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drzylvon
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Posts: 52
Joined: 11 Feb 2014, 15:01

Features requests updates (older ones)

24 Jan 2018, 15:31

Hello Karl,

Being back from a long pause, kindly reminded of X3 by license discounts mail, I finally find some time to think of X3. I installed the latest beta, read the release notes ... X3 has kept on moving and moving !

I wish to ask you a few questions about features I humbly submit again for your review.

Video, possible to stop buffering on page load : status : fixed in 0.22 ! thanks !
reference : https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41176

Videos are currently shown "as separate" objects, not being "part of the picture set"
status : open
importance (to me): high

reference : https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41183

Any news on that ? reference on flickr (not my photos, Andi Singer)
please try the behaviour : https://www.flickr.com/photos/beatmanf/ ... 143653078/ 
I personally find it elegant and easy to use. You mentioned you'd work on video integration.
Please also keep in mind it wasn't so in X2 (see capture in https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41182 )

Prefetching & Lazy load
status : question,
importance : low
reference :
https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41183
In X 0.22 release note,
 Lazy loader is the mechanism that dynamically loads images in galleries on browser scroll.
  • Re-written from scratch for much-improved performance. One should notice speedup on larger galleries and on mobile devices, on page load, and when scrolling.
  • Lazy scroll event is throttled at 1 second.
  • All 3 modules (gallery, folders, context) share the same lazy scroll event.
  • Now, lazy loader makes sure at least one image beyond visible viewport is preloaded (useful for vertical layout, where "next" image might be outside of the lazy load threshold).
I recall the conversation about -10 & +30 images and the
It looks like you went "+1" which is a reasonable approach for column based.
Couldn't lazy load be a user defined parameter and/or possibly follow different behaviors for Justified or any grid type views ?  "one page beyond view", granted it's an "advanced" setting, "use at your own risks". I like that I get to take the chance.

Audio player --> brace yourself for that one, I'm back ! 
* "folder override
" or better said user selected audio source,
status : open ,
importance : EXTREMELY high to me

Without starting a "best-practices-vs-a-matter-of-taste-really-if-I-wish-to-design-my-site-please-let-me-do-it" argument all over again ;-), I wish to have a possibility to have a different audio content per gallery.
Giving it a bit more thought than in the past, I tried to think of a less implicit and more elegant way. It turns out the concept already exists in your own design :-)!
Just like the gallery assets, the user gets to point at different audio folders. It could be in the advanced settings under "Audio Assets". So several audio folders could be supported.
[img=563x132]https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2& ... &zw&atsh=1[/img]

I'd like to introduce another example of audio use. A blog post about a place, a topic, I wish to have a specific atmosphere conveyed. It's a relatively easy way to have X3 also work as a story telling experience, using the Blog post module for instance.
To give you an example : a documentary style web experience, with sound http://www.lemonde.fr/photo/visuel/2017 ... 89037.html
please, notice that as you scroll, a story is told.
So it's not about "imposing a view to your viewers", it's about viewers who know what they will find. I'm not asking for such advanced layouts (frankly, the example is not that beautiful)

Mind you I'm not asking so much and the site might not be to your taste. It can also be a "quick and dirty" folder override like it used to be in X2, but having though of your audio assets, I like the idea.
Again here, please consider that I'm an old X2 user having lost X2 support and a previously existing X2 "feature".

*audio player controls
status : open,
importance :  moderate
I stand to my previous position that the current "implied" controls are less than ideal and that an icon transformation on hover would be nicer ( see screenshot in post https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... =15#p41057 )
Also consider a simple "playlist control"; user enable/disable. Generally speaking, I'm all for being able to disable/enable features.

So in summary, 
1* Audio assets folders (X2 featured folder overrides)
2* Video integration (X2 handled it ok)
3* Audio player controls

Licensing questions
I'm pretty much decided to buy X3 but I'm undecided between the private and the pro licence but I didn't find info, can you point to documentation regarding the actual interesting functionalities  :
X3 E-commerce plugin coming soon --> I guess that one but any more details?
X3 Search plugin coming soon --> search content based on ? user meta data? exif ? ... for the end user too ?
X3 Panorama plugin coming soon --> can you elaborate?

Also, I have to say I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I'm interested in the pro but I fear the development of the pro features will drive you away for the "basic" features I feel are missing ;-)...

