Image handler vs upcoming Zen 1.5

[niccol]

Reading Kuroi's comments in the 'mods that work with 1.5' thread made me think about image handler.

Obviously, Image handler has been the main tool for image resizing on most zen carts in the last few years. So, my initial thoughts were that not having it available in 1.5 was a major concern. Also, there was an element of sadness that some similar feature is not yet included in Zen as it is in many more recent carts.

However, after a bit of thought, I kind of ended up with a different thought process. I wondered what other people thought. Here are my thoughts to get a conversation started.

1. Image handler is actually a bit of a monster these days. A lot of that has to do with the 'creating resized images on the fly' approach and then caching them. Perhaps a step back to resizing on upload would be a better solution these days. As a suggestion, perhaps a resize to small, medium and large on upload is a way to go? Yes, of course, one would need a 'rebuild' feature in the situation where image sizes on the front end changed. (hmmm, this is kind of like automating the existing Zen Cart small/medium/large arrangement - so respect for the developers here)

2. A lot of the extra features in Image Handler are just not needed. These days if I want a fancy effect on an image then I would just build a jQuery module that did exactly what I wanted. I think that what I would want from a module that image handled is to provide me with re-sized versions of the images as the raw materials for this type of mod. The fancy, front-end, display stuff is better handled by bespoke modules that are tailored to do exactly what is needed.

So, what I see is a module that
--re-sizes on upload and saves in the appropriate folders.
--has a rebuild feature that will re-create the scaled images if the front end size changes.
--probably has an admin page for easily uploading additional images to products
--uses the existing Zen Cart code, perhaps adapted a bit, to select the correct size of image and use it.

That's about it really. It is simple and is not a huge programming challenge. I can't see how this would create increased security problems the way the present Image Handler is doing. But would be interested to know the thoughts of those of you with more security knowledge than me.

It is not as ######## ( ha ha I can't write s-e-x-y in this forum) as having 're-size and cache on the fly' but it is simple and straight-forward.

And again, if the default image handling in Zen Cart is likely to be changed in the near(ish) future it would be good to know so that not too much time was wasted coding a solution like this ( or making Image handler work with 1.5 in a secure way ) So if one of the devs could comment that would be great.

[gilby]

I seem to recall that the very early version, IH1 did create the small medium and large images on upload.

I much prefer the current version as I can "play" with the images sizes and very quickly determine what sizes look good for a particular site.

[niccol]

Yes, development is different but during development the worst that can happen is that the saved image is slightly the wrong size and it will be scaled by the browser. So, it might not look perfect as far as resolution goes. Which during development is not a huge problem. Or that is my take on it anyway. Once the sizes are more nailed down you'd just rebuild all the images to the correct size.

[ray-the-otter]

I do not like Image Handler because of the complexity of installing, upgrading and removing. I moved to Image Manager when 1.3.9 was released, it's far better and easier to upgrade!!

Sadly, image resizing is not automated on the fly or on upload, you have to access the Image Manager Admin page. Maybe drop the dev a line and see how you can work on that part of Image Manager.

If that could be achieved with Image Manager, it would be awesome. Image Handler for me is such a pain for upgrading that if I had not of found Image Manager I would of switched cart scripts for a cart with 'image handler' style management built-in. I dislike IH that much.

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...oducts_id=1441

[niccol]

@ray

thanks. just goes to show. I didn't know about Image manger. I'll have a look. It seems to have some nice administration features. Combined with a resize on upload it might suit me. And resize on upload is not a complicated but of coding.

[DivaVocals]

2. A lot of the extra features in Image Handler are just not needed. These days if I want a fancy effect on an image then I would just build a jQuery module that did exactly what I wanted. I think that what I would want from a module that image handled is to provide me with re-sized versions of the images as the raw materials for this type of mod. The fancy, front-end, display stuff is better handled by bespoke modules that are tailored to do exactly what is needed.

And even in the IH3 readme we acknowledge that the fancy image hover is NOT the primary reason to use IH3. In fact I have said outright that the image hover feature is truly a "nice to have" feature and NOT the primary reason to use IH3.. The hotzone feature was disabled because it did not work and those of us who worked on IH3 did not feel the hotzone feature was worth the development effort needed to get it working. That said IMHO the only "extra" feature that IH3 offers that I think is remotely useful is the watermarking feature. (a feature that Gallery 2 also offers)

[niccol]

@ DIva
Interesting. Thanks for the input :-)

OK. Next question. What are the meaningful features? I'd like to see:

-watermarking
-ability to add unsharp mask

What else?

Nick

[dutchy]

I use image manager 1.6 and that has a watermark feature. i think it is upto version 1.8 now but i have not upgraded so it might have more features? Image handed put me off with the nightmare of upgrading.

[DivaVocals]

@ DIva
Interesting. Thanks for the input :-

Happy to contribute to the discussion.. It's a good topic.. I had a similar discussion a few months back with a forum member about how to make Image Handler better..

I use image manager 1.6 and that has a watermark feature. i think it is upto version 1.8 now but i have not upgraded so it might have more features? Image handed put me off with the nightmare of upgrading.

What nightmare?? The readme has very CLEAR easy instructions for upgrading and installing?? These instructions were crafted by several of us who extensively tested not only the installation, but the upgrade..

[nigelt74]

@niccol

Image handler does do watermarking and
There is an admin page for uploading additional images (there are 2 ways to access the page) either
1) in admin - Catalog link --> categories/product drill down to the product you want click the Imagehandler icon and you are on a page where you can add additional images to that product.
2) in admin - Tools --> Image handler 3 --> Manager tab, select your category from the dropdown, then select your product from the displayed list. and there is a bit to add/delete additional images, you can also add in say a medium image if you want your medium image to be different to the large image.

I personally prefer method 2

If any of the additional images are displayed in red it means they won't display