XF 2.3 Image optimization, enhanced image resizing, and more!

We hope you're enjoying the "Have you seen...?" series for XenForo 2.3 so far. We still have quite a bit more to show you while we work on adding the last finishing touches before we unleash XenForo 2.3 on this very forum.

This week we're going to talk about various improvements we have made which are mostly focused around images.

Check out the index below to skip to a specific post:

• Image optimization with WebP support
• Enhanced image resizing
• Use any emoji for smilies and reactions
• Size variants for the admin asset uploader
• Tracking sizes for embedded images

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While that is all for this week, we continue next week! We will be focusing on only a single new feature next week, it is a doozy and we're excited to hook you even further into the exciting world of XenForo 2.3

 

[Jeremy P]

Yeah, client-size image resizing will remove the EXIF data, so it's extracted on the client first and sent with the upload.

 

[Feanor]

Another addition that could help save space and even optimize loading times is to have the image uploader check to see if the image has already been uploaded before. Then it could use the existing data instead of saving it as a duplicate image. I recently calculated that something like this would save 7 GB of space on my forum.

 

[Kevin]

Yeah, client-size image resizing will remove the EXIF data, so it's extracted on the client first and sent with the upload.

Does the entire extracted set of values get sent or only specific values?

(Hoping the answer is the full entire extracted values and not just a subset. )

 

[Jeremy P]

Only a subset, as the full set bloats the JS from 18kb to 70kb and we only use 9 values in XFMG. We can consider unbundling the library to make it easier for add-ons to swap in a build with a bigger set if it's an important use case, but we're unlikely to ship more ourselves.

 

[FTL]

(I started working on it this week and I haven't yet mastered the art of time travel).

You are a failure in life, Chris.

My office in the morning, thankyou.

 

[Xon]

What would be the field name for the emoji column?

My "Content Rating" add-on adds emoji support for reactions, but it should be easy to migrate the value into the XF2.3 feature.

But more feature(s) I can get rid of from my own add-ons. I've already got a hack-job to support webp for attachments I can get rid of, and one for avatars can finally be slimmed down.

 

[Jeremy P]

The column for reactions is emoji_shortname, and contains values like :thumbsup:.

 

[Stuart Wright]

What would be the field name for the emoji column?

My "Content Rating" add-on adds emoji support for reactions, but it should be easy to migrate the value into the XF2.3 feature.

But more feature(s) I can get rid of from my own add-ons. I've already got a hack-job to support webp for attachments I can get rid of, and one for avatars can finally be slimmed down.

Was just thinking that it would make the emoji support in

Content Ratings

Inspired by the XF1 add-on "Post Ratings", and the prevalence of "Reactions" as an alternative to the single dimensional Likes. To consolidate alerts use Alert Improvements Installing/Uninstalling on a large forum It is strongly recommended to...

xenforo.com

redundant.

And we use Cloudflare to convert images to webp.
But these are all great advances and much better to have the core Xenforo do the work. Excellent update, thank you.

 

[FTL]

But seriously, I like the way WebP has been implemented, especially being able to convert currently attached pictures to it which I was wondering about.

Lack of WebP support has been a sore point for me for ages now, so this is very welcome.

 

[M@rc]

I'm happy that there's no weird double file extension (eg: file-name.png.webp) like what other plugins do.

Glad there are CLI options to convert old attachments too.

 

[robdog]

Another excellent upgrade and speed improvement. Looking forward to seeing what else you guys have while I plan out my jQuery conversion...

 

[JoyFreak]

I'm happy that there's no weird double file extension (eg: file-name.png.webp) like what other plugins do.

Glad there are CLI options to convert old attachments too.

No, there’s just .webp.(IDNumber) which can sometimes confuse aggregators into thinking it’s an unknown file extension. I hope the team have thought about considering changing it so the image ID is before the file extension.

 

[Xon]

The column for reactions is emoji_shortname, and contains values like :thumbsup:.

I'm using raw unicode for emoji support (technically arbitrary non-html text) in that field. I guess I'll just end up renaming it a bit and leaving it as-is.

 

[BassMan]

Nice additions again. I really like the WebP support.

 

[Chromaniac]

Ah. For a second I thought the emoji post was about having ability to use any new emoji in post content. It's not. Webp updates are nice. Hopefully avif can become an option in a year or two.

 

[Kier]

Ah. For a second I thought the emoji post was about having ability to use any new emoji in post content. It's not. Webp updates are nice. Hopefully avif can become an option in a year or two.

Not sure I understand, surely there are no restrictions on any emoji with XF as is?

 

[alfaNova]

The new features are already exciting. And I can see many developers already thinking about how to make their add-ons compatible with 2.3.

As a regular admin, will Image Optimization be a global setting or will there be a separate setting specifically for XFMG? Even one step further, it would be very nice if we could set it on a category basis in XFMG.

 

[Chris D]

There’s not really any justification I can see that it would need to be granular. So it is global.

 

[Kirby]

Will there be an option to turn off client-side image resizing?

Reasoning
On some of our (photographic) forums we keep a copy of the original image so users can download this, if the image does get resized on the client this wouldn't work any longer (which at least I would classify as some kind of regression).

Furthermore some users really want to keep all EXIF data intact which also wouldn't work with client side image resizing.

 

[alfaNova]

There’s not really any justification I can see that it would need to be granular. So it is global.

Reason
In my forum there are high resolution occupational posters that I have uploaded to some categories of XFMG. I would prefer not to reduce the quality of these. As you know, we spend a lot of time to ensure high quality. I am sure many people may prefer a similar function for various reasons.