Add-on Importing external images....

[Paul]

There used to be a nice simple mod on <insert rival forum software here> where the add-on used to run as a cron every 30 mins,parse new threads, and import external images in posts from external servers or paths into a specific local path (usually the forum's "image" folder). When the thread was then subsequently called, it would then load the images locally, rather from the external source.

The reason for this is that a fair few people on my site link to specific images on flickr/private storage, and if/when the source image is removed there's a gaping great whole in the thread which makes no sense to anyone without pics. This way, it allows the pics to remain, and therefore keeps the flow of a thread running (and serves as a useful archive too!).

So effectively what it does (as above) is to parse any new threads via a cron task and any new links to images it downloads to a local directory, and then replaces the link that was present in the thread to link to the local image that it had downloaded, rather than the external content.

Simple, but effective.

Link to original mod is here : http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=253309

Anyone interested in coding this, prices, chipping in etc etc?? I'm a non-commercial profit-free site so not an unlimited budget, however i wouldn't mind paying out of my own pocket to get this coded and made available to the wider community

Cheers
Paul

 

[Paul]

Rats - Wrong place... Any chance the Broganbot/Mods could move to Resource and add-on requests please

 

[AWS]

I second this. I had a staff member quit after a dispute and he removed all the tutorial pictures from PhotoBucket which he used in the tutorials he wrote. It totally messed up the resources section of the site. With an addon like this that could not happen.

 

[erich37]

+1
I would need this as well.

 

[jakew009]

This would be great

I'd be willing to put £50 in

 

[Adam H]

Id throw something in the pot for this aswell.

 

[sweetpotato]

This is something XF is missing

 

[RickM]

I like the idea. But there's 1 huge flaw. Legality.

Flickr being a prime example - you cant copy files off their servers and share them unless the author has released it under a public domain or similar license. That applies everywhere.

I know if it were me, I'd be pretty pissed off if someone had ripped images off my site, which is potentially an issue with something like this.

 

[erich37]

similar thread:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/host-all-images-on-my-site-prevent-hotlinking.43728/

 

[Biker]

I know if it were me, I'd be pretty pissed off if someone had ripped images off my site, which is potentially an issue with something like this.

Yup. I really don't want to be going around having to send take down requests, and I sure as hell don't want to deal with them. I can see the usefulness of something like this, but to have it just arbitrarily snag anything linked on the site and put it on your own server isn't something I'd like. I've dealt with copyright issues in the past from irate authors, and something like this would just exacerbate the problem.