I will get back to you on this. You may want to read #1310, which is currently under implementation.

This sounds more like syndication outward, which I agree is interesting :).

That is very interesting as well :-) I like the idea of there being a standard protocol like oEmbed.

While making use of all that lovely free storage out there !!

For me the user experience will be key here.

As a forum user I want to be able to press a button that allows an image stored on my device to be transferred to my chosen photo storage provider and a link to it placed in my forum thread.

Devices will mainly be smart phones and tablets.
Photo storage will be Photobucket, Flickr + probably others.

Look forward to your reply

Could you confirm the use case(s) for me please...

Is it that people want to keep their photos all in one place, so they post primarily to their main photo store/album and don't bother posting it on the site?
So, you want to let them achieve both objectives at once, via your site.


When you add an attachment, it would popup the options dialogue for that attachment as normal. But, if it was an image, there'd be additional checkboxes to syndicate to various targets. The checkboxes would be greyed if the service had not yet been set up, with a 'setup' button next to it.

It seems worthwhile doing for galleries too. So, also these options on the gallery form.

Hi Chris,

We do not allow attachments at all because we would soon run out of disk space to store them. So the only way that people can put an image up is by linking to one they have stored elsewhere. We recommend Photobucket and Flickr.

The use case that you describe is spot on.

Cheers
Ade

Hi,

The quote would be:
6 hours + 5 hour per API.
So for 3 APIs... (6+5*3)*33=£693 GBP.

The 6 hours would be to modify the attachment system and interface to be able to include the setup and transfer buttons for external hosting services, sync up with the uploader properly, and be able to include remote URL references in as the attachment URLs.

Then for each API we would need to implement oAuth against it and code up against its API.

Hi Chris,

Does the cost scale down if we just went for 1 API to begin with:

(6+5)*33=£363

I am thinking Photobucket first as it is the most common one in use today.

Cheers
Ade

I am in the process of getting the spend authorised.

One point the source of the image to syndicate must work from phones, tablets and computers - is that included in your design ?

Cheers
Ade

Yes, I designed the cost equation to scale according to what services you wanted.

It would work via the user oAuth'ing their photo service such that the server can then copy the uploaded file across to the user's account on the photo service via its API (server to server). That is browser-agnostic. Essentially this just extends the existing attachment system (and gallery system to - I didn't include in the quote, but I may do it).

Note mostly for myself:
Regarding your specific situation, the system will need to be aware that you have to sync to Photobucket and that the file should not kept on your server (given the attachment quota's are zero).

Hi Chris,
Payment authorised and credits loaded.
Please can you implement.
Cheers
Ade

Hi,

I have this implemented, but not yet tested. I am waiting on Photobucket to provide an API key, as they took their developer site down early in the year (without announcement - prior to a new site, which seems to have been very delayed) and are just providing keys by request.

Hi Chris,

Ooooh that is good news !

Hopefully they will sort it out asap.

Cheers
Ade

It works (photobucket) :).

I will deploy for you soon. I will leave this issue open, as there are many other possible services to integrate.

Hi,

This is now deployed for you Lhasadreams.

Usage should be very simple...
1) Assumption: user has a photobucket account
2) Go to post
3) See attachment options (as per Composr-standard)
4) Check the Photobucket option
5) As oAuth dialogue will open in an overlay
6) Give permission
7) Close the overlay
8) Choose file as per normal Composr / configure attachment
9) Post

Subsequently, the photobucket option should be auto-checked, as oAuth is set up for future use also.

For users with no quota, the syndication happens then the local file is removed - so the attachment references the remote. For users with a quota, the attachment will reference local, and it will have only syndicated. Users with no quota will see "required" shown by the photobucket checkbox, indicating it is necessary to pick that.

Oh, and the oAuth dialogue mentions the request key. Composr picks this up automatically, no config is needed by the user.

It's a shame we cannot auto-close the dialogue, but unfortunately Photobucket doesn't support oAuth callback URLs, which would be necessary for that.

Thanks very much for this Chris !

I am away this weekend - Segway near Knaresborough !!

I have just tried it in my phone but I cannot see the dialogue or scroll it :-(

Any chance this can be changed ?

Cheers
Ade

Hi,

(Knaresborough is a lovely place, I miss it - I grew up in Harrogate)

I forgot to test on mobile. I just tested on iphone. Moved oAuth overlay to be a new window instead (would not fit on width as an overlay). Optimised the attachment/Comcode adding overlay a lot. Fought with layers of caching for ages... and eventually, it works for me.

This does not tally up with not seeing a dialogue at all, but I can confirm I got it to submit right through to photobucket from an image on my iPhone simulator.

