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Appeareance of images attached to a post

Hello @Friendica Developers @Friendica Support @https://friendica-dev.mbbit.de/profile/friendicadev Hello dear community, I would like to discuss with you about the appearance of posts with multiple images on #Friedica. Here is my opinion:
The current way multiple #images are displayed is awful:

Yeah, you saw it by my embedded examples your self. What bothers me most is:

  • It just looks messy (especially when there is a mix of landscape and portrait format)
  • Besides the aesthetics, multiple images take a lot of room (when you do not use an add-on like show more)


My suggestion on which I would love to hear your opinion is to use a grid format like on #mastodon:

I would pitch a suggestion by adding a PR for a (from my point of view) "better" appearance based to this
tutorial. I do not like to use JS in general and would leave it out by determine the suited amount of columns in the backend.

But before I invest time on that, I want to hear your feedback. Thank You!

#mastodon #images #friedica @Friendica Support @Friendica Developers
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
Grischa
Grischa  
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I would absolutely subscribe to that. In fact I was thinking of doing the same.. 😀
Could be done in template or as addon.
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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@Grischa I got my inspiration from your Fancybox add-on 😀
@Grischa
grischa
grischa  
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I like that (a lot)! 😊

And exactly for the fancybox addon I was thinking about a similar solution. But I have problems with the lightbox lib that is used in Friendica atm, for that my post in the developer forum just before yours was written. 😀
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Can you point me to the place / file where a post content is rendered, so that I can have a look on the complexity?
grischa
grischa  
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@grischa Well for my addon I did not had the necessity to find that place. I gets the content of a post via a hook.

For a theme I am not sure atm. I am poking myself. It depends. There seem to be different templates for different types of posts. wall_thread.tpl seems to be one.

It is more that I look into the developer console of my browser and try to find matching code in order to identify the template.
@Grischa
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Dear @grischa I look in your add-on to copy a good practice for using the hook approach to manipulate the representation of attached images which is quite helpful for me. As I played around with fancybox I encountered the little issue that the gallery only includes the attached images prior and including the one you clicked on. I created an issue on github for that, okay?

[fancybox addon] Image gallery is created for only the images <= clicked image · Issue #12331 · friendica/friendica
@grischa
Grischa
Grischa  
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The post linked there has no fancybox output. I am not involved. 😉 It is the old lightbox gallery producing this.
And I still don't know, how this is triggered. @Hypolite Petovan wanted to have a look into that for me but did not came back with a result yet. 😀
@Hypolite Petovan
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Just for my understanding: Did I use something outdated / wrong? I am not aware of an "old lightbox" 😀
As I understand your reply, your fancybox plugin is not loaded but something else called "lightbox"? Sorry for I am a little bit confused 😀
Grischa
Grischa  
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No. You did not use something wrong. It is only, that frio and afaik vier too uses its own gallery on some images.
The attached images didn't have any gallery so I added fancybox. In fact I never recognized the internal gallery before, because most images I saw were attached..
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Thank you for clarification. I suggest continuing the discussion on github for not scattering information at too many places.
grischa
grischa  
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Well yes.. I answered there already.. 😉
grischa
grischa  
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.. and as I said: I really would like to replace that old gallery with fancybox, too, but I still don't know how to disable the old one. It triggers no matter what I do..
Jonathan Lamothe
Jonathan Lamothe  
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Not really an answer to your question, but thank you for bringing "show more" to my attention.
Gidi Kroon
Gidi Kroon  
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@Marek Bachmann Standard Mastodon crops the images (in the grid, but even if there is one) and I wouldn't like that; that should at least be configurable. But I do agree that the Mastodon, Pleroma, Twitter, Tumblr way of showing multiple images looks better than Friendica.

You can achieve a better look when you post multiple images by putting an empty line between the tags of the photos. The preview will help getting a better look.

If implementing a Mastodon like thing, especially if some form of cropping could occur, can I then also note that Mastodon's 'focal point' feature is really useful. It prevents photos from being cropped in embarrassing ways.
@Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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What is also important for me to do better / in another way than mastodon:
I do not like to have a limit of four images in the grid without any notification that more images are attached, like currently on mastodon.
Spencer
Spencer  
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I can see the value of this and generally like it. However, given that Friendica lends itself to larger posts than Mastodon, including posts that might use multiple images interspersed within the body of the text, I am wary of any solution that compiles all the images in a post and displays them as "attachments" at the end.

