Image upload: Resize image on the *user's machine* see link.

[Tigratrus]

http://www.plupload.com/

VERY nice tool, and they license it for developers to use in their product for only about $110 CHEAP!

I can't tell you how much trouble/bandwidth it would save to have images automatically resized BEFORE uploading to the server. A lot of users have no clue how to resize an image and get frustrated that their 7 MB image takes forever to upload or is refused.

 

[Erik]

It has some serious limitations. It only supports JPEG/PNG resizing using Flash, Google Gears, HTML 5, Silverlight, or BrowserPlus. All of those are plugins (yuck!) except HTML 5, and if you read the footnote for HTML5:

Image resizing is only possible on Firefox 3.5+ and only at a fixed quality. WebKit/Opera doesn't support direct data access to the selected files.

So honestly I don't think it's that great of a solution, compared to bulletproof resizing on the server.

 

[Enigma]

Interesting. Think of all the bandwidth that could be saved!

 

[Erik]

If they were to implement this they would have to use Flash... Personally I don't think it's worth it. Stay away from Flash.

 

[Tigratrus]

So just add a user_agent check and fallback to a regular upload if it's not feasible on the user's browser. When it's available it works fantastically well, and is:

1. A MUCH better user experience
2. Greatly reduces the bandwidth and user frustration.

Did you play with it at all? You can specify a sequence in which it will try the various possible uploaders, it's highly configurable. And it's very well maintained.
And there's always the resizing on the server to fall back on, but this way is soooooo much better when the user agent supports it. Drag and drop can be a real plus too.

Real world: There are still quite a few people with slow connections out there, esp on the upbound leg. For them, this is a lifesaver, as they often have EXTREME trouble uploading images, and many of them lack the knowledge/tools to resize it themselves.

 

[Erik]

It does indeed look very nice. I am half-sold... It's just that the benevolent web developer in me that says "no plugins!" is fighting the part of me that says "this looks really nice..."

There's just always the concern about stuff becoming bloated, though. Especially when plugins get involved.

 

[Tigratrus]

It's also worth noting that plupload is by moxicode, the same folks that put out tinymce, so you know the support/development is likely to be very good.