Rotated images test

[speedkills]

As I read it, there are 3 image rendering library options for vBullitin, only one of them supports the apple rotation flag. If that is the case, i can understand why vBullitin devs don't want to address it themselves, as it's a layer below them and they want you to just swap out the rendering library. Of course, I may have read that wrong, but do we have the ability to find out what rendering library is used on our server? Is it one or multiple servers? In someones garage, or hosted by a hosting service?

[speedkills]

Reading a bit more into this as I've done some imaging software in the past, the specification Apple uses is plain old Exif (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif) buuuuut, vbulletin doesn't support Exif which surprised me a bit, I thought everyone and their uncle supported Exif, but maybe vBulletin is drunk uncle? Jim, do you know which version of vBulletin we are running?

The latest info I see on version 5.5.5 is that if imagick is used exif rotation will be respected, it will not for GD. There is also an open issue from 4 years ago to add a manual rotation button, but that looks like it will never happen, and I suppose if there is a library that makes auto-rotation work then it's probably of fairly low value for them to add a button.

I can certainly see why they would strip Exif data out, it may have gps location and other private data in it, but they really should have saved the orientation data before throwing the Exif data away.

[speedkills]

GD says they will never fix the rotation issue, because the bug was around for so long that people have worked around it themselves, basically depending on the bug so now they can never fix it. https://github.com/libgd/libgd/issues/341 Oh man, software is hard, I've run into this many times before (hyrem's law I think?), and of course, there is even an XKCD about it. https://xkcd.com/1172/

[Jim]

vBulletin centric hosting service. Shared server I believe / nothing special.

vBulletin Image Settings: None, GD, ImageMagick 6 with ImageMagick currently enabled.

A primary reason I didn't stir the waters to tend this in the past is that this version of vBulletin is not mobile friendly. Overall, if we wish to have a mobile friendly forum, which would include image rotation, we're switching versions. I believe I did stir the waters on "do we wish to upgrade" and as I recall - let it be was the answer (otherwise we would have changed). If anyone wishes to stir the waters, start a thread in this forum and we'll see where it goes. I'm game though it's a group decision.

[Jim]

speedkills previously posted:

[Jim]

Possible forum rebuild thread from 2015
www.frontrange4x4.com/forums/showthread.php?24011-Possible-Forum-Rebuild-What-features-do-we-need-want-post-build

Back then we were having issues of forum bombs - requiring our host either restoring from backup or tending the issue. In the end, they dug into the error and found some long turned-off, but still installed, plug-in issue. They disabled it and we've been up since then (years). The mobile friendly and rotated images issues were on the table back then.

[speedkills]

Thanks for the version number Jim. If we're on 4.2.5 then ImageMagick alone wouldn't fix it (as we can see) but at least it means the software is available on the server to fix it. Do we have the ability to install plugins? There is a plugin specifically for v4 with ImageMagick that is supposed to fix the problem by adding the -auto-rotate flag to calls to ImageMagick.

https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=318291

[speedkills]

Also, for kicks I'm going to test upoading an image from my ipad that is quite small, to see if it bypasses the image resizing library and maybe just works. Not expecting much, but worth a test.

[speedkills]

Oh well, no luck there.

[Jim]

I'll give that plug-in a try before closing shop for the night...

[Jim]

Try it now.

EDIT: Of note, images uploaded prior stay as they were uploaded. New uploads are supposed to be tended and auto-rotated upright.

Of note, folks, please comment to me if you have problems with photo uploads. Comments on this add-in are that some have issues with image attachment uploads failing.

[speedkills]

testing

[Tom]

Testing

[Jim]

Another “taken sideways” from my phone since making forum change.

(edit - and it shows in proper orientation).

Hmm - I learned something new (and is an often problem for folks - photo size being too large for forum use)! On the phone, there was a blue link on the photo selection page (photo size) where I could choose different sizes - NICE! (IOS v13.4)

[Tom]

Test still rotated here

[speedkills]

Sorry I just disappeared in the middle of testing, I haven't been feeling well but better now.

[Jim]

`hope you'e doing better.

IMO - it'll remain an unresolved issue as long as we're with v4 vBulletin.

[speedkills]

I sure appreciate you taking a swing at it, and I'm inclined to agree with you about v4.