Todays experiment - image uploader again

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Todays experiment - image uploader again

(15 posts) (4 voices)

Started 3 years ago by Prit
Latest reply from klhrevolution

Tags:

testing

Prit
Pritlogger

I had seen this upload / file manager for nicEdit sometime ago. Today, I tried to add authentication to this - in the sense, it gets the author and encrypted password to see if it is authenticated. But these are passed through the url. I am not sure about the security related to this. Might have to read some more.

Anyway, for now, this is just an experiment. But, this is the best uploader I have seen for nicEdit so far. You can manage images, view them, delete them, even create and manage additional folders.

However, this will add 180 KB to Pritlog, making the overall package size nearly 400 KB.

Let me know your opinions. I think this would be my final experiment before I start building Pritlog for a beta release. Hopefully, targeting the end of this week.

Here is the link:
http://hardkap.net/labs/pritlog48f/blognic.php/mainPage

Posted 3 years ago #
john
Member

Hi Prit,

Some thoughts about the uploader function:

I also tested the file manager you mention, it works great but In my case I'm considering 5 basic requirements:
- password protected
- reasonably secure
- save unique filenames
- resizing capabilities
- ability to show preview

It would be perfect if all could be done within nicEdit.

I expect authors to upload new original images for each post, so I'm not looking to get a file manager. On the other hand, I think non technical writers might appreciate to get their digital pictures resized and weight adjusted for the web.

Overall package size is also a serious consideration (showing 3 to 5 posts per page using 700px wide images might bring total page weight closer to 1Mb)
John

Posted 3 years ago #
klhrevolution
Member

My opinion.... I think it's a bit much. If that image control was adapted to fit into the admin control panel that might make more sense. But, for making a post adding images by file or url is enough. But then I simply use the xhtml button for my posts and so I don't even use these functions. As for my editors they rely upon me to spruce up their posts by adding an image or highlighting, bold, italic..

But, as I said this would be something to look forward to in a tabbed interface admin control page/panel which you are well on the path of doing or so it would seem.

Posted 3 years ago #
Prit
Pritlogger

Thanks for your opinions.

@John,
This file manager has
-security (it does not work without the author/pass from the new entry page
-password protection (above)
-since its actual upload, it will have unique names. Its a simple file manager.
-It shows preview also
I think the only thing missing from your requirements is the resizing. This can be implemented if required, but is dependent on some add on libraries in PHP which all hosts may not have.

@Ken,
Yes, if not here, then maybe we can move it to the admin panel. But, if authors want to upload images themselves, then it will be a bottleneck. Anyway, will keep this option open.

What is your opinions if the package size of Pritlog went up to 400KB? Is this okay. Of course everything will not affect the bandwidth or site loading speed. But the javascript libraries will affect this.

Posted 3 years ago #
klhrevolution
Member

That's a big jump for just this. Well, I thought about this some time ago. I said to myself really if pritlog was to expand there could be a plugin/function folder and people, developers and yourself could just throw a function into that folder to add onto pritlog (example: category-cloud.php) and you just add the include("category-cloud.php"); to the index and <?php sidebarCategoryCloud(); ?> wherever you want it to appear.

That is where I'd like the extras to go but as I stated this might be better suited for an admin panel. Keep the base small I guess is what I'm saying.. But, this is my opinion only. You can't make all users happy prit, so ignore at will! :)

Posted 3 years ago #
Prit
Pritlogger

Yes. I see your point. I had thought of creating the blog with plugins/themes etc. But then, there is Wordpress with all these features. I have used it and liked it. So I am not sure if I want to do this. Maybe if I get a lot of time or I get paid for writing Pritlog, then I might. Lol.

Posted 3 years ago #
Bert
Member

Hi John, Ken and Prit,

Thanks for this great discussion.
My feeling is that keeping Pritlog as small and frisky as it is, is the best way to go. But offering some modules will be inevitable. While I like the "small and frisky", in my ignorance I dared to ask for things like "text flow around images"..The real challenge will be to find a way to have the best of both worlds (frisky and comfortable).

The big difference with Wordpress is the lack of database. Wordpress is very nice indeed. In a way I shouldn't spend my time here, but instead use the much more ripened and user-friendly Wordpress. But that's not how I feel. I prefer Pritlog's simplicity.

