Galleries and Pics pages updated

We've updated the Gallery and Pics pages to use newer "LT2" styles and features.

Most of the actual features on the pages are exactly as they were before, albeit some of them might be in new spots on the page to fit the LT2 layout and styling.

• Thumbnails on gallery pages are now slightly larger.
• Images on individual pic pages are full-size (if they were uploaded at a large size), though they might get scaled to fit the available space if needed.
• On pic pages the right side nav (on desktop) now has a little mini-gallery to jump around to the surrounding pics.
• There is a new "Gallery" subtab under "Home" now.

As usual, let me know if you see anything amiss.
Also, as usual, I'll continue to fix all the little things that might be not-quite-right with the update in the next few hours/days.

First: It looks great!

Possible bug: When I go to the Gallery page (I tried accessing it from the link on my profile page, as well as the Gallery subtab on Home) it shows the list of tags on the right. It showed one tag, with a (1) after it, which I assumed meant one picture was tagged thus. When I clicked on the tag name, it took me to a page that said I had no photos with that tag.

I decided to add the tag to the other pictures in the gallery that it applies to. I mistakenly spelled it with a capital letter on the second word (LT Meetups instead of LT meetups as the original tag was called), which I noticed when I refreshed the page and saw two tags listed, both with the (1) after them. The new tag I had just created also returned a "no pictures with this tag" error message, even though I had just tagged the photo.

Nice work!

Something that bothered me in the old design and that wasn't added in the new is that, when viewing a single picture, there are no arrows on the left/right of a picture to move to the previous/next picture.

In the old design, there were previous/next links in the left-hand menu. Aannoying, but they were there, at least. The new design has a set of thumbnails over to the right, which makes clicking through a gallery even less expedient (a user now has to select and click a very specific picture each time instead of just hitting "next").

Easy scrolling through a gallery with left/right buttons is how galleries work in other places on the web. It's strange that LT doesn't have them.

>3 Petroglyph: Agree 100%

So where is the add another picture button? I don’t see it in either display choice.

>5 2wonderY: There's an Upload Image button at the top of the right-hand column.

Looks good!

>2 rosalita: Thanks. That's actually a problem with how our new servers decode URLs with spaces in them. I'll push out a workaround.

>3 Petroglyph: I can certainly add some left/right arrows to the pic page.

>8 conceptDawg:
Great, thanks! Much appreciated!

>6 rosalita: I don’t have a right hand column. In either view.

In the Recent Members Gallery, when I click on the "Beginner's Spanish" image - https://www.librarything.com/pic/9077954 - I get the response "no picture"
I've not seen this before. Is it an issue with the code, or something else?

Upload image button disappears below 1060px and below.

I not finding any way to upload in the Mobile view. Android device.

When on the page for an individual image in the Junk Drawer, the navigation chain has the wrong link in the middle.

aspirit > Gallery > Image

That "Gallery" should be something like "Junk Drawer". As is, the only way I see to return to the overview of the Junk Drawer is to use the drop-down menu, requiring an extra click in a more awkward spot.

ETA: Something to maybe consider while changes are happening the Gallery is that the images labeled "junk" are not junky. They're shared in reading challenges, Bug Collectors, and other informative posts; and deleting the images would create broken link errors and holes in the conversation, decreasing the value of the Talk topics where they're used. (Unless I've misunderstood the image links?) Is there a more accurate name that could be used?

>11 rodneyvc: And there's a couple more that look like book covers - The War for Reality, and The Survivors, by T C Weber - with an error of "No picture"

>12 lesmel: and the left hand panel below 750px

I would propose we rename "Junk Drawer" into "Other images." So say we all?

>17 timspalding: Aye

>17 timspalding:

I rather like "Junk Drawer", but have no particular objection to a name change.

>17 timspalding: Yes

>16 rodneyvc: The nav panel moves from the left side to above in a drop down for anything below 768px for me.

>21 lesmel: Ahh yes, not obvious. Happens for me between 752 and 753px. FF100 MacOS 10.15.7

>17 timspalding:

Aaaw, I like that term!

Looks nice! Maybe someone should take a look here and update "Junk Drawer" to "Other images".
I think "Primary Picture" should be explained too. (I.e. where is it used).

https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/HelpThing:Gallery

I never really understood why the Gallery and Junk Drawer were separate given that pics in both are visible to other members. Why not combine the two but add a display toggle to the pics which controls whether it is displayed in the gallery or not?

I'm forever uploading pics to the gallery not the junk drawer, having to delete them and re-upload them to the junk drawer. Also helpful would be the ability to create collections of images, err albums, for better navigation.

I tried to post a comment on someone’s primary image. The ‘Preview’ button worked but the ‘Post Comment’ button didn’t.

