Sponsored Links

Forum Upgraded and Webp Image Support

So the Xenforo 2.3 (actually 2.3.2 as I waited for the first bug fix release) software update is now live on the forum as of this morning, which brings a lot of under the hood changes and some bigger ones. Thanks to all the bug testing behind the scenes, the update went smoothly, although I will later have to run some rebuild optimisations on parts of the forum (not essential atm).

The main one of course being that the forum now supports WEBP images. So even if you try to upload a larger JPG or PNG image (one that might be a bit larger than our usual file limits), they will now convert and compress down to a WEBP. WEBP images have very good compression, although they aren't so good at complex vector style images (detailed maps etc.).

The new version does have a Dark Mode, but so far I've not found a way to get that working with our style edits (it uses an implementation that isn't compatible with my custom CSS/HTML changes) and so have disabled the selection until I can find a way around that. The selector was briefly live this morning, but it ended up being enabled by default for users with dark mode on their systems, and so I've disabled it for now.
Does this mean the new Xenforo 2.3 update comes with a higher max image upload?

0.128MB is painful in todays image quality standards, ideally 1-5MB sounds reasonable.
 
I found these 2 links for improving webp support in windows (as it feels like a browser only thing on my machine).

Anyone got experience of either?

 
Also, regarding images, are there any plans for them to work in DMs?

I don't know a lot about how Xenforo works but it's pretty annoying having to upload them to my fediverse server (since I don't have an account for these image hosting platforms) and then copy the link for it (e.g. https://media.wetdry.world/lethal/d81b06cb-e415-4fd9-90de-8e322229ab7e.webp).

It would make things a lot easier especially for situations like this when I'm trying to get help with looking at the SiteFinder database.
 
Does this mean the new Xenforo 2.3 update comes with a higher max image upload?

0.128MB is painful in todays image quality standards, ideally 1-5MB sounds reasonable.
ISPreview isn't a hosting site for high quality images. We have to keep sizes down to avoid filling up the server's storage and making backup management too painfully laborious, as well as to counter those who might abuse the system. Webp just allows you to fit higher quality images into the same limits as we had before, while letting the server do all the compression/conversions for you.
 
Also, regarding images, are there any plans for them to work in DMs?

I don't know a lot about how Xenforo works but it's pretty annoying having to upload them to my fediverse server (since I don't have an account for these image hosting platforms) and then copy the link for it (e.g. https://media.wetdry.world/lethal/d81b06cb-e415-4fd9-90de-8e322229ab7e.webp).

It would make things a lot easier especially for situations like this when I'm trying to get help with looking at the SiteFinder database.
I'll check in to that as I'm able to attached images myself, so it's probably a group permissions thing that can be tweaked.
 
ISPreview isn't a hosting site for high quality images. We have to keep sizes down to avoid filling up the server's storage and making backup management too painfully laborious, as well as to counter those who might abuse the system. Webp just allows you to fit higher quality images into the same limits as we had before, while letting the server do all the compression/conversions for you.

Is the upload limit still the same as before? If the current level of uploads is acceptable, then you can safely increase the upload limit since WebP will compress them anyway.

This would be useful because, for example, if I take a screenshot of cellmapper map view on my S23 Ultra, the PNG file is ~2MB. I can't share it directly here but I can convert it to WebP and have a sub 200KB file (could be lower if you are able to use higher compression and have a resolution cap).

So not that bad for your storage, but much easier for us to share images.
 
Sponsored Links
Unrelated to the image changes, but I'm also playing around with some changes to the forum caching system today to see if I can make some improvements. Some things may thus appear a little slower while I test different approaches and benchmark them.

The cache changes mostly relate to guest visitors, so it won't impact logged in members, although members will naturally benefit from guest users putting less load on the forum.

In addition, I've now rebuilt most of the existing image uploads, avatars and other things to use webp.
 
This would be useful because, for example, if I take a screenshot of cellmapper map view on my S23 Ultra, the PNG file is ~2MB. I can't share it directly here but I can convert it to WebP and have a sub 200KB file (could be lower if you are able to use higher compression and have a resolution cap).
I use this app called Imagepipe to shrink and compress my images. It also strips EXIF data for you. The only downside is that you need F-Droid to download it as it's not available on the Play Store.

extensions like Roboform Lite v3.9.2 which is the last version that let you use your local drive to store your passwords as opposed to using the cloud.
There are alternatives. I use Keepass2, although it's a desktop app and not a browser extension. It has an autofill function where it can detect window names and URLs to automatically fill in certain fields. My database is stored on Google Drive using an extension that automatically syncs it for me. It works on both Windows and Android.
 
I use this app called Imagepipe to shrink and compress my images. It also strips EXIF data for you. The only downside is that you need F-Droid to download it as it's not available on the Play Store.
I use Image Toolbox instead, not sure if it was on the main F-Droid repo before but it is now (IzzyOnDroid is still more up to date though).


Screenshot of app information page for Image Toolbox on Neo Store


I believe you can get it to remove EXIF metadata but I usually don't do that.

----

Also for password managers, I recommend Bitwarden. You can export your data if you want to move to another password manager and you can self-host it.
 
Sponsored Links
I use Image Toolbox instead, not sure if it was on the main F-Droid repo before but it is now (IzzyOnDroid is still more up to date though).


View attachment 17140

I believe you can get it to remove EXIF metadata but I usually don't do that.

----

Also for password managers, I recommend Bitwarden. You can export your data if you want to move to another password manager and you can self-host it.
none of these really apply to a webserver.
 
@Mark.J Is there any way for a user to disable the "expansion" of links to other ispreview pages?

Some posts are fully embeded, some aren't. Some posts have large images. It can make replies a bit too "busy". A compact preview or just a simple link would be better, I think.

I'm not suggesting that this is disabled for everyone, just asking if there's a setting somewhere that I've missed. If not, that's fine, I'll adapt.
 
@Mark.J Is there any way for a user to disable the "expansion" of links to other ispreview pages?

Some posts are fully embeded, some aren't. Some posts have large images. It can make replies a bit too "busy". A compact preview or just a simple link would be better, I think.

I'm not suggesting that this is disabled for everyone, just asking if there's a setting somewhere that I've missed. If not, that's fine, I'll adapt.
By "expansion" of links, do you mean what happens when a link is posted and it then gets rendered into a sort of mini-summary output for the link (oembed)?
 
Sponsored Links
Yeah that's oembeds, which are enabled across the site by default and are fairly common these days. At present there isn't any granular control for that, so it's either off for everybody or it's on for everybody.
 
  • Like
Reactions: S0X
Hi @Mark.J, apologies for the stupid question but is there still an image limit? I still get an occasional error on some images that the file is too large. But I thought webp compression would have worked around this?
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6024)
  2. BT (3638)
  3. Politics (2720)
  4. Business (2439)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2143)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1899)
  10. 4G (1813)
  11. Virgin Media (1762)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1404)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules