Introducing Gallery ... a New Feature for Image and Video Sharing

[RadioRob]

I'm pleased to introduce a new site feature that is designed to help our members share images and videos.  The new Gallery section of the site allows members to upload or link to existing pictures and videos to share them with other members.

There are two categories within the new Gallery:

• Public Images
• Pornography (Members Only)

Images within the public category are accessible to the world.  These are subject to the same rules and restrictions that have applied in the traditional legacy gallery.  For users that want to get a little more "fun" or "creative", we have a new category that is available only to logged in members of the site that allows for the sharing of more explicit images/videos.  

This new gallery has several new features/functions that I would like to take a moment to highlight:

• Categories (Public Images and Pornography are similar to forums.  They are a high level container that hold albums.
• Albums are similar to topics.  These are similar to threads you would find in the legacy gallery.  
• Images are stored inside of an Album.  If an album does not exist for the topic you are interested in, you are welcome to create a new one.  (When you create an album, you can make it so that only you can add new ones or that ANYONE can add images to your album.)
• Each image within an album can have ratings and/or reactions associated with them.  
• You are able to comment on each individual image.  (In the past, if you wanted to comment on an image from 10 pages prior, it might be hard to maintain continuity.  Now the comments are associated to each individual image!)
• You can choose how images are displayed within an album.  There are three views: Thumbnails, Large Previews, and List.  To change how images are displayed, click on the appropriate option below the "Add Images" button.  
  
• To save time when you add an image... if you open the album itself, it will assume you want to add new images inside of said album!  Otherwise the system will prompt you through which album you want to add an image to.  
• There will be no more broken images/links within the Gallery!  If you've ever seen the blue "Tumblr Violation" image, or a broken image in the legacy gallery, you might sometimes wonder what happened and what that image actually was.  With the new gallery, images are copied so that they are delivered from our site.  There will be no more broken images/links.  Even if a user links to an image, we'll copy it to our site to prevent it from being lost.
• You can upload multiple images at one time!  If you have several images you want to add to an album, this is fully supported.  You can upload several images at one time into a single gallery.
• Images can have their own title and description.  Be creative when you add an image!  
• Images from the Gallery will be featured in areas across the site.  This includes on our homepage, in search results, and the Recent Activity section of the site.  
• If you don't want to have access to explicit content in any way or for it to potentially show up for you while logged in, please create an "Ask the Moderator" post.  I can place you into a special member group that will suppress these areas for you.  

There is likely a lot more that I'm forgetting to highlight, but I'll be sure to call them out as we move forward.  I feel it's important to call out that the legacy gallery will remain on the site.  I understand that some people may not be comfortable with it, especially right away.  There are no plans to remove the legacy gallery from the site.  We won't force you to move to the new gallery.  It will remain as-is (including all rules that apply to it.  With that being said... if you wish to share more explicit images, you MUST use the new gallery in the appropriate area.  

My goal within the next several days/weeks is to record several short videos showcasing various features of the gallery and how to contribute.  If you have any questions in the mean time, please don't hesitate to ask!  

Finally... I want to take a moment and say THANK YOU to all of our prolific image sharers who have provided feedback to me during the development of this new feature.  This includes (in no particular order)  @whipped guy @WilliamM @marylander1940 @Whitman @jjkrkwood and @easygoingpal.  All of their feedback was invaluable and I sincerely appreciate all of their comments while working through the development process.  Without each of your assistance, this would not have been possible.  

 

[+ Charlie]

I was surprised this morning to log on and find the photos in Public Images actually show up in the thread titles. I think you will get blowback from some members who don't expect this and don't want photos of naked men showing up as they scroll through new or unread content on their phones or in places where others may be able to see what is popping up on their screens. It also makes the list of threads much longer to scroll through.

[+ Lucky]

I am confused. what is the difference between the public images in the gallery and the images in the Legacy Gallery? It seems two forums for the same thing, if I am correct.

[RadioRob]

27 minutes ago, Lucky said:

I am confused. what is the difference between the public images in the gallery and the images in the Legacy Gallery? It seems two forums for the same thing, if I am correct.

The legacy gallery is a forum.  It was not meant for the purpose of sharing images.  For example, we have legacy gallery threads with literally DOZENS of pages.  If there is an image in it that is on page 3 of 20...  having a discussion about that image gets lost.  There is no real continuity for the images themselves.  Images also over time get lost/broken because they're hosted externally.  This means the poster's hard work in curating content is diminished over several months.  

The new gallery is a system designed around the concept of sharing images/videos.  Each image is able to "stand alone" in comments.  In addition, the new gallery allows me to do better promotion of the content.  For example, it can be shown on the home page.  I can select and promote featured images.  Images themselves can actually show up in search results and within the Unread Content (discovery) sections.  Today none of that is possible because the legacy gallery is just a link to a remotely hosted file.  

