Just trying! Tulare 2006. 1919 Best (?) 75.

Daron

Somehow I just don't understand the reason, for thumbnails, to an intermediate size picture of 457x343 pixels, to an expanded regular size picuture of 640x480 pixels, that does not even fill the screen.

Seems like a half a cup a coffee at the restaurant, or watered down whiskey to me.

Why jump through the hoops for the picture ????? I want the real full picture right off !

Just plumb disappointed .

I'm likewise finding it a drag that we have to first click on a thumbnail, then the end result comes up as a small final photo, although Joe said he will be increasing the image size soon.

Like you, Northart, I also really miss the full size image coming up immediately, the way the old board used to work. I had some discussion with Joe a while back regarding the other ACME board, and how photos were handled using the same initial thumbnail method.

I totally understand his point for employing thumbnails, how users on a slow dial-up get bogged down when many large image files need to be loaded. However for those of us on faster cable or DSL broadband hookups, this makes it very inefficient for us having to click on each thumbnail in succession to view the full images.

My suggestion was (and is) that to be fair to both camps, the default user preference be set for thumbnails. But to provide an option so those of us on broadband could change our individual preference setting to bypass thumbnails and receive full-size images automatically.

Quality photos are a vital part of this board, in my opinion. There are some great photographers who post. Just to mention one, 98j's full-screen photos of hillside farming in Oregon are always superb. And there are so many others that I don't have space to list. You're all appreciated!

Fine tuning, Joe, just a suggestion for fine tuning. The new board is basically great. I really appreciate your efforts to date and thanks for all the hard work you've done.


- Richard

Me too. Can I also request we get full size pictures straight away. Thats is one feature I preferred in the original BB over the 'antique caterpillar machinery enthusiasts' site.

It comes back to how much the ACMOC bosses are prepared to spend on bandwidth.
It's alright to demand big pics, up front .. but when the bill arrives for the massive bandwidth that has been used up, with everyone and his dog, posting huge pics .. and huge numbers of pics .. of every show they've been to .. the tune might change .. particularly if ACMOC increases its annual membership fee, to cover the bandwidth charges.
I seem to recall, this was a huge sticking point, not so many years ago, on a former ACMOC BB setup.

The simple fact of the matter, is that most BB hosting companies want big $$$, for any sizeable amount of bandwidth used .. and big pics, combined with big numbers of pics .. use up bandwidth, in a big way ..
I agree that the big pics are great .. and the biggest single reason for them .. is showing details on the likes of parts pages.

However, the bottom line is .. for a few extra clicks, you can store huge pics on photo-hosting sites, for no or very little cost .. and you can store thousands of pics for long periods.
I've used ImageShack for nearly 2 years now, and never had a single problem, with hosting them on that site, and linking to the ACME BB.

The ACMOC membership and bosses had better put their collective heads together, to come to some agreement about how much they wanna pay to store the thousands of big pics that will get posted .. and lot of those ACMOC BB stored pics might not meet every ACMOC members approval.
At least if they're stored on some photo-hosting site, it ain't costing any ACMOC member a red cent.
After all, hundreds of thousands of people selling on eBay, myself included, use these photo-hosting sites, every day of the week, and find the arrangement works just fine.
Just my .02c worth for today .. whether you're in agreement or not ..

My major point on my above post was wondering if a feature can be added to the BB so those who chose can access a personal preference setting which can be voluntarily changed to allow for full-size images appearing without thumbnails.

That way thumbnails are left in place as a default setting, so users on slow dial-ups can pick and chose what to download.

If that feature could be implemented, seems like it would help everyone.

The issue of hosting bandwidth is a whole different thing. On the old board, I always hosted my own images myself, as it made for far faster and easier uploads, plus saved bandwidth on the ACMOC server.

- Richard

plus the full picture kills the dial up users. when i was on dial up, i used to click on and walk away. could never click on anything by swishy.

thansk

King - I thought you were still on dial-up. How are you getting the www today? GWH

BTW Richard, I think you have a good suggestion. I'll pass it on to Joe.

You always know where OzDozer stands on things! I don't know how much extra bandwidth costs - I assume that OzDozer is correct. However, if necessary, ACMOC might cough up more $ for this project for bandwidth. But let's see how things go first. We know that it will take some time to modify the board to meet the preferences of the users. This was always part of the plan. Thanks for your comments.

GWH

We're good on bandwidth from the server-end. The thumbnail decision is based on the fact that the bulk of visitors to the old tractors sites are still on dial-up. This may not represent the majority of posters but it does the majority of visitors.

The suggestion to make it a user choice is a good one, and at the time it was made at ACME there wasn't a way to do this. Perhaps with the new version of the forum software it may be or there could be a mod out there to do the same thing. I'll look into it.

While I appreciate any and all suggestions here, please keep in mind that here I take my direction from ACMOC proper and George outlines above.