Could you please be so kind to take the time to answer and give realistic answers (+a possible timeframe) on these features ?
You are this close to make me stay quiet forever ;-)

Thanks in advance for your time and dedication,
 
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mjau-mjau
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Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

25 Jan 2018, 01:44

Thanks for checking in!
drzylvon wrote:Videos are currently shown "as separate" objects, not being "part of the picture set"
status : open
importance (to me): high

reference : https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41183

Any news on that ? reference on flickr (not my photos, Andi Singer)
please try the behaviour : https://www.flickr.com/photos/beatmanf/ ... 143653078/ 
I personally find it elegant and easy to use. You mentioned you'd work on video integration.
Please also keep in mind it wasn't so in X2 (see capture in https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41182 )
Video improvements are definitely in the queue. Here are some notes though:

Your server does not support creating video thumbnails
Unlike Flickr, Google, Facebook etc, your shared hosting server does not support creating thumbnails from videos. This is basically essential if we are to mix videos into an image gallery layout.

Workaround?
We could do as we did in X2: Initially have a generic icon-thumbnail [MP4] for video files, and the user could create their own video thumbnails, something which would be quite tedious. The video thumbnails would have to be named the same as the video, perhaps with a specific pattern to also exclude them from being part of the gallery themselves. This is an option, but seems tedious and unprofessional.

Self-hosted video?
Personally, I don't quite understand why anyone bothers host their own videos when there is superior Youtube/Vimeo etc. I hardly see much self-hosted videos any more, mostly for good reason: They never load fast enough and are always buffering, making it worthless to watch them, unless they are low-quality in the first place. Unlike proper video services, self-hosted videos are not served in multiple bitrates/formats to suit different devices/screens, and neither are they served from globally distributed CDN servers. As a personal observation, I normally skip self-hosted videos, as they simply don't load at sufficient speed for my patience.

In your Flickr example, the videos are streaming nice and fast from Flickrs globally distributed CDN servers.

There is already some support for including Vimeo/Youtube videos in X3, but there is also room for much improvement here. In addition to superior video streaming capabilities, these services also create the video thumbnails of course, making it a win-win scenario.
drzylvon wrote:Prefetching & Lazy load
status : question,
importance : low
reference :
https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... 176#p41183
In X 0.22 release note,
 Lazy loader is the mechanism that dynamically loads images in galleries on browser scroll.
  • Re-written from scratch for much-improved performance. One should notice speedup on larger galleries and on mobile devices, on page load, and when scrolling.
  • Lazy scroll event is throttled at 1 second.
  • All 3 modules (gallery, folders, context) share the same lazy scroll event.
  • Now, lazy loader makes sure at least one image beyond visible viewport is preloaded (useful for vertical layout, where "next" image might be outside of the lazy load threshold).
I recall the conversation about -10 & +30 images and the
It looks like you went "+1" which is a reasonable approach for column based.
Couldn't lazy load be a user defined parameter and/or possibly follow different behaviors for Justified or any grid type views ?  "one page beyond view", granted it's an "advanced" setting, "use at your own risks". I like that I get to take the chance.
I think you misinterpreted the +1 concept in the update you are referring to.
mjau-mjau wrote:Now, lazy loader makes sure at least one image beyond visible viewport is preloaded (useful for vertical layout, where "next" image might be outside of the lazy load threshold).
The above is a "security net" and will not affect most gallery layouts. For example, if you are using VERTICAL layout, and your current scroll position just shows the very top part of an image. This image will naturally be mostly hidden below the scrollable view, perhaps a full page scroll or more. Thus, the NEXT image might be 1-2 full page-scrolls further down the page, below the current image. Since most lazy-load functions will start loading images based on their position relative to the current scroll, normally this NEXT image would not get loaded until it gets closer to current scroll. With the X3 feature above though, X3 will always load at least +1 next image, regardless of how much further down the page it is.

This feature generally has no effect for any GRID-based layout (grid, justified, columns), because there will always be several images below visible scroll already in the load queue (or already loaded).
drzylvon wrote:Couldn't lazy load be a user defined parameter and/or possibly follow different behaviors for Justified or any grid type views ?  "one page beyond view", granted it's an "advanced" setting, "use at your own risks". I like that I get to take the chance.
Unfortunately, I can't agree more now than before to a request about "advanced settings" for lazy loading. The lazy load is already balanced across different layouts, because it loads images based on distance from current scroll ... If you use tiny 100px images, it will preload perhaps up to a 100 images that are outside screen (on large screens, and somewhat less on smaller screens, also nicely balanced). If you use LARGE images in a vertical scroll, it will preload 1-2 of these large (often massive) images.

