During some time of my practice, I've noticed that users are opposed to post pictures on 3rd party "images hosting". Even if there is required to post just a couple of pictures per forum message, it is annoying, that such a useful content some day may disappear, but produce lots of broken links on the forum.
Because of this, I have tried to extend the
File Bank add-on with some new picture options, and make it more suitable for the end user.
You may check under
miniBB forums storage now, or try to upload a file, clicking the Upload icon above the message form:
.
Now it's possible to provide
numerous variations of how the uploaded picture would appear in the message:
- Thumbnail generated, and referred to the original picture, which is re-sized to the specified width (700 px for our forums):
- Thumbnail generated, and referred to the original picture:
- No thumbnail generated, but re-sized to the specified width:
- No thumbnail generated, providing the only original picture:
- Thumbnails generated by height, which makes it possible to align them in one contextual row:
- Thumbnails generated by width, which aligns them smoothly one by one:
If you have a Preview add-on installed, with combination of the options above it's possible to build now a
high-quality content for the forum. As you may note,
File Attachments add-on by default puts uploaded pictures at the end of the message. With File Bank, it's possible to put pictures
at any place of the message.
Of course, with this add-on it's also possible, like earlier, to
upload binary files of any specified type (those like PDF, ZIP, DOC or whatever you specify).
Improvements of this add-on also include W3C-valid HTML issues,
upload process indicator, JavaScript extensions, and other small fixes. Description is now not a mandatory field to fill in. When editing a file and overriding it with a new file, the old file name is now kept unchanged, to not break a possible reference in a forums message.
Unfortunately, I found recent changes in
Uber Uploader (which earlier was possible to compile with File Bank to provide a
file upload indicator) non-compliant with miniBB. Because it now heavily uses AJAX and JQuery, which usually calls my allergic reaction, I have abandoned support of this program in File Bank. And so, by now, the support of the live progress indicator is temporarily closed.
Truly, if you want big files uploaded like videos to your server, it requires more specific configuration of the server, and more security options than Uber Uploader, or any PHP- or Perl-based application could provide. I don't see much sense to care about big files at this stage, releasing an app which is almost free. If you plan to launch a project for big files, it will require more serious investments and development. Sites like Rapidshare.com or Radikal.ru didn't come from open source. Contact me privately to discuss this, and have a budget. Don't believe to anyone saying it could be done easily and for free :-)
So,
File Bank's purpose at this stage is
sharing of small-to-medium files and pictures, keeping them on the forums server, and so making them permanent to forum.
We hope you'll enjoy this thoroughly thought update, and the new price of this add-on, which is now
$10 only.
Your suggestions are welcome!