Ideally over time eventually it would be nice to be able to retire the legacy gallery.  However that's not possible right now.  I have no sort of timeline in place for if/when that might ever happen.  Too many people are not familiar or comfortable with it.  Rather than just take away the legacy gallery, it was decided to just leave it alone.  It will remain as is.  For those who are resistant to change, they can keep doing what they're doing.  For those who want to try out the new system and can benefit from the new features, great!  

So yes, the legacy gallery and the new public gallery are essentially the same purpose.  I'm hoping we'll be able to EVENTUALLY depreciate the old one and only use the new one, but that is not today!  

[RadioRob]

By the way...  in order to find new posts I have not yet, I use the "Unread Content" link just below the search menu.  @whipped guy posted an image a couple of minutes ago that actually showed in the results.  

In the legacy gallery, this would have looked like:

You know there is a new item in the thread, but no clue what it is.  Now you can actually see the preview of it and decide if you want to even open it!  The same is true for search results.  Try searching for "landscape".  

The first result is from the new gallery, the second is from the legacy gallery. 

[+ easygoingpal]

@RadioRob, do we need to add tags to the pictures so that the searches find a particular keyword?  In the new gallery I have been adding captions/titles to each picture that may be more of an expression of my reaction to it than what it stands for...  For instance: "Woof..." for a DILF with beautiful eyes...

Edited February 4, 2022 by easygoingpal

[RadioRob]

1 minute ago, easygoingpal said:

do we need to add tags to the pictures so that the searches find a particular keyword?  In the new gallery I have been adding captions/titles to each picture that may be more of an expression of my reaction to it than what it stands for...  For instance: "Woof..." for a DILF with a beautiful eyes...

Caption, titles, and descriptions are searchable.  If you want to include other searchable data, add them as a tag.  

[+ easygoingpal]

BTW, what's the easiest way to add a Caption/Title to a picture I am adding in the new gallery...  I remember being easier months ago, but today I first add the link to the picture (nowhere to add the caption), submit for posting, and then I go back to add the caption/title...

Edited February 4, 2022 by easygoingpal

[RadioRob]

1 minute ago, easygoingpal said:

BTW, what's the easiest way to add a Caption/Title to a picture I am adding in the new gallery...  I remember being easier months ago, but today I first add the link to the picture (nowhere to add the caption), submit for posting, and then I go back to add the caption/title...

Once you have an image selected, you should see a screen that looks like this:

Click on the thumbnail itself.   When you do, you'll see an option that lets you add image details such as title, description, etc.  It will look like:

The caption is the title.  And the description is obviously the description.  So in this case, I would delete "IMG_1828" (the system will default to the file name if a caption is not entered) with something like "Double Trouble".  

By the way...  if you're uploading multiple files, they'll all show up in the batch.  You can enter captions and descriptions for each before actually submitting.  Just click each thumbnail and the edit widget on the right will change to let you enter details for that image!

[+ newatthis]

3 hours ago, Charlie said:

I was surprised this morning to log on and find the photos in Public Images actually show up in the thread titles. I think you will get blowback from some members who don't expect this and don't want photos of naked men showing up as they scroll through new or unread content on their phones or in places where others may be able to see what is popping up on their screens. It also makes the list of threads much longer to scroll through.

Which leads me to inquire:  is there a way to implement "unread content" with an option to exclude certain forums (e.g.  Public Images or Pornography)?  I always start by clicking "unread content" to see what's new since my last visit; as Charlie said,  with images included this now makes for a very long list of threads.   

[RadioRob]

1 hour ago, newatthis said:

Which leads me to inquire:  is there a way to implement "unread content" with an option to exclude certain forums (e.g.  Public Images or Pornography)?  I always start by clicking "unread content" to see what's new since my last visit; as Charlie said,  with images included this now makes for a very long list of threads.   

This is possible.  Just change the filters that are displayed to show only what you want.  For example, click on the Content Type, choose Topics to only display topics (instead of images), and you can click the cog on it's right to pick the specific forums to make it even more granular.  

Once it's setup the way you want it to be, you'll see an option to save the view.  Click the "Save as New Stream".  Give it a name.

Now that you have a custom stream, you can make it your custom go-to by choosing the "Stream Options" dropdown and choosing "Set As Your Default Stream".

At that point, your default option for Unread Content will change to the stream you picked.

 

[RadioRob]

4 hours ago, Charlie said:

I was surprised this morning to log on and find the photos in Public Images actually show up in the thread titles. I think you will get blowback from some members who don't expect this and don't want photos of naked men showing up as they scroll through new or unread content on their phones or in places where others may be able to see what is popping up on their screens. It also makes the list of threads much longer to scroll through.

This is covered in my initial post.  

Quote

• If you don't want to have access to explicit content in any way or for it to potentially show up for you while logged in, please create an "Ask the Moderator" post.  I can place you into a special member group that will suppress these areas for you.  

Doing this will remove access to the Gallery and the Pornography discussion forum from your access. This will basically return you to what you could see before the change. These new areas of the site will be suppressed from your account which would also mean the results don't show in search, content discovery, etc.  