Of course, by example, if you start loading TWICE as many images by lazy load, the NEXT images immediately visible to the visitor, will load TWICE as slow, because you are sharing the bandwidth between twice as many images. Obviously a huge pitfall. I am curious to see how you even have made your tests to figure out you want to extend the lazy load feature. If you are scrolling super-fast through images, and extend the lazy-load threshold, images in the immediate vicinity of visitors current scroll, will obviously load slower.

This is not a setting in Flickr, Picasa or any other gallery app I have ever seen, and I don't see why we should complicate the lives of X3 users with it either.
drzylvon wrote:Audio player --> brace yourself for that one, I'm back ! 
* "folder override
" or better said user selected audio source,
This is already scheduled for an X3 release coming soon :thumbsup:
drzylvon wrote:*audio player controls
status : open,
importance :  moderate
I stand to my previous position that the current "implied" controls are less than ideal and that an icon transformation on hover would be nicer ( see screenshot in post https://forum.photo.gallery/viewtopic.p ... =15#p41057 )
Also consider a simple "playlist control"; user enable/disable. Generally speaking, I'm all for being able to disable/enable features.
We will add options for this also in an X3 update.

Audio controls will be disabled by default, and we will recommend against it. Of the majority of visitors who simply don't want websites to start playing audio, even less would ever want to use your website as their mp3 player. Many website owners think that their visitors arrive at their site to immerse in some "experience", but the reality is very different, and it's also our/X3's responsibility to lead websites in the right direction. Ref [1][2][3][4][5].
drzylvon wrote:Licensing questions
I'm pretty much decided to buy X3 but I'm undecided between the private and the pro licence but I didn't find info, can you point to documentation regarding the actual interesting functionalities  :
X3 E-commerce plugin coming soon --> I guess that one but any more details?
X3 Search plugin coming soon --> search content based on ? user meta data? exif ? ... for the end user too ?
X3 Panorama plugin coming soon --> can you elaborate?
Well, if we had time to make documentation for these planned features, we probably would have had time to create them also! Essentially, the difference between PRO and PRIVATE is same as with X2, PRO is required by companies and professional individuals. But we have decided to benefit PRO version with some nice, but non-crucial features, mostly coming soon.
Image

X3 E-commerce plugin coming soon --> I guess that one but any more details?
Anyone who knows how this works from A-Z, and how many employees Shopify has, will see how massive a task this is. We aim to build a simple cart feature, perhaps connected to Paypal (unless you just want order sent by email), which emphasizes basic sales of images. Don't expect extensive ways to add dropdowns to select print-size, colors, canvas, styles etc per image. It will be a light, pretty and functional integrated e-commerce plugin, for adding images/items to cart, and sending order, perhaps integrated with Paypal.

X3 Search plugin coming soon --> search content based on ? user meta data? exif ? ... for the end user too ?
Search based on image name, and if populated, also title and description and a new upcoming [tags] field. This is for the X3 website, so yes it's meant for the end-user. I don't really see any point in including EXIF into the search.

X3 Panorama plugin coming soon --> can you elaborate?
Viewing true panorama-format images [example], requires advanced 3D javascript rendering. For example:
http://www.marzipano.net/demos/equirect/index.html
drzylvon wrote:Also, I have to say I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I'm interested in the pro but I fear the development of the pro features will drive you away for the "basic" features I feel are missing ;-)...
Not sure about that :) We already have many requests from PRO users who have been waiting a while for PRO features. Most X3 updates are to cover crucial X3 features, as can be seen in most recent updates. Bugs and logical improvements are of course priority. If we add "audio controls" before "panorama plugin", it's not because we think audio controls are a "basic" or core feature, but because it's not too complicated.
drzylvon wrote:and give realistic answers (+a possible timeframe) on these features ?
Audio per folder and panorama plugin should be available within the next few months. Other items are currently tagged "2018".
 
drzylvon
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Topic Author
Posts: 52
Joined: 11 Feb 2014, 15:01

Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

25 Jan 2018, 14:35

mjau-mjau wrote: Workaround?
We could do as we did in X2: Initially have a generic icon-thumbnail [MP4] for video files, and the user could create their own video thumbnails, something which would be quite tedious. The video thumbnails would have to be named the same as the video, perhaps with a specific pattern to also exclude them from being part of the gallery themselves. This is an option, but seems tedious and unprofessional.
I'd go for the generic icon as "minimal", skip the thumbnail thing indeed, tedious.
mjau-mjau wrote: Self-hosted video?
Personally, I don't quite understand why anyone bothers host their own videos when there is superior Youtube/Vimeo etc. I hardly see much self-hosted videos any more, mostly for good reason: They never load fast enough and are always buffering, making it worthless to watch them, unless they are low-quality in the first place. Unlike proper video services, self-hosted videos are not served in multiple bitrates/formats to suit different devices/screens, and neither are they served from globally distributed CDN servers. As a personal observation, I normally skip self-hosted videos, as they simply don't load at sufficient speed for my patience.