To me, the question is not Pritlog or Wordpress, but Pritlog or Flatpress ;)

Who knows, maybe we can come up with original ways to finance the further development of Pritlog?

Posted 3 years ago #
Prit
Pritlogger

Hi Bert,

Thanks for your comments. I had never heard about Flatpress before. It looks interesting. Has plugins and themes as well. That means, they have a good framework in place. I am yet to try it out.

If I am not able to get a good security for image uploads, then I will drop that and will have the nicEdit default of uploading to imageshack for now. And as I figure out a better way to integrate the security, I can add that later.

Posted 3 years ago #
john
Member

I just wanted to add a few comments regarding Pritlog overall goals:

From a technical standpoint, I like Pritlog because its flatfile approach, and its use of a collection of functions easy to understand in a single file; making the script easy to modify even with basic php knowledge.

I think keeping it as lightweight as possible is important, not only because the load time but also to avoid it to get more complex than needed.

The basic funcionallity is already there, it works fine and it looks nice.

The range of technical features offered by Pritlog today, is good enough to enjoy a decent blog. Some functions could be improved / added with minor changes, but the first priority should be to make the existing ones bug free, and assure compatibility with major browsers (also adding a few redirections / go back buttons to improve the user experience)

IMHO, at this point visual design becomes as or even more important than features. Perhaps developing some alternative layouts (themes) and adding a css selector field would allow people to experiment with different looks and provide a nice showcase to attract more Pritlog fans.

John

Posted 3 years ago #
Prit
Pritlogger

Thanks John. I appreciate your comments. As most of the blogs out there use images extensively for the posts, I really did want to give the image upload/maintain functionality to it. As of now, the image upload functionality is working on my servers perfectly. I think, we will need to test it on other servers also and see how it works. So I will include it in the first beta. Ofcourse, size will increase due to this.

Yes, you are right that the visual design plays an important role also. Everything is laid out in blocks, so its easy to redesign and move blocks around. We will need more layouts and a theme gallery to make it more attractive for users. Lets see how it goes after the beta.

Posted 3 years ago #
klhrevolution
Member

I have to agree with John. Though I know no php, I can look at the function and see what it does. And with time I will most likely be able to understand it even more. So keep it simple is a great slogan.

Posted 3 years ago #
Bert
Member

Prit wrote:

So I will include it in the first beta. Of course, size will increase due to this.

If Pritlog would grow to almost 400 kb due to this, it is still very small, given all the functionality it contains.
I just looked up the size of Flatpress: 480 kb compressed, 1.8 MB unpacked....
Not too difficult to see who's the winner here :)

Posted 3 years ago #
john
Member

Hi Bert,

The size of the whole package isn't a good indicator about how much time it takes to load a given page. Such scripts call (include / require, etc) code from different "pages" only when they need it.

In the case of Pritlog, since almost everything is packed a single file, you can assume that to load the blog on your browser you need to transfer index.php + any external javascripts /css (like nicEdit) + any text content plus images.

javascript libraries and images normally have the greatest impact. In my case I plan to use images 700px wide, some might weight over 100KB so I try to balance the situation using pagination to limit the number of posts per page.

Posted 3 years ago #
Prit
Pritlogger

Hi John,

Since PHP is a server side script, it does not all load to the clients browser. So only the function that is requested gets loaded and displayed/rendered to the client screen. Hence this would be very small.

You are right in saying that the javascript will get loaded. There are two main Javascript libraries - nicEdit (which was already there in Pritlog) and the one for image upload. The image upload loads only when someone is adding a new entry or editing an entry and clicks on the image upload button.

Anyway, I am having second thoughts about whether or not to include this in the package.

Edit: I just checked the site performance and found that the total HTML size is only 14KB (this is what comes directly from the php) and the overall size for css, images and javascript will lead this to 94KB. With some extra care, I can easily reduce this size to 54KB. This would be the overall size that gets downloaded to the clients browser when browsing the blog site. Images on posts will add their own weight.

Posted 3 years ago #
klhrevolution
Member

Good work Prit! With your testing of load size I feel a bit more pleased than I was at first in regards to the size of this image utility inclusion.

Posted 3 years ago #

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