XF 2.2 GIPHY integration, image proxy bypass and audio uploads

Have you been sitting there thinking "I just wish XenForo 2.2 had a little bit more awesome"? Yeah so did we. So here's a few extra features that we're introducing in XenForo 2.2 Beta 2.

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GIPHY integration​

Everybody loves GIFs, right? Well, maybe not everybody but personally we love them... ok ok... maybe it's just @Chris D that loves them. Every day is a GIF (with a hard G) day for Chris.

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So in XF 2.2 Beta 2 we're introducing GIPHY support. It can be enabled from this option in your Admin control panel by populating it with an API key you can obtain from GIPHY.

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Once enabled, we add a handy new GIF button to the rich text editor. When you click the button you will get a list of the latest trending GIFs. But you can also search. As you scroll through the list of GIFs we automatically load more results in. We have an element of lazy loading here too whereby there is initially a still thumbnail version of the GIF loaded in first until just before the GIF scrolls into view then we load the animated version in.

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That feeling when you find the perfect GIF:

But... wait... most of you have the image proxy enabled, right? Won't all these GIFs be cached locally and use up your precious disk space?

Well, not necessarily...

Image proxy bypass​

For the most part, the image proxy is most useful for its ability to ensure that content served from non-HTTPS sites do not generate "insecure content warnings" when they are loaded on your (hopefully) HTTPS secured site.

Or, such as the GIPHY example above, you may simply want to avoid caching images from specific sites due to concerns about the disk space required or concerns that they may exceed the image proxy limits.

So we're also adding an option to bypass the image proxy either for all HTTPS-requests - where the effects of proxying are somewhat mooted - or specific domains.

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If you choose to bypass specific domains, any domain - and its subdomains - will be bypassed. If you need a bit more control, you can write the domain as a regular expression.

Audio uploads​

In XF 2.1 we added video upload support and so it seems only reasonable that we should consider adding audio upload support at some point.

It might just be a small coincidence that it helps us solve a little issue arising from the fact that XFMG supports audio uploads and our attachment mirroring feature was struggling to mirror audio attachments from the attachment system into the media gallery.

If you already have video uploads enabled you do not have to do anything extra. Rather than adding extra options and permissions we made it so that the options and permissions related to video uploading now also include audio attachments by default.

Whatever sounds you decide to upload to your forum, we hope you enjoy this new feature. Here's a montage of some of our favourite sounds:

Speaking of favourites, why don't you give the new GIPHY integration a whirl and post your favourite GIFs below!

 

[Chris D]

Probably not a lot of work no but we’re not going to do it unless the majority of browsers support it.

There is a suggestion opened already by @sbj if you want to add some thoughts there.

 

[duderuud]

 

[Karelke]

This.

 

[Regffqw]

Dear developers, please revert at least the old view of the editor.
P.S: What the editor looks like now is squalor.

 

[SoulReplicant]

 

[Kevin]

Two quick feedback items.....

1) The "GIF" icon is vertically centered when displayed in the main editor tool back but not when shown in the sub menu. Slight case of OCD kicking in. ​

2) The ACP description of "Only show GIFs with the following rating" is a bit misleading; it implies, for example, that if you select "R" then only "R" rated GIFs will be shown. Maybe "Allow GIFs with the following rating"? ​

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[HotRodCarts]

 

[Chris D]

Two quick feedback items.....

1) The "GIF" icon is vertically centered when displayed in the main editor tool back but not when shown in the sub menu. Slight case of OCD kicking in. ​

View attachment 232280​

View attachment 232281​

2) The ACP description of "Only show GIFs with the following rating" is a bit misleading; it implies, for example, that if you select "R" then only "R" rated GIFs will be shown. Maybe "Allow GIFs with the following rating"? ​

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Probably worth posting as bug reports.

All the GIFs in here are far too distracting and I’ll surely forget.

 

[Paul B]

 

[Kevin]

Probably worth posting as bug reports.

All the GIFs in here are far too distracting and I’ll surely forget.

Fixed - GIPHY integration.... editor toolbar alignment & ACP rating description

Posting as 'bugs' per Chris. Two quick feedback items with the new Giphy integration... 1) The "GIF" icon is vertically centered when displayed in the main editor toolbar but not when shown in the sub menu. Slight case of OCD kicking in. :p 2) The ACP description of "Only show GIFs with...

xenforo.com

 

[BassMan]

 

[Jake B.]

@Chris D is there an option to insert the image using the giphy media BBCode rather than an img tag?

 

[Chris D]

No there isn’t.

 

[Paul B]

 

[imno007]

Rather than adding extra options and permissions we made it so that the options and permissions related to video uploading now also include audio attachments by default.

So I take it to mean there's no separate option for allowing audio, that if you allow it you have to also allow video...?

 

[Paul B]

That's correct - it's the same option and permission.

 

[Kevin]

@Chris D is there an option to insert the image using the giphy media BBCode rather than an img tag?

No there isn’t.

That question will likely come up again as it is one of the options from the TH Giphy add-on (insert either as image or as BB code). While I'm using the image option the BB code embed option is nice for those sites with concerns about drive space, it wouldn't count towards any user limits, and it allows for the embedding to be customized if somebody really wants to.

 

[Kintaro]

 

[Chris D]

That question will likely come up again as it is one of the options from the TH Giphy add-on (insert either as image or as BB code). While I'm using the image option the BB code embed option is nice for those sites with concerns about drive space, it wouldn't count towards any user limits, and it allows for the embedding to be customized if somebody really wants to.

There is no drive space concerns. Or any relevant user limits.

They are hot linked from GIPHY and not uploaded to your server.

There is potential for some disk usage if you have the image proxy enabled but that’s basically why we added the image proxy bypass option.

We have the image proxy enabled here, and allow giphy.com to bypass it - all these GIFs today - not a single byte stored on our server.

 

[Jake B.]

That question will likely come up again as it is one of the options from the TH Giphy add-on (insert either as image or as BB code). While I'm using the image option the BB code embed option is nice for those sites with concerns about drive space, it wouldn't count towards any user limits, and it allows for the embedding to be customized if somebody really wants to.

Part of this HYS includes a change that lets you bypass the image proxy for certain domains, so disk usage shouldn't be an issue