View Pictures across Site on Media Gallery

I like a lot of what is being said here.

I have a newer forum, but already I have had members ask for a way to tie the same photo that is in the Media Gallery to the Forum Thread it is used in. They want it to be that if they are in the Media Gallery and looking at a Photo in there that is used in a thread, that they can click on a button called "Used in Thread" (example) and clicking on that takes them to the Thread that the photo is used in.
 
To better explain what I'm trying to say basically: (y)(y)

I upload something to a post and it can still be accessed via the Media Gallery, basically if Media Gallery is installed on your xF Install, it becomes the central thing for images across the site.
 
this suggestion makes a lot of sense.

1)
Since you could put the "Media Gallery" onto the "Homepage" and by clicking onto the photo (or a specific Link under the photo), the users could jump into the respective thread-post where the image has been posted originally.
(Although I think you might want to ditch/disable the "Photo Comments" from the "Media Gallery Addon".)


2)
The "Categories" of the "Media Gallery" could be the same as the "Categories / Forum Nodes" of the Forum itself. So you would have coherent "Categories" at both the "Media Gallery" and the Forums.
For example:
- "Media Gallery Category": Pets
- Forum: Pets

So all pictures which have been posted into the Forum named "Pets" will show up in the "Media Gallery Category" named "Pets".


3)
Add the "Photo Keyword Tags" to the Forum-post (Photo-Tags showing underneath the Photo at the specific Forum-post) and you have a perfect integrated system.

View attachment 90430



4)
You could literally have it working both ways:
- adding a photo directly to the "Media Gallery" (as currently)
- displaying a photo (which has originally been posted somewhere in a Forum-Thread) at the "Media Gallery"


5)
If a user finds a certain photo in a certain "Category" interesting, he could just click a button named "Add this photo to my Album".
So a user could put certain photos (photos which he did not upload by himself) into his own Albums. Similar to a "Photo Bookmarking System".




:coffee:

This would be the perfect solution.

:)
I'm shopping around for a proper forum script (using MyBB - XenForo tops the list of prospects) and this feature would be key -- my site has over 100,000 attachments.

I'd suggest keeping attachments and the gallery separate initially, but give us the option to pull content, selectively or entirely, from the forum. In the process, attachments could be grouped into albums based on forum category, thread, user, tags or some combination thereof.
 
I think this would be a really useful feature. :unsure::unsure:

Maybe when a user uploads an attachment to a post in the forum, they should be given the option to choose an album for it within the media gallery. If no album is selected, the attachment can still be found in the gallery by clicking on "all pictures/attachments by user X".
 
I think this would be a really useful feature. :unsure::unsure:

Maybe when a user uploads an attachment to a post in the forum, they should be given the option to choose an album for it within the media gallery. If no album is selected, the attachment can still be found in the gallery by clicking on "all pictures/attachments by user X".

I like the idea that when a Member uploads an attachment into a Thread there is an option for them to pick a Gallery for the Attachment to be stored.

But what gets asked the most from my Members, is if they have uploaded a Photo from the Media Gallery into a Post, that in the Media Gallery there now be a link that will direct someone viewing the Media Gallery to that Thread the photo is used in.
 
I've switched to using Media Gallery only for post images, not allowing normal attachments. The members love random images and browse the galleries finding great images.
But what gets asked the most from my Members, is if they have uploaded a Photo from the Media Gallery into a Post, that in the Media Gallery there now be a link that will direct someone viewing the Media Gallery to that Thread the photo is used in.
And THIS is what I need. My members ask for this and it's a great idea for an addon. With random images and simply browsing the galleries, they find albums of progress on art and want to see the discussion thread on it describing the progress, if it exists.

I understand there would be some performance issues searching posts for media tag use with specific IDs so it would be an on-demand option, an XHR request for posts containing the image.
 
For the Media Gallery add-on to reach its full potential, it needs to integrate seamlessly with forum posts.

Our forums are used for topical discussions, and often photos and videos accompany the discussions. Users don't want to leave the forums to upload a video, they just use "attach files" ... and videos only render as an attachment icon which must be downloaded and viewed, which is very non-user friendly.

I recommend a setting in admincp (enabled via usergroup permission, perhaps via forum permission as well) where I can offer users a toggle or something to have an attachment inherently integrate with the Media Gallery, and the BB code is automatically inserted in the forum post.

So, it would go like this:

1) User (with appropriate permissions) starts a thread or replies to a thread in a forum (with appropriate permissions).