There is already some support for including Vimeo/Youtube videos in X3, but there is also room for much improvement here. In addition to superior video streaming capabilities, these services also create the video thumbnails of course, making it a win-win scenario.
I mostly agree with you here, but I happen to have a few legacy galleries and the occasional friends "who don't want online presence on the "GAFA". Another motivation is that sometimes, youtube is quite heavy on DRM/copyrighted material detection and will restrict diffusion heavy handedly.
mjau-mjau wrote: I think you misinterpreted the +1 concept in the update you are referring to.
mjau-mjau wrote:Now, lazy loader makes sure at least one image beyond visible viewport is preloaded (useful for vertical layout, where "next" image might be outside of the lazy load threshold).
The above is a "security net" and will not affect most gallery layouts. For example, if you are using VERTICAL layout, and your current scroll position just shows the very top part of an image. This image will naturally be mostly hidden below the scrollable view, perhaps a full page scroll or more. Thus, the NEXT image might be 1-2 full page-scrolls further down the page, below the current image. Since most lazy-load functions will start loading images based on their position relative to the current scroll, normally this NEXT image would not get loaded until it gets closer to current scroll. With the X3 feature above though, X3 will always load at least +1 next image, regardless of how much further down the page it is.

This feature generally has no effect for any GRID-based layout (grid, justified, columns), because there will always be several images below visible scroll already in the load queue (or already loaded).

(...)

Unfortunately, I can't agree more now than before to a request about "advanced settings" for lazy loading. The lazy load is already balanced across different layouts, because it loads images based on distance from current scroll ... If you use tiny 100px images, it will preload perhaps up to a 100 images that are outside screen (on large screens, and somewhat less on smaller screens, also nicely balanced). If you use LARGE images in a vertical scroll, it will preload 1-2 of these large (often massive) images.

Of course, by example, if you start loading TWICE as many images by lazy load, the NEXT images immediately visible to the visitor, will load TWICE as slow, because you are sharing the bandwidth between twice as many images. Obviously a huge pitfall. I am curious to see how you even have made your tests to figure out you want to extend the lazy load feature. If you are scrolling super-fast through images, and extend the lazy-load threshold, images in the immediate vicinity of visitors current scroll, will obviously load slower.

This is not a setting in Flickr, Picasa or any other gallery app I have ever seen, and I don't see why we should complicate the lives of X3 users with it either.
Hmmm the intial conversation went on prefetch & lazyload. I think our misunderstanding might come from that.

Hmm the idea is to hide the loading of the next page, even if the user decides to never go watch. It's beyond the viewport safety net. I can't remember the name but I was using a tiny romanian gallery engine a while ago that did that remarkably. I think you could even enter the depth of it.

My typical browsing when I reach a gallery, for instance a justified flickr or whatever, is "page down" based. I start hawking the photos, then hit page down again. The view time is long enough that prefetch could make sure the next page down is fully loaded. This can also be applied when looking at photos one by one, load the 'left arrow or right arrow' neighbours.

I made a quick video that shows on my demo gallery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Xoj7MmSQY

Not really a huge issue though.
mjau-mjau wrote:
drzylvon wrote:Audio player --> brace yourself for that one, I'm back !  
* "folder override
" or better said user selected audio source,
This is already scheduled for an X3 release coming soon :thumbsup:
Yay !

drzylvon wrote:Licensing questions
I'm pretty much decided to buy X3 but I'm undecided between the private and the pro licence but I didn't find info, can you point to documentation regarding the actual interesting functionalities  :
X3 E-commerce plugin coming soon --> I guess that one but any more details?
X3 Search plugin coming soon --> search content based on ? user meta data? exif ? ... for the end user too ?
X3 Panorama plugin coming soon --> can you elaborate?
mjau-mjau wrote: Well, if we had time to make documentation for these planned features, we probably would have had time to create them also!
Spoken like a dev :D
mjau-mjau wrote: Audio per folder and panorama plugin should be available within the next few months. Other items are currently tagged "2018".
Super, ok I think I'll go PRO.