There are times when I want to use images in the middle of a post, and they'd become much less meaningful in a compiled cluster at the end of the post, even if they were in a much prettier grid.
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Very reasonable argument to consider. Thank you for this valuable feedback!
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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A solution could be to distinguish between "inline" images and attached. BTW: Speaking of inserting images in a post at a certain position, I wanted to complain that this currently does not respect the cursor position, so that whenever I insert an image using the little image icon the bbcode apears at the very end of the input filed.
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Spencer@Marek Bachmann :friendica: Friendica detects images at the end and groups them in "attachments" as Mastodon does. However, we don't touch images interspersed between paragraphs.

Marek's feature could handle the attachment pictures without touching the post illustrations.
@Spencer @Marek Bachmann

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Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Yeah, here we go, it is so cool that there are already so many reasonable functions "hidden" in the code that sometimes are just not used / connected together. And your answer might also relate to:
https://friendica.mbbit.de/display/b25b9f4f-8963-893c-d882-8d2666919569
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Dear @Hypolite Petovan might you be so kind and point me to the place in the code where I could best start to look around for rendering posts? Even though inspecting different usage locations of promising function names is a good opportunity to learn more about the code structure, it is also quite time-consuming and thus inefficient 😁
@Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Marek Bachmann :friendica: The rendering of conversations is a little complex, but I can easily point you to the main template:
- templates/wall_thread.tpl
- theme/frio/templates/wall_thread.tpl
- theme/vier/templates/wall_thread.tpl

Where the attachments are prepared is in Model\Item: https://github.com/friendica/friendica/blob/e32654381b5715157f0302acd168837ddcf18eb4/src/Model/Item.php#L3043-L3054
@Marek Bachmann

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Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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@Hypolite Petovan thank you very much. Now I have everything to get started making myself familiar tomorrow. German time-zone recommends some sleep beforehand. 😀
@Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Marek Bachmann :friendica: I've seen you up and active at very odd hours, better sleep!
@Marek Bachmann

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Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Bad habit from my times as an PhD student. 😕 Thx 😀
Grischa
Grischa  
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I feel you! 😁
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Hi @Hypolite Petovan when ever you find the time, can you point me to the place in code where this attachment detection is already implemented? I was looking out for it, but was not able to find this distinction yet.
If there is a implementation, you can gladly add this info to the GitHub discussion since this might not so important for the readers here.

Am I right that there is no attachment feature for the creators of post, or is it? I never saw such an option yet.
My current assumption is that the term "attachment" refers solely to an implicit definition like "the media at the end of a post can be / is considered as attachments"
@Hypolite Petovan
Grischa
Grischa  
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What attachment detection do you mean exactly?
Before fancybox the attachments were simply .. uhm .. attached. No special detection or preparation. If you search for "body-attach" you'll find the code actually attaching images. But there is no "magic".
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Hi @Grischa (for what ever reason your account is always suggested twice in the autocompletion for @...)

This exactly what I observe, I was asking and wondering in regard to this answer (don't want to link mrpetovan again and again 😁 ):
https://friendica.mrpetovan.com/display/735a2029-6763-893c-34b6-64d778674108

I think the overview is a little messy by now in this thread regarding who answers to what 😉.
@Grischa
Grischa
Grischa  
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for what ever reason your account is always suggested twice in the autocompletion
This is because I wrote with two of my at least 5 accounts in this thread.. ^^
Marek's feature could handle the attachment pictures without touching the post illustrations.
.. and as I said: These images are collected in the "body-attach" div without any further processing (simply added and linked to). But you want an answer to something different, so I stop and hope you'll find your answer in the issue discussion. 😀
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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From my inspection (which could easily be wrong) your cited code block only handles media for shared content, i.e. when I post something and include a link to another post.
Grischa
Grischa  
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when I post something and include a link to another post.
This is in "type-link" blocks, not in "body-attach".
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Ah this was not expressed well from my side. What I meant was that the referred code block is for handling when a post was shared in another post. Like this one:
https://friendica.mbbit.de/display/b25b9f4f-1363-8e35-d4bb-ef7666696046
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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@Mihai von Glogowatz , @devadideva Totally agree with you. In any way, regarding the outlaying of multiple images issue and my current work on it, I can at least assure that images are included with the <img src="{{$image.preview}}" alt="{{$image.attachment.description}}" title="{{$image.attachment.description}}". So including the description is considered at his point.
The description for images from Mastodon are definitely obeyed on friendica. On Friendica you post you can use bbcode to add a description in this way:

-->

View from railway station Kassel Wilhelshöhe, Germany, platform 2, section B, heading southwards. You see the uncrowded edge of the platform and tracks, which are wet from the December snow rain. In the far background, a red regional train leaves from another platform to the south
@devadideva
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Mihai von Glogowatz@Marek Bachmann :friendica: The relevant example is this:
[img=https://fika.grin.hu/photo/media/343884]The Friendica Logo[/img]
@Marek Bachmann

