Image handler vs upcoming Zen 1.5

[niccol]

@diva

I think i'll take this chance to say that none of what I say is meant as criticism for IH. It has been one of the first mods that I have installed on sites over the last few years. The fact that some people find the install and upgrade complex is more due to the structure of Zen than the module. Even as a supporter of Zen it is hard not to yearn for modules that reside in their own directory and can be installed and upgraded at the click of a button, but hey, we know why that isn't possible as it stands and also know that the developers are aware of this.

I probably wouldn't have thought about any of this if it hadn't been for the issues with IH and Zen 1.5. But having thought about it I still think that the model based on 'resize on upload' works better for a store that is up and running. It just uses a small bit of processing resources during upload but after that is much more efficient.

Having thought more about development I think that during development I am happy not to use any image handling at all. The browser will rescale just fine for me to play with layout options ( exactly as it does with no module installed ) and I don't care about the performance penalty during development.

[niccol]

@nigelt
yes, I am aware that IH can watermark. and yes I am aware that it handles additional images just fine. That is not my point. To restate it my problems are:

1. There seems to be some security issues with IH. These are being highlighted by the increased security awareness of Zen 1.5.

2. There is a whole lot of code and associated processing involved in the way IH works that makes me wonder if it is actually the best way of handling images on an 'up and running' store. I think not but that is what the discussion is about.

The question I asked earlier was in regards to which parts of IH people actually value. As diva said watermarking is something that is of value to many people. The handling of additional images is obviously of value. On my wishlist I would also add the ability to add unsharp mask to images.

[DivaVocals]

I think i'll take this chance to say that none of what I say is meant as criticism for IH. It has been one of the first mods that I have installed on sites over the last few years.

Never took this to be a criticism.. I just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion 'tis all..

The fact that some people find the install and upgrade complex is more due to the structure of Zen than the module.

I agree.. This is why IMHO it helps to have very explicit readme docs (one of the things we worked very hard to improve upon with the latest version of IH3)

1. There seems to be some security issues with IH. These are being highlighted by the increased security awareness of Zen 1.5.

Care to elaborate on what those issues are?? Just want to understand as I've been ill the last few months and have not had ANY opportunity to do any testing with v1.5..

[niccol]

Care to elaborate on what those issues are?? Just want to understand as I've been ill the last few months and have not had ANY opportunity to do any testing with v1.5..

Well, not really, because I just took Kuroi's word for it. If you read through the thread about modules that work with 1.5 you will see his comments.

[dutchy]

@diva
no offence but IH is a major period pain if you have conflicting mod. a mass chew on to remove with the abundance of files and overall crap. i liked it when i used 1.3.8a. i was turned off it with 1.3.9 and loathed it by 139d. image manager is far easier to use, install, upgrade, remove, less files, less hacks....... far far better

needed a rewrite for 139, needs a rewrite for 1.5, time to ditch it i think

[DivaVocals]

Well, not really, because I just took Kuroi's word for it. If you read through the thread about modules that work with 1.5 you will see his comments.

got it..

@diva
no offence but IH is a major period pain if you have conflicting mod. a mass chew on to remove with the abundance of files and overall crap. i liked it when i used 1.3.8a. i was turned off it with 1.3.9 and loathed it by 139d. image manager is far easier to use, install, upgrade, remove, less files, less hacks....... far far better

needed a rewrite for 139, needs a rewrite for 1.5, time to ditch it i think

Not offended.. (not sure how you assumed that) Simply trying to get you to substantiate your GENERAL statements with some SPECIFICS to understand what you mean by the things you have stated..

[barco57]

My experience...if you know how to do Zen Cart upgrades correctly, Image handler causes no problems with that process, but I have done hundreds of upgrades

[nigelt74]

Care to elaborate on what those issues are?? Just want to understand as I've been ill the last few months and have not had ANY opportunity to do any testing with v1.5..

Yep Kuroi has an explanation, basically some of the $_GET s are not as secure as they could be especially if you want to get PCI certified, this does effect loads of different mods not just Image Handler it should be pointed out. Also the problematic $_gets are all in the admin section so a hacker would need to know your admin directory name to even start being able to run them.
I have had a look and a go fixing the issue, but probably won't be near to finishing a beta till next week, also some of the original zenfiles that IH is based on have been updated in 1.5 and need to be updated to match.

[DivaVocals]

My experience...if you know how to do Zen Cart upgrades correctly, Image handler causes no problems with that process, but I have done hundreds of upgrades

I couldn't agree more..

Yep Kuroi has an explanation, basically some of the $_GET s are not as secure as they could be especially if you want to get PCI certified, this does effect loads of different mods not just Image Handler it should be pointed out. Also the problematic $_gets are all in the admin section so a hacker would need to know your admin directory name to even start being able to run them.
I have had a look and a go fixing the issue, but probably won't be near to finishing a beta till next week, also some of the original zenfiles that IH is based on have been updated in 1.5 and need to be updated to match.

Ahhhhh Nigel to the rescue as ususal!!

Thanks for the details.. I get it now.. Looking forward to testing v1.5 and your IH3 beta..

[niccol]

Hmmm, I think we kind of have gotten sidetracked onto whether IH is good or not. It has been used by thousands of shops so it obviously has something going for it.

@Nigel - great if you sort out the GET issues :-) I had a look and it was one of those things that just felt it was going to eat my time. So big respect for you.

To me the choice is between the complexity of IH or making a change to a single file to allow resize on upload. Taking a bit of step back from the forest in order to see the trees, I think I will go that route. What meaningful does IH offer me that 'resize on upload' doesn't?

I can add options for watermarking and unsharp mask.

So, I guess the answer is that IH provides nice additional image handling but that can be built as a separate admin page the way it is in IH.

Just my thoughts. And as always I think that there is room for different approaches to the challenge. One of the sad things is that two approaches can not be run at the same time because they both will want to hook into handle_image()....