Image Gallery

[rdprdp01]

Good afternoon. Old nerd that I am, I love reading and learning and researching. I find the posts on our Forum insightful, engaging, entertaining, and occasionally hilarious. The MyBB Platform servers us well for the most part. However, I respectfully assert that there is one missing component: a gallery view of a series of images that gives us easy scrolling, copying, and forwarding capabilities of images.

We have done the design work to create a custom plugin to augment the MyBB base capabilities for images. That plugin represents a serious investment of both time and money. As we explored other alternatives, we turned to Imgur or other Hosting Services to see if we could possibly leverage their Album View functionality to achieve something similar. The results of that R&D can be found in a New Child Forum we added today called CB1100 Image Gallery under the Media Center. If you have time, we would welcome some feedback and guidance. We work for you. We want to make the Forum as good as it can be and most importantly do justice to capturing those moments on your motorcycle you care to share with Forum Members.

This image gallery does require Members to use the Imgur Service or something similar. It also requires members to be use the embed link feature in our Post Editor. But before we document the "how" to create an Image Gallery, I want to make sure my Forum brothers and sisters believe it is worth doing.

We have created two Test Galleries for your review. They can be found at the following link:

https://cb1100forum.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=45

If you are so inclined, check them out and add a post to this Thread and share your thoughts. We would benefit from a dialogue from the Members. We would also welcome your answer to the Poll Question.

Thanks for everything you do for me when you share your experiences. More often than not, the best part of my day is spent checking out Threads and Posts on the Forum. Have a great week. David

[misterprofessionality]

I think it would be great. Individually generating and posting links for images when you have several is beyond tedious. Being able to post a gallery in one shot would really help.

[Cormanus]

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.

[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.

[Cormanus]

Thanks for that detailed response, rdprdp01. I can't see what's wrong with doing what you've already done: using a MyCode link to open a Imgur gallery in a new tab. Costs nothing; works fine. No fiddling or maintenance necessary.

I, for one, would not be happy if Imgur were the only hosting site that could be accessed by the forum, if only because (if I've understood this right) we'd lose access to a great many photos already displayed on the forum from other sites. There's some self-interest in this. I've always found Imgur clunky to navigate and have used the Postimages site as an alternative. If Postimages were blacklisted, I assume all the photos I, and others, have linked to, would no longer display. So, too, the myriad of ancient images from Photobucket. It would be a shame to lose that history.

[rdprdp01]

Thanks for that detailed response, rdprdp01. I can't see what's wrong with doing what you've already done: using a MyCode link to open a Imgur gallery in a new tab. Costs nothing; works fine. No fiddling or maintenance necessary.

I, for one, would not be happy if Imgur were the only hosting site that could be accessed by the forum, if only because (if I've understood this right) we'd lose access to a great many photos already displayed on the forum from other sites. There's some self-interest in this. I've always found Imgur clunky to navigate and have used the Postimages site as an alternative. If Postimages were blacklisted, I assume all the photos I, and others, have linked to, would no longer display. So, too, the myriad of ancient images from Photobucket. It would be a shame to lose that history.

Nothing would be lost that has been posted or will be posted. And if someone used an alternative hosting site, they could use the same technique to view the Video Gallery I used for the Imgur Gallery.

PostImages will work perfectly. All we need is a URL and a name to embed the link into a Post.

But I am still bothered by the going back and forth between Internet sites, which may be an opportunity for personal growth for me. 

Let's think about it, get some more feedback, and then decide. And if I am the only person who thinks Video Galleries are a good thing, I may need to humble myself and let things stay just as they are!

David

[Cormanus]

OK. Maybe I've misundertood. Thanks.

[rdprdp01]

OK. Maybe I've misundertood. Thanks.

My bad. I am Imgur centric in my thinking. I created the misunderstanding. Pardon me. I have updated the prior posts in hopes of not creating any more confusion. David

[rdprdp01]

Well folks, there was not as much love for Image Galleries as I had anticipated. That feedback is actually a good thing because it tell us that spending money to create the Greatest Image Gallery Ever is not a wise investment.

Here is where we land:

• Anyone can add an Image Gallery (series of images with no text) in the Image Gallery Sub-Forum Under Media.
  
• You can use any Hosting Service you like provided that it can be create an Internet link you can load into a Post.
  
• You can also create an Image Gallery by uploading files within MyBB, but remember we have a size limitation for files we store in our database.
  
• If Administrators and Moderators see a topic that has a lot of interest, we may opt to create an Image Gallery to memorialize the moment. We can pull pictures from the Internet, Honda, Threads on the Forum, or other sources that are not Copyright restricted.
  
• All Galleries must meet copyright requirements. If something is posted that is protected, we will have to take down the Image Gallery.
  

Hope you have a great Sunday and are looking forward to an even better week. David

[Cormanus]

Thanks rdprdp01. A question about this. Technically, a member can add an image gallery to any post. Perhaps, if a member wants to use a gallery for pictures of a ride report rather than embedding the individual images, by all means put it in the Seat Time post. If it's just images — say of different models of CB1100s — maybe post it in the Image Gallery section.