Image Gallery

[rdprdp01]

I can't see what's different here. Hasn't it always been possible to link to an image gallery? Or is that functionality switched off in this forum? Or is the plan somehow to embed the gallery on a forum page?

The experience of viewing images here is not quite as satisfactory as on the other forum, particularly on a tablet or phone. The feature that allowed one to click on an embedded image and be taken to the external site no longer works — I suspect it's been turned off maybe to help manage the possibility of bad links.

G'day Comanus,

Fantastic questions and just the kind of engagement I was hoping for. Here are a few answers to some of your great questions. I am also sorry you, and I suspect others, find the image experience on this Forum less user friendly / effective than the CB1100Forum.com. The data captured in this Thread I hope will lead me to correct any frustrations, big or small, Members may have.

Can MyBB consume an Image Gallery Link from Imgur or other Hosting Services?: Yes. Imgur and other Hosting Providers can produce embedded HTML code that can be copied and pasted into a MyBB Post. However, for the Album to work, I must enable HTML in our Post Engine. That is problematic for a number of reasons. See a nice summary produced by my AI Helper:

"Yes, enabling raw HTML in MyBB posts is very dangerous and highly discouraged because it can lead to security vulnerabilities like Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and Remote Code Execution (RCE), allowing users to inject malicious JavaScript or other code that can compromise the entire forum. Instead of enabling it broadly, you should use plugins or MyBB's built-in BBCode system, which allows you to define specific, safe formatting and restrict HTML-like functionalities to trusted staff or specific usergroups. Why it's dangerous:
Malware broadcast: Users could post code that infects other users' browsers or spreads malware.
Security Exploits: Untrusted users can inject malicious JavaScript, potentially hijacking user accounts or the entire forum.
Data Theft: Malicious code can steal sensitive information from forum users."

I would strongly prefer to keep Forum Member interaction within our Forum using an I-Frame and not take them to another website. However, I can't expose the Forum or Forum Member data to Bad Actors by lowering the defenses.

What is Different?: If we integrate with Imgur or something similar, the ability to share images and posts with other social media platforms is readily available from most image hosting platforms, assuming Members are Registered Users. To do the same in MyBB would require multiple plugins and ongoing maintenance of each plugin. I am not sure if our Members value that sharing capability or not. Because the only socializing I do on the Internet occurs on this Forum, I cannot place a value on that capability. Perhaps of more relevance, we can start using Video Galleries to tell a story when we sort things out on the best way to go forward. I love lengthy threads with text and pictures. However, there are some instances where presenting only the pictures is appropriate. Hence, I believe it is worth dialing in our use case for how we want to enable or deploy image galleries in our Forum while protecting all stakeholders, including the Forum itself.

When I began this exploration earlier today, I calculated that I was able to reduce the time it took to build an Image Gallery by 80% relative to simply copying links into a Post on the Forum. That's big. We can also embed video with audio, too, using Image Hosting Platforms. Not sure what value everyone assigns to that capability either.

I would like to see if there is any shared enthusiasm for enabling Galleries on the Forum before we do anything else. I hope we can get some more responses to the poll and then you, pdedse, and me can make the "Go / No Go" decision. Take care, David.