2) The user is presented with options in the post form to "Attach Files", "Insert Quotes", or "Add Media"

3) Selecting "Add Media" renders a lightbox or overlay from the Media gallery which allows the user to fill out all related detail, and select a file to upload.

4) User has option to either embed as thumbnail which links to the Media gallery, or render it in full within the post.

5) Users who visit the Media Gallery directly will see this content in the location set by the posting user in step 3.

6) The media asset in the Media Gallery will offer a link back to the specific post where the image was added from.

I believe this represents a crucial bit of functionality and will significantly increase the value of both the Media Gallery and the Forums themselves. Please "Like" [the seed post by the OP, here: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/view-pictures-across-site-on-media-gallery.86871/#post-853491] if you agree.
 
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Yup - this is pretty much exactly what we need for ZooChat - or something similar.

We either need photos to be discussed as real threads (comments are not good enough - we have some photos with hundreds of posts and real discussion) ... or alternatively the ability to attach/link a photo to an actual thread as described in this suggestion so that the photo becomes the focus of the thread and there is a link between photo and thread in the gallery/forums.
 
Thanks - yeah, I'll Like that one, but I've seen a few threads trying to express the requirement and perhaps one reason that it's not getting traction is because people are getting lost in the definition of it.
The devs will mark any suggestion as a duplicate if they think that is the case.

As you'll see if you filter this particular forum by First Message Likes, the (original suggestion) thread I linked to is actually the 2nd most popular suggestion for the Media Gallery. As XenForo 2.0 was focused on feature parity on the most part, that'll be one factor why the suggestion hasn't been implemented in the new version. We'll have to wait and see if 2.1 brings it or if it'll happen in a later version.
 
3) Selecting "Add Media" renders a lightbox or overlay from the Media gallery which allows the user to fill out all related detail, and select a file to upload.
by the way, I think this is a better solution (and easier to develop I bet) and gives control to the admin to create the media categories s/he wants. If i want my media categories to mirror my forum nodes, I can create media categories to support that. Personally, I don't want them to mirror each other so I would manage accordingly. the link to add media simply goes to the Media overlay as-is.

Kind of hoping this suggestion helps fast track the feature. I love the photo contest suggestion, but the request in this thread feels like a more foundational competency for this official add-on.
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@Chris D,

Would be cool if there was a tab where you could see all image across the site and comment on them, etc.

FWIW, I am taking the search index route to solve requirements such as the above. This and the general need to extract data and present it in patterns not yet available in core, crops up every day. For example, how to show all images from a thread in a vertical slider in the sidebar.

One route would be to modify core, but another more extensible route could be to enhance the ESearch index creator, by extracting images from a thread body and adding these to the index, as sub fields. But, not just images..., all embedded media, plus links etc. Then it becomes a fairly simple job to write some client side code, embedded in an HTML widget, to present a ESearch UI to, for example, show all Off Topic images posted today.

And that's exactly what I am currently having developed, albeit to work with Algolia, not ES. Although it could, I suspect be easily enhanced to work with ES too, should there be appetite.

Edit: Image comments would have to be made in the original post - but keeps it much cleaner that way.
 
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I still think this would be an awesome idea.

Is the reason it was not implemented in Media Gallery 2 because the Xenforo Mods think its a dumb idea? If you read comments on this first page of this thread it's clear several of them didn't think it made any sense.

So are they overruling the dozens or hundreds of users who have stated it would be a great idea?
 
Is the reason it was not implemented in Media Gallery 2 because the Xenforo Mods think its a dumb idea?
It wasn't implemented in XFMG 2 because the aim of this release, as with XF 2, was feature parity with XFMG 1.x and XF 1.x. Whilst a couple of new features did make it in, bigger features (and this would be one of them) would have to wait for a later release.

So are they overruling the dozens or hundreds of users who have stated it would be a great idea?
If you check the first post, it's only been liked by 35 people (not sure where hundreds of users stating it's a great idea comes from, maybe your site but not here on XenForo). Whilst this is currently the 2nd most popular XFMG suggestion, it had way less likes than suggestions like "Albums in Categories" that did make a (surprise) inclusion in the XFMG 2.0 (parity) release.

Anyway the suggestion is still on the table - if it wasn't, the devs would have marked it as "not planned".
 
I'm glad to hear this isn't a closed issue! I am surprised that media management isn't more integrated into Xenforo overall.

I would also love this feature and am having trouble understanding why I would use this add-on if post media isn't integrated.
Doesn't this essentially just create another forum/category (albeit media related) with sub-topics?

Is there an explanation of why we would use this without post integration? I'm not trying to be rude I just want to get the most bang for our buck and add value for the end users.
 
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