Hi Chris,
I am getting an error when I click add topic.
It appears at the top of the page.
I am on an iPhone 5 with iOS 7.

If I carry on and tick the photobucket box under upload I get the same error from them.

(Click to enlarge)

Hi Chris,
I managed to get in on my iPad by logging into photobucket from another window. The integration then let me select my setup. We do need to change the Composr Test key though as it will look strange to users.

Once in and with the Photobucket box ticked I then clicked upload, selected my image etc and the image uploaded to photobucket but in Composr it just created a new attachment rather than URL link.

Cheers
Ade

"I am getting an error when I click add topic.
It appears at the top of the page.
I am on an iPhone 5 with iOS 7.

If I carry on and tick the photobucket box under upload I get the same error from them."

What error do you see?

The attachment will reference the remote file if you don't have a quota. You can confirm this by taking a look in the attachments table - you should see the a_url field as remote.

I attached a pic of the error.

Ah ok so I have a quota - does that mean that anyone with a quota cannot syndicate out then ? It did syndicate out for me, I could see the images on Photobucket but when I look at the post thread it was not the linked image but an attachment.
I would want to be able to choose the option as to whether I syndicate or not for users that have a quota please.

Oh, it will syndicate, it just won't delete the local file (replace with a remote link) if you have a quota. I could make it auto-delete for all if you prefer.

I think that error you saw happens if oAuth is not confirmed initially. It would be good to see if other users are getting it and when.
Because Photobucket doesn't do the callback style of oAuth, we have to store a temporary authorisation request, rather than only storing the final authorisation only once it has been confirmed.

I would prefer to have the option to choose if you have a quota.

It worked fine for me once I had logged into photobucket in another window.

Will get a few people to try it out and let you know.

Cheers
Ade

Okay, "Reference remotely (delete locally)" option added.

Thanks for that.

Just tried submitting on my iPad with a remote reference and got a bail out:


Fatal error: Call to undefined function sort_maps_by() in /home/vwgolfm/public_html/sources/upload_syndication.php on line 236
Critical error – bailing out

This is an error that has been elevated to critical error status because it occurred during the primary error mechanism reporting system itself (possibly due to it occuring within the standard output framework). It may be masking a secondary error that occurred before this, but was never output - if so, it is likely strongly related to this one, thus fixing this will fix the other.
PHP NOTICE [8] Undefined variable: param in sources/failure.php on line 945 (version: 9.0.5, PHP version: 5.3.20, URL: /forum/index.php?page=topics&type=_edit_post)
Details here are intended only for the website/system-administrator, not for regular website users.
» If you are a regular website user, please let the website staff deal with this problem.

Depending on the error, and only if the website installation finished, you may need to edit the installation options (the info.php file).

ocProducts maintains full documentation for all procedures and tools. These may be found on the Composr website. If you are unable to easily solve this problem, we may be contacted from our website and can help resolve it for you.

Composr is a CMS for building websites, developed by ocProducts.

If I uncheck reference remotely it does not bail out.

Ah, sorry about that (back-porting error) - fixed.

Hey no worries - works now.

I have just tried to use it with account that has zero attachment quota and nothing gets uploaded to photobucket and there is a quota error returned:

"You would be over your daily upload quota of 0 MB (you are currently using 0.00 MB)."

http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&id=general-chat_3%2Ftest_24&redirected=1#post_1345370

Does there need to be an artificial limit to allow say up to a certain photo size to be uploaded ?


Also I found that the only way to get the integration to setup is to first login to photobucket in the same browser. Then try and add an attachment, then you just get asked to verify that the app is allowed to do that.

Also is it possible to do what you did for the pop up attachment property window for the iphone to work the same on a tablet as well please ?

Cheers
Ade

"I have just tried to use it with account that has zero attachment quota and nothing gets uploaded to photobucket and there is a quota error returned:"

Did you authorise that account? The quota check is bypassed if it knows it can syndicate then delete locally.

The authorisation is stored against account (an oAuth access token), not via a cookie. You can authorise as many accounts as you like against a single Photobucket account, each would get a different token.

I think there may be a timeout issue. If you don't finish making your post within a certain time, the access token request may time out before it is converted into an actual access token. It may therefore help to do the checkbox first (before adding an attachment or writing a post), approve oauth, refresh (rather than just closing the overlay), and then continue. That only needs doing once, then the token is saved forever.

--

I have just made overlays scroll with the page on iPads as per iPhones (due to the lack of easy independent frame scrolling on iOS devices). I thought I'd actually done this for you before, as it was done in Composr quite a while back and I thought due to work on your site.