Verifying the same "no picture" page as described in >11 rodneyvc: and >15 rodneyvc:, in the Recent Members gallery page. First guess is could it be images uploaded to a private account leaking out? Or ones uploaded by a now-spam-banned account not being pruned? (seems less likely)

>1 conceptDawg:

Thumbnails on gallery pages are now slightly larger.

I must say that they seem to be more than "slightly" larger.

So, I see that there is an “add” feature on my homepage, but not on the gallery page. Is that a permanent change?

>29 2wonderY:

It's still there. It's just been moved over to the right and re-named "Upload Image".

>30 lilithcat: Okay. But I can’t reach it on my iPhone using Safari. The screen doesn’t scroll that direction, no matter how I try. Asking developers what info I can supply for them to fix the problem.

>31 2wonderY:

Ah, did not realize you were on your phone.

Just checked, and can confirm that this is also an issue with an iPad using Safari.

(It's fine with Safari on my computer.)

Is there a way of transferring images from the gallery to the junk drawer (or "other images", I guess) that does not involve deleting and re-uploading? I'd like to move a few of mine to the junk drawer without changing the URI.

>33 Petroglyph:

I'm not aware of any. It would be a good option to have, along with the reverse.

How well does "junk drawer" translate to other languages? Does it convey the same sense that is used in U.S. English?

James

>17 timspalding: Aye!

>33 Petroglyph:

Yes. On the picture page, click "Edit" and then change the "To Where?" to your Junk Drawer.

>35 Keeline: All LT translations are manual - aka someone enters them. So each translator can pick up a term that has the same connotations.

As long as the string is translatable of course.

>30 lilithcat: Renamed and untranslateable.

>37 timspalding:

Ah, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Any update on not being able to upload images from small screens? I'd like to upload an image from my phone camera and still can't figure out how.

Yes, I use my IPad for LT so now have no way to upload photos (>31 2wonderY: >32 lilithcat:) Can this be remedied Tim?

>42 Caroline_McElwee: I found an add icon on the home page. Plus sign in a square, at the end of the thumbnail display. That is if you haven’t customized that section away.

conceptDawg?

Maybe this is worth a bump? https://www.librarything.com/topic/306720#n7833093

>32 lilithcat: Yup; not seeing it on my iPad with Safari.

>43 2wonderY: Thanks for the try, but no go. The only place I can upload is a profile picture on the profile page.

All disappointing as on holiday and wanted to share pics with some friends. Hey ho.

>47 Caroline_McElwee: As a short-term workaround, have you tried switching to "Desktop View" while on your mobile device? It’s an option at the bottom of both this page and the Gallery page, and probably on other LT2-style pages.

It will be easiest if you navigate to the Gallery page first, then click on "Desktop View" from there. You’ll then have to zoom and scroll a lot more to see and access things, because the display will no longer be optimized for your screen size. But I tested on my phone that the "Add Image" button is not there for me in the default Mobile View, but it shows up in the upper right and is clickable if I change to Desktop View. After you click "Upload Image", you'll probably have to scroll down and left a bit to find the pop-up window used to upload the image.

When you’re done, you’ll want to scroll back to the bottom and select "Mobile View" so that you can navigate the rest of the site more easily.

(As a side note, the ability to toggle between Mobile/Desktop views is pretty common on sites that have mobile optimization, so you may be able to apply this tactic elsewhere to work around bugs or limitations in a mobile version of a site.)

>48 YouKneeK: That attempt didn’t work for me on my iPhone.

It was one of the first things I tried days ago.

>48 YouKneeK: That worked for me on Android, thanks!

>48 YouKneeK: Thanks; but I already tried it on my iPad and it didn’t work.

I am not having this problem on my iPad; I see an upload button in both Chrome and Safari.

I do not see an upload button on my iPhone. I've only tried Chrome since that's my primary browser.

Changing to Desktop View doesn't solve the problem for me, either.

>48 YouKneeK: Thanks for trying, but that didn't work for me either.

Okay, another "gallery" request: previously, when images in the gallery weren't displayed full-size, I could copy the URL of that image to get a somewhat sized-down image to post in a Talk thread. Now I guess there's no way to do that automatically, it's either full-size or tiny? Would it be possible to offer links to a few different sizes of the image?

(Ideally it would also give you pre-generated html that also links to the full-size and includes the alt text, but just a few size options would also be nice.)

Arg! Suddenly my images are huge! How do I find the URLs of the different size versions of the images?

I know LT stores multiple copies of an uploaded image, in various sizes. I want to be able to select a sensible (i.e. medium) sized version to use in Talk, and not the original (huge) version.
How do I find the URLs of the different sized versions of an image please?