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Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Gerne. Es geht ganz einfach und mein Beispiel war oben etwas unübersichtlich. Das Format lautet:
[img="quelle"]Beschreibung des Bilds[/img]
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Gute Idee, was es schon gibt ist das ein Vervollständigungsvorschlag eingeblendet wird, wenn Du zum Beispiel "[im" (für den [img][/img]) anfängst zu tippen.
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Wenn Du ein eigenes Bild verlinken möchtest, geht es recht komfortabel mit diesem Button:

Bei externen Bildern müsstest Du den [img=quelle]Beschreibung[/img] Tag selbst erstellten, ja. Immerhin kannst Du die URL zum Bild selbst ja kopieren und einfügen 😀

Wenn ich Dich richtig verstehe, wünschst Du Dir die Möglichkeit "einfach externe Bilder mit einer Beschreibung einzufügen"?

Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Das müsstest du jemandem Bitten der dir von Mastodon aus folgt da dein Profil eingeschränkt ist, also nicht von Dritten aufgerufen werden kann.
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Das sehe ich nur wenn ich dich auf libranet.de besuche:
Friendica Meldung: "eingeschränktes Profil"
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Ne das, oder eine entsprechende Meldung, sieht jeder der dir nicht folgt bzw. mit dir befreundet bist.
Das ist ist KEIN Fehler sondern einfach die Einstellung für dein Profil (ob die nun bewusst war oder nicht 😉 ).
Ich bin gerade unterwegs, und kann daher nicht gut nachgucken, aber irgendwo in deinen Einstellungen kannst du das ändern (wenn überhaupt gewünscht).
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Sorry, da habe ich mich unklar ausgedrückt. Mein Account hier ist ja auch Friendica und deshalb kann ich es nicht aus Sicht von Mastodon prüfen. Die, die es prüfen könnten müssen also bei Mastodon sein UND dir folgen.
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Sorry, jetzt hast Du mich abgehangen, 😀 welches Problem meinst Du jetzt genau?
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Tatsächlich beobachte ich auch gerade einige Probleme beim Teilen von Bildern, insbesondere außerhalb von Friendica also zum Beispiel bei Mastodon. Ich werde das mal bei Gelegenheit präziseren, was genau wo nicht geht und verlinke dich dann in einer neuen Meldung.
Dieser Thread ist ja eigentlich für das Image Grid gedacht. 😀
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Es ist noch nicht in stable verfügbar: So in der Art wird es aussehen:

https://friendica-dev.mbbit.de/display/fa8fe840-2163-95ff-eaad-d3d249610322
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Oh, ich sehe gerade deine Instanz läuft schon auf 2022.12-rc, je nachdem wann libranet.de sich den aktuellen Stand von Git holt, sollte es bald bei dir verfügbar sein. 😀
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Wie gesagt, genau darum geht es hier 😀
Das Image Grid wurde erst gestern in 2022.12-rc gemerged. Es kann sehr gut sein das dein Instanz-Admin @Steffen K9 🐰 die neuen Commits hoch nicht geholt hat.

Ich sehe aber gerade auch, dass die Bilder im eingebetten Link scheinbar tatsächlich nicht im Image Grid erscheinen. Kannst du mal auf den Link
https://friendica-dev.mbbit.de/display/fa8fe840-2163-95ff-eaad-d3d249610322
in meiner vorletzten Nachricht klicken und mir sagen, ob die Bilder dann im Grid sind? Danke.
@Steffen K9 🐰
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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The image grid feature is now live in the 2022.12-rc branch.

❤ Thank you very much for all the feedback and support! ❤

One known issue is that the grid is not generated in "quote shared" post, and I did not find the time to analyze / address it (https://github.com/friendica/friendica/issues/12403).
Grischa
Grischa  
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Do you have a screenshot showing how this looks like now? 😊
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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Bitte schön:

And Fancybox works seamlessly with it ❤

Grischa
Grischa  
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Sehr schön! 😍
Marek Bachmann
Marek Bachmann  
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I am not able to confirm the issue. On my dev instance, clicking on any image in any of both column starts fancybox correctly (Tested it here: https://friendica-dev.mbbit.de/display/fa8fe840-2163-95ff-eaad-d3d249610322).
Can you provide an example? Thank You!
Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan  
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@Marek Bachmann :friendica:@Grischa Don't worry about it, it's an issue with the fancybox addon specifically, and you need an image grid with two columns, it doesn't affect inline images like you've shared.
@Marek Bachmann @Grischa

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