best way, to get a drop shadow ( And possibly rounded corners) to the whole set. There are various ways to do this, but Javascript in this case would be entirely wrong.

This would require you to throw a couple of extra gifs inside your Image folder (Which will be included in the download ). The plugin will then autogenerate the shadowed thumbnails using the GD Library ( Which is present on most Servers anyway since PHP 4 ) based on a preference Setting this can be enabled or disabled.

The pluginthread will be when the next version is ready.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2008-02-17 14:43:26)

marios · 2008-02-17 16:51:37

Added: resample feature, see above. Now I will test the whole thing on the 4.0.6.

regards, marios

marios · 2008-02-18 07:22:05

Notice: There is still some work to be done, like rare edge cases, but I’m almost there.

In some instances the shadow function might not work as expected, such as where + signs are found in the URL.
Also, seems that hash() doesn’t work on Textdrive, md5() does. this needs to be twiddled based on a couple of more checks.

Warning: Do not test the the shadow enabled option on a Live Server yet. Besides the Errors, that might be thrown, this can be quite memory intensive, since a pixel per pixel operation is performed,
I recommend a maximum of 15 thumbnails per page. After the caching has been performed this number can be augmented to any likings.

I will update the documentation respectively.

Last edited by marios (2008-02-18 07:39:18)

iblastoff · 2008-02-18 08:19:45

hmm..why not just use css for shadows?

marios · 2008-02-18 14:38:39

That’s a good question. And basically the question turned up for me: How to deal with this ?
A) Behavior ?
B) Presentation ?
C) Presentation and extra unnecessary markup ?

or

D) Serverside.

I started with:

Option A) and since pixel per pixel stuff like this, can bring some Browsers like Safari to the knees…

I looked at B), that would be fun and easy, but what if I still want an extra layer of Option A) on top of this?

This wouldn’t work in my case, so I opted for option D).

(And I didn’t consider C) at all )

Last edited by marios (2008-02-18 14:42:42)

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