>56 feca67: Another way to do this is by adding a phrase to the HTML code specifying the image height or width. Try "height=300" (without quotes) after the URL and before the closing bracket. Use preview to see how it will look in your post, and fiddle with the number until you get a size you like.

>57 lauralkeet: worked a charm! thanks for the help

>57 lauralkeet: That changes the display size of the image in the browser but it is just as large as before in terms of a file size. I think the ones stored on LT are not very large as a file size so it is probably not as big of a deal. Just keep it in mind. When I do what is suggested, I pick a width I like such as width="1000". The Preview button in Talk is very helpful to make sure things don't go crazy.

James

>59 Keeline: 1000?! I usually stick to between 100 and 400; 300 is my preferred size (either height or width - but not both together or it throws out the proportions).

Is there any update on the inability to upload images when using devices/browsers with smaller screens?

>61 lauralkeet: There is not an update yet. I was sidetracked on another "on fire" issue so I'm just getting back to this today. I'll have an update for this as soon as I can.

>56 feca67: Each image on screen is available in 3 different sizes from our servers. They are displayed to you by your browser based on various metrics that even I don't have control over at display time (screensize, pixel density, available bandwidth). Basically, I give the browser 3 versions at different sizes and it decides the "best" one to show you based on these things.

You can see the URLs for the "smaller" files if you look at the source code (they are the default image url in the 'src' attribute—the other images are defined in the 'srcset' attribute with 2x and 3x labels).

Our image system encodes our images and obfuscates the sizing directives within the filename so there isn't a way to just ask for a 100x100 image of any image without already having the URL for it from a generated LT page. This is done on purpose because otherwise we'd have nefarious people harvesting images at different sizes constantly.

>62 conceptDawg: Thank you! I can't imagine how many fires you have to deal with. Just taking the time to check in here is helpful.

>5 2wonderY: & >64 lauralkeet:, et al
The “Upload Image” button should now be available on all mobile devices.

>65 conceptDawg: Confirmed on iPhone/Chome. Thank you!

>65 conceptDawg: Thank you so much.

This is a much less important bug than the ability to upload, but I just wanted to add some additional information what I wrote in >2 rosalita: It appears that tags on my Junk Drawer are working as expected, but the two tags I have on photos in my Member Gallery appear in the right-hand column list, but clicking on them brings up an empty page with "No pictures" notice.

>65 conceptDawg: Thank you! And thanks for the hint on finding the smaller files.

>65 conceptDawg: confirmed on Android. Thank you!

>65 conceptDawg: working on Safari and iPhone. Almost too obvious for me to find it at first. Lovely! Thank you.

>68 rosalita: Yep. This is a bug related to our recent server upgrades. Basically, any tag with a space or special character gets is failing right now because the character gets interpreted twice. We're working on this.

>72 conceptDawg: Excellent! Thanks for the update.

>63 conceptDawg: Thanks for the info, I had a look at the source as you suggested with mixed results, I think it might be easiest if I resize images before uploading them

Translation for Junk drawer in Dutch is 'rommellade', we understand the term (and most of us have such a place in our house), but 'Junk drawer' fits and sounds better to me.

I've noticed that when an image is uploaded, the checkmark to "allow members to snag image" is no longer there.

1. Is that intentional?

2. Does that mean all images are "snaggable"? Or that none are?

I'm feeling stupid now, because I'm looking all around the photo gallery page and I don't see how one can flag a picture any more.
Especially a profile picture for an account that's already suspended?

>76 lilithcat: We've done away with the snaggable button on images within a gallery.

>77 gilroy: It's in the section with additional information below the picture. There is a button. Shoot me a link and I'll make sure it didn't get filtered out if the user is suspended.

>78 conceptDawg: Okay, I'm being blind still.
Win 10 Enterprise, Chrome 100.0.4896.127


This screenshot is just me looking at another photo to see where I missed the flag button. The picture I had a question on originally looks like it got cleared.

>76 lilithcat:

Yeah. Snaggable images were a very early internet thing. Someone would have a good bookish image, and knowledge of how to grab images was less diffuse. It's not necessary now, and it even rings of privacy invasion or whatever. In any case it was confusing for some people.

>77 gilroy: >79 gilroy:
>I'm looking all around the photo gallery page and I don't see how one can flag a picture any more.
>Especially a profile picture for an account that's already suspended?

Not sure there was one before? Images in author galleries: yes, flaggable to put up for a vote (these do have a "Flag Image" button in the area you screenshot), but member galleries: no. We would flag the profile for spam if their images are part of commercial spammery, and other T&C infringements can be reported direct to LT/staff, I believe.

Edit: formatting, etc.

>77 gilroy:

You were never able to flag a profile pic.

Test.

.tseT

:)