Media banner images

[Ben Egbert]

This is a really neat feature to show gallery images in a banner format at the top. But I have some thoughts about strategy, either for the site operation or for how members build the galleries.

For members, it would be best for the images not to show until they had been posted in a thread. Otherwise the image has become old news. It might be best for members to add media to the gallery only when they are expecting to post.

A web site methodology might work but is probably pretty complicated. That would be to only include posted images in the banner.

I for one have preloaded my galleries to have them ready for future posts, and also to give the media section a bit more content.

Maybe this one would be good for general discussion.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ben,

Yeah, I had very similar thoughts to yours when I implemented that feature. It's something I can explore more to see what control I have over it in the background, but the Media (Gallery) banner is just a switch I turned on.

I know when I saw all the comments that some of the photos are getting, it's awesome to see the participation, but I will admit I too thought, "but wait, I haven't posted it yet in a Thread."

So my thoughts were this. At least for now, I will only post a photo into a gallery after I have already put it in a thread.

A second thought that just came to me, is I can just turn off the ability to comment on Media Gallery images. That way people won't feel like they can't post them in a thread since as a Gallery photo it had already gotten comments.

Ultimately, I would like that banner to be posting images from Threads and not from the Gallery. But that will have to wait until we are big enough that we can afford a dedicated server, right now we are hosting this on a shared server. That limits some of the background apps that I would need to have installed in order to pull images from threads and place them in banners or other locations on the forum.

I am kind of thinking, that maybe the best short term solution is just to turn off comments in the Gallery for now?

A very good question Ben.

Jim

 

[Ben Egbert]

Yes, that and for users to wait to put them up until ready to post. This is a start up sort of thing. Eventually we will have many galleries.

 

[Kyle Jones]

So how do we feel about posting from galleries versus uploading straight to a post? I've been doing the latter but am open to changing...

 

[Ben Egbert]

I want the galley for sure, but in the future, I will upload to the gallery just before posting.

Think ahead better than I did, I started out with one named Landscape and was too lazy to start a wildlife gallery so some of my birds are in my landscape gallery.

Just my thoughts, it probably does not matter, but the banner gives your work more exposure.

What would really be cool is if a click on a banner image took you to the thread where it was posted.

 

[JimFox]

Yep, I agree Ben, ultimately that's where I would like to see it go where a click on a banner image takes you to its thread.

But that's down the road.

Maybe for now... just thinking out loud. Maybe you post an image in the gallery, you start a thread with it, and then go back to the Gallery and in the comments add the link to the thread? Not sure how to not have be all manual at this point though.

I am at a local lake at the moment, I think I will try that when I get home.

But I am also thinking that for now the comments in Gallery's should be turned off so that people aren't commenting in 2 different places on the same image. That will keep all comments in the Threads.

 

[Ben Egbert]

agree on the comments, and good idea for and the link. I will try it on my next post.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Here is an example, very easy to do.

http://www.focalworld.com/index.php...-5-cc-partioal-11-levels-d-b-sharp-blnd2.121/

 

[Zeph]

I like having gallery(s), websites are all about sharing the photography experience with others. It's either getting to the shot, taking the shot, processing etc...I get the quandary about keeping comments to a single image no matter how it's discovered, it seems the easiest option would be upon uploading the image one would have have three options. one would be to post only to one's gallery, two would be post in the appropriate forum and the third could be both...?

 

[JimFox]

Here is an example, very easy to do.

http://www.focalworld.com/index.php...-5-cc-partioal-11-levels-d-b-sharp-blnd2.121/

Hey Ben, yeah that works. And I saw Kyle did it too. That may be the way to go.

The comments for the media Gallery are built in to be set to either on or off. It's not possible at this moment to only allow the Gallery Owner to comment. I will have to look into the coding on that.

I have tested having the comments off for a bit, but I don't think I like not allowing others to comment on our Gallery images. But to keep the back and forth conversation about a photo in the Forums which is designed for that, I am thinking as a matter of practice to just upload an image to the gallery at the point you want to create a thread with it?

Not sure there is a clean solution at this point.

 

[JimFox]

I like having gallery(s), websites are all about sharing the photography experience with others. It's either getting to the shot, taking the shot, processing etc...I get the quandary about keeping comments to a single image no matter how it's discovered, it seems the easiest option would be upon uploading the image one would have have three options. one would be to post only to one's gallery, two would be post in the appropriate forum and the third could be both...?

Hey Zeph,

I agree the Galleries are an important part of the forums, we certainly do not want to get rid of the Galleries.

The main point of this conversation was really just one thing. we didn't want the "conversation" about a photo happening in the Gallery before a photo is actually posted in a thread. Because that defeats the purpose of the threads, the threads are where we want conversations and discussions to take place.

And true, we do still want to allow people to comment on the gallery photos. We don't want to lose that.

There isn't an ability to upload a photo first and then decide where it goes. It's an interesting idea though, but it would take a lot more coding then could happen any time soon. But that idea is a pretty nice one and something I hadn't thought about. If only it was easier to implement.

Jim

 

[Ryan10]

One suggestion for the Media banner I'd like to make...

The ability to upload to our Gallery, and designate pictures do or do not show in the banner. I'd like to post some smartphone pics or perhaps some other images that I don't feel are banner worthy. These pics may be used for a description of some kind, but I wouldn't want them cycling through the banner.

Perhaps all images uploaded to personal gallery do not show in banner by default. You'd have to *tick* a box for it to show.