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Argentum
5th February 2009, 12:26 PM
I know you can put 1500 x 1500 images in the gallery but what is the biggest size dimensions you can use and still have the biggest image open in the viewer with the dark background and close button.
I have seen one of Daves which is tall but not very wide which does, but one of mine which is only 800 x 800, always open in a new window which is odd because 800 width is not very wide at all.

Argentum
5th February 2009, 02:27 PM
have played with this a bit and it seems that 798 pixels wide is OK. 800 pixels isn't. However I do have one image which is 800 pixels wide and it does work so I don't understand why that would be unless you have changed the limits since I uploaded that root and branch image to the critique gallery.
Not really a problem as I will just limit images to 798 pixels wide.

Argentum
7th February 2009, 06:25 PM
Have played with this some more and it seems there is a curious limitation in the system. If your image is longer than 799 pixels in one dimension, then thats fine regardless of whether its width or height it will display it as an overlay with dark background and close button. However, if its longer than 799 pixels in both dimensions, then it will open it in another browser window.

Bob
7th February 2009, 10:28 PM
That is a bit odd. I assume it is coded that way in the gallery software, but I can't imagine why...

I'll have a poke around the software writer's support forum and see if there is anything we can do to make it behave more logically.

Bob
23rd February 2009, 11:44 PM
As you discovered, the logic is a bit odd. Logically it should be: "if width is less than x AND height is less than y then use Lightbox, else open a new window" - the idea being that using the Lightbox display it should fit within a typical size browser window by selecting suitable values of maximum x and maximum y. In fact it uses: "if width is less than x OR height is less than y then use Lightbox, else open a new window" - which means that either the width or height (usually the height) may be too large to fit in the window even if the other dimension is set to a sensible figure...

I have reset the limits to 1000 pixels in both directions as a compromise so any image with at least one dimension under 1000 pixels should pop up in the Lightbox display (assuming Javascript is enabled on the browser) but this does mean that some portrait oriented images will be too high for most people's browser window and they will need to scroll to see the whole image. We'll see how it goes.

Argentum
23rd February 2009, 11:51 PM
Thanks for the update Bob.
The problem with forum software and addons / plugins, is that if it doesn't work logically or the way you would like, then you have to tweak it. That is fine until you want to upgrade to the latest version. Then you have to go back and reapply all the tweaks you made, if you can remember them all.
Good idea to ask the gallery software creators to include the tweak in the next release which could save you some work down the line.

Bob
24th February 2009, 12:08 AM
They already said to others that they will not touch it because it's not their code - it's Lightbox which is a set of javascript scripts by someone else - they just include it with the forum software distribution because people nagged them to do so...

If I get a half-day I'll poke around in the Lightbox code and see what's what. As you say, when you make changes you have to remember to re-do them when you get an update. I've already made about 15 changes to the forum templates - only very small ones, but they have to be kept track of and re-done every time the forum coders change the templates. Ho hum.

Argentum
24th February 2009, 12:18 AM
They already said to others that they will not touch it because it's not their code - it's Lightbox which is a set of javascript scripts by someone else - they just include it with the forum software distribution because people nagged them to do so...

If I get a half-day I'll poke around in the Lightbox code and see what's what. As you say, when you make changes you have to remember to re-do them when you get an update. I've already made about 15 changes to the forum templates - only very small ones, but they have to be kept track of and re-done every time the forum coders change the templates. Ho hum.

I beleive the largeformatphotography forum made the decision to never change the vbulletin software. But they don't run image image galleries which I think is where most of these tweaks end up being made.
I also think that apug have made huge changes to their vbulletin installation which must be a nightmare to keep track of and re-apply with every upgrade of vbulletin.
For the for-profit forums, it may be worth writing their own vbulletin plugins which are then simply applied to vbulletin upgrades, but that is an awful lot of work for a hobby/not-for-profit forum. Best policy is to avoid tweaks unless they are a real benefit to the site.