I have to commend you for the constructive exchange. Looking forward to trying out the new devs as they come.

greetings,
 
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mjau-mjau
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Posts: 13993
Joined: 30 Sep 2006, 03:37

Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

26 Jan 2018, 00:57

drzylvon wrote:I'd go for the generic icon as "minimal", skip the thumbnail thing indeed, tedious.
We will do something like that. Maybe auto-detect if FFMPEG is enabled on server, in which case we can create a thumbnail. Creating your own thumbnail will be optional.
drzylvon wrote:I mostly agree with you here, but I happen to have a few legacy galleries and the occasional friends "who don't want online presence on the "GAFA". Another motivation is that sometimes, youtube is quite heavy on DRM/copyrighted material detection and will restrict diffusion heavy handedly.
True. A good point, and perhaps the only "pro" of self-hosted videos.
drzylvon wrote:Hmmm the intial conversation went on prefetch & lazyload. I think our misunderstanding might come from that.

Hmm the idea is to hide the loading of the next page, even if the user decides to never go watch. It's beyond the viewport safety net. I can't remember the name but I was using a tiny romanian gallery engine a while ago that did that remarkably. I think you could even enter the depth of it.

My typical browsing when I reach a gallery, for instance a justified flickr or whatever, is "page down" based. I start hawking the photos, then hit page down again. The view time is long enough that prefetch could make sure the next page down is fully loaded. This can also be applied when looking at photos one by one, load the 'left arrow or right arrow' neighbours.

I made a quick video that shows on my demo gallery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Xoj7MmSQY
Ok, the video helped me understand your request better. Basically you would like the lazy-load threshold to extend to "one full page worth of images", instead of now which is a "fuzzy" threshold probably half a screen+. I can see from your video how this is more satisfying when you using the "page down" button, although in all other cases it would be arbitrary.

I will re-visit this feature for next major release, maybe it can be adjusted.
drzylvon wrote:This can also be applied when looking at photos one by one, load the 'left arrow or right arrow' neighbours.
Yes, and that is already how the X3 popup works, and the vertical gallery layout for that matter.

:smile: :star:
 
drzylvon
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

26 Jan 2018, 02:33

all fine answers !
got my pro license yesterday,

have a nice day,
greetings
 
drzylvon
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

09 Sep 2018, 06:39

Hello Karl,

I would like to congratulate you on the new release and hope you could enjoy some free time.

May I kindly request an update on the above mentioned topics? 

If I may add :  if I'm not mistaken it's also still not possible to start a slideshow from a popped up picture.

Is there anyway for us to keep track of your development priorities? I somehow thought some of these requests were more or less acquired and it turns out X25 was mostly huge on re-engineering and the GPS feature (I did get better support of filenames with characters ;-), thanks).

It seems now you're working on the Panoramas integration, I understand it makes sense to get headlines features done to appeal to more customers but it's a bit less clear about other requests. I know it's a tricky one...

Thanks,

Greetings,
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

09 Sep 2018, 07:08

Hi @drzylvon, thanks for updating your post.

Indeed we are working on a Panorama plugin for X3, and like most features we implement into X3, when done, we do it properly. Progress and comments regarding the panorama plugin can be found in this post. The panorama plugin is a NEW big feature, and as you have noted in your posts, our releases are often a mix some new features as well as improved/faster existing code and features.

Unfortunately, I don't have any further comments about the other requested features yet, except they are in our "list".
if I'm not mistaken it's also still not possible to start a slideshow from a popped up picture.
Sorry, no. I will bump this request in our list.
Is there anyway for us to keep track of your development priorities?
It would perhaps be a good idea with some roadmap page with complete/incomplete check boxes, where users (like you) can see progress of primary X3 features and planned new ones.
 
drzylvon
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

09 Sep 2018, 13:06

Ok thanks,

yes a roadmap could be quite nice I think,

cheers
 
drzylvon
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

15 Sep 2018, 06:23

:bow: Karl, if I can cherry pick one for next release, can it be audio folders ? :bow:
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

15 Sep 2018, 09:16

drzylvon wrote::bow: Karl, if I can cherry pick one for next release, can it be audio folders ? :bow:
Yep. Unlikely it will be next release, already in the making and coming soon though, as that is earmarked "panorama plugin". After that yes.
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

24 Feb 2019, 05:37

drzylvon wrote:Audio player --> brace yourself for that one, I'm back ! 
* "folder override
" or better said user selected audio source,
Audio player play tracks per folder is now available in X3.27.0:
https://www.photo.gallery/blog/photo-gallery-X3-27/
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

04 Jan 2021, 05:35

drzylvon wrote:if I'm not mistaken it's also still not possible to start a slideshow from a popped up picture.
Back-tracking a few old requests, popup slideshow play-button (autoplay) was added in X3.30.0 / forum
photo.gallery/blog/photo-gallery-x3-30-popup/
 
drzylvon
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

05 Sep 2021, 15:36

Hi Karl ! Happy to see you went backtracking a bit and made interesting progress.
I'll be completely frank with you but at some point I simply stopped looking; thinking I'll go and check in a year or two and here we are...

