Attaching photos to posts.

[Drewid]

Yes we now have a live hosting space.  It would be cool if people could upload photos to our space rather than using an external hosting site.  That way we shouldn't end up with missing images later on.

It's hidden in the "additional options" tab when you are posting a topic or reply, (bottom left).

[cellofaan]

Is there a possibility to retrieve the lost pictures that once were attached to the forum, or are they lost for eternity?

[bernard]

you may have some luck with the wayback machine -- but most of them are really lost. I've searched.

Now I am worried about all the images that work *today* but can disappear *anytime*

[Drewid]

Yeah, same here.

Perhaps if we put put a blanket post asking people to move their pics inhouse?  Otherwise it's a load of work to do it one at a time.

[bernard]

Well, it depends how SMF works, but if we can do some sort of scripting to insert images and scan & update post text, it could be done a bit more quickly.

[Drewid]

It's all built on SQL, so Bobs (who likes that sort of thing  ) could scan the database for all picture references, and give us a list of posts.   We would have to then grab pics dump them in the attachments folder, and poke the database again to pick them up from the right place.

It's the grabbing part that's the real pain.  We can't be the first to have this problem. I'll have a look for an SMF extension that manages pics.

[bernard]

"Grabbing" the image from a url is the most simple thing. You just make a HTTP request and keep the output (if a valid "200" status is returned) -- "curl" does that.

The tough part would not be technical but legal. It could be 100% automatic, but I think a "human" need to screen them one by one to accept/reject. To me, that is the annoying part.

[Drewid]

Technically we would also need to check with the builders that they are OK with us hosting.   The copyright of the original images rests with the photographer even if publicly displayed on the internet.

I can send a blanket email out for that though. It only needs to be "We intend to do this, please notify us if you object" I should think.  I can't imagine anyone would have a problem with it.