My initial intent :
a self hosted experience as close as possible to flickr (seamlessly mixing pictures and videos)
+
An extra simple audio player

We exchanged quite a bit (here above) on a few shortcomings :
-Videos - It seems you didn't pursue this track ? (example of a seamless video thing : https://www.flickr.com/photos/beatmanf/ ... 117144205/ ) - it's a fun way to retell holidays or so, mixing pics & vids, chronologically and self hosting is a must for me.

-Lazy load depth - it seems also identical as a couple of years ago.

-Audio player "requirements" have moved quite well and is basically "done". I still think an extra small control "next" in the expanded widget would be nice as the "double click to skip" is undocumented and "undiscoverable" by users.

Now hey, I just thought I'd check back on you as I'm a "pro" licensed user ;-) and you mentionned you'd be looking into it

I've been testing Justified Image Grid the last weeks on the wordpress stack. Well, let's be real, it's a sh*tty m*ss but with an excessive lot more "prepare work", it's possible to achieve the end result. But with so much pain. I think you're that close and I'd hate to abandon. That's the beauty of your product: try to "do it all" procedurally but it's still not there yet, for me.

Thanks in advance for your time,
 
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mjau-mjau
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Re: Features requests updates (older ones)

05 Sep 2021, 23:43

Hi @drzylvon, thanks for checking back!
drzylvon wrote:-Videos - It seems you didn't pursue this track ? (example of a seamless video thing : https://www.flickr.com/photos/beatmanf/ ... 117144205/ ) - it's a fun way to retell holidays or so, mixing pics & vids, chronologically and self hosting is a must for me.
This has probably been delayed because X3 was not initially designed from the core to support video and images "side-by-side", and also because videos require FFmpeg to create thumbnails (which would be essential). FFMpeg is generally not available on "shared" hosting environment, but will be available (or can be installed easily) for those who have dedicated hosting (or their own server) with access to commang-line (SSH). Without this in place, it doesn't realy make sense to include videos without thumbnails.

Having said that, there will definitely be focus on this in the future in X4, which will support all file types, including video, not just images. With the new Files app release (available in a few weeks), videos will work exactly like you mention, with images and videos intermixed in popup slideshow and layout with thumbnails.
drzylvon wrote:-Lazy load depth - it seems also identical as a couple of years ago.
I've really had no other feedback or any signals that this should be changed. As long as I have been visiting X3 websites, cached images (which are faster than ever) always load at adequate speeds without me having to feel like I'm waiting for something. To be completely honest, it does not seem to offer any value ... unless user has slow internet, in which case it's more important to also throttle the amount of images loading that congest the users internet. At best, this seems to only provide some tiny benefit if the user is rapidly scrolling down the page without viewing the images (sounds like the website owner), but this is not a normal user pattern. Having said that, it can probably be a setting in the future.
drzylvon wrote:-Audio player "requirements" have moved quite well and is basically "done". I still think an extra small control "next" in the expanded widget would be nice as the "double click to skip" is undocumented and "undiscoverable" by users.
Can be added, although I would re-iterate that I don't think average "users" will be using it. They are not on the website to listen to music, and those that don't turn it off, have little reason to skip to next track ...  Anyway, it wouldn't be difficult, so could easily be considered for X4.
drzylvon wrote:I've been testing Justified Image Grid the last weeks on the wordpress stack. Well, let's be real, it's a sh*tty m*ss but with an excessive lot more "prepare work", it's possible to achieve the end result. But with so much pain. I think you're that close and I'd hate to abandon. That's the beauty of your product: try to "do it all" procedurally but it's still not there yet, for me.
Justified layout would be the most popular gallery grid layout alright. In my Embed app, I created a new Justified layout that only uses CSS, and thus is faster and much more flexible for example filtering, resizing and sorting changes. Check it out:
https://embed.photo.gallery/

The above is part of Files + Embed app, and will be the source of new layouts in X4.