[RadioRob]

1 hour ago, newatthis said:

Which leads me to inquire:  is there a way to implement "unread content" with an option to exclude certain forums (e.g.  Public Images or Pornography)?  I always start by clicking "unread content" to see what's new since my last visit; as Charlie said,  with images included this now makes for a very long list of threads.   

By the way...  I've changed "Unread Content" to "Unread Site Content".  This will have the full site content available.  To make it easier to filter out the other portions of the site such as the Gallery, I've created a new stream called "Unread Forum Content".  It will filter the results down to ONLY the forums.  You're still free to create your own custom stream that only has the EXACT forums you want to see, but this new default option might help you to just cut out the Gallery from appearing in that unread area.  You can change your settings to use that "Unread Site Content" stream using the steps I outlined above.  It's just meant to remove you needing to define a stream first.   

[whipped guy]

2 hours ago, RadioRob said:

Once you have an image selected, you should see a screen that looks like this:

Click on the thumbnail itself.   When you do, you'll see an option that lets you add image details such as title, description, etc.  It will look like:

The caption is the title.  And the description is obviously the description.  So in this case, I would delete "IMG_1828" (the system will default to the file name if a caption is not entered) with something like "Double Trouble".  

By the way...  if you're uploading multiple files, they'll all show up in the batch.  You can enter captions and descriptions for each before actually submitting.  Just click each thumbnail and the edit widget on the right will change to let you enter details for that image!

RR… When I upload a pic for some reason the thumbnail does not pop up  as in the past.  I can fortunately add the pic to the album without seeing it.   I then go back and use the image tools to add the caption.   It works, but it takes sn extra step.   BTW using Chrome on an iPad.  Thanks!

[RadioRob]

23 minutes ago, whipped guy said:

RR… When I upload a pic for some reason the thumbnail does not pop up  as in the past.  I can fortunately add the pic to the album without seeing it.   I then go back and use the image tools to add the caption.   It works, but it takes sn extra step.   BTW using Chrome on an iPad.  Thanks!

OK.  I have been able to replicate this.  It looks like it happens specifically if you're using the option to paste a URL of an existing image.  

I'll see if I can work out what is going on!

[+ easygoingpal]

5 hours ago, RadioRob said:

OK.  I have been able to replicate this.  It looks like it happens specifically if you're using the option to paste a URL of an existing image.  

I'll see if I can work out what is going on!

@RadioRob what @whipped guydescribed is what happens to me also...  The thumbnail does not pop up when adding a link to the picture, so I am unable to include the caption the first time around.  I am on Firefox on a Windows PC.  Thanks for all you do!!!

[RadioRob]

1 hour ago, easygoingpal said:

@RadioRob what @whipped guydescribed is what happens to me also...  The thumbnail does not pop up when adding a link to the picture, so I am unable to include the caption the first time around.  I am on Firefox on a Windows PC.  Thanks for all you do!!!

Yup.  I see it.  It also happens on Mac.  By the way...  it did NOT happen about 4 months ago when the feature was first added.  That was one of the first bugs that worked out.  

Something happened in a subsequent update of the IPB software that broke that functionality and it was never caught because it was not actively being used.  

I'll get it squared away.  I'll most likely need a few days to get to the bottom of figuring out what's going on with that code.   Thank you all for making sure this is on my radar!  It's appreciated.

If you see any other problems, let me know and I'm happy to dig into it!   

Rob (Yes...  the fixer of broken things!)

[whipped guy]

3 hours ago, RadioRob said:

Yup.  I see it.  It also happens on Mac.  By the way...  it did NOT happen about 4 months ago when the feature was first added.  That was one of the first bugs that worked out.  

Something happened in a subsequent update of the IPB software that broke that functionality and it was never caught because it was not actively being used.  

I'll get it squared away.  I'll most likely need a few days to get to the bottom of figuring out what's going on with that code.   Thank you all for making sure this is on my radar!  It's appreciated.

If you see any other problems, let me know and I'm happy to dig into it!   

Rob (Yes...  the fixer of broken things!)

RR… ska Mr. Fixer! Yes!  It had worked  perfectly in the past!  Also, to give you an idea of what’s happening with both myself and @easygoingpal, of all the pics I posted yesterday the thumbnail popped up only once, so the feature is there. It just does not want to cooperate!  At any rate, I’m sure that you will be able to work your magic.  You always do!  👍

[+ José Soplanucas]

I am dumb. When I read about the Pornography new forum, I was expecting a discussion forum to discuss porn and porn news, not a new gallery. 

[RadioRob]

4 hours ago, latbear4blk said:

I am dumb. When I read about the Pornography new forum, I was expecting a discussion forum to discuss porn and porn news, not a new gallery. 

*cough*  it’s also there. 
https://www.companyofmen.org/forum/132-cumming-attractions-members-only/

[+ newatthis]

On 2/4/2022 at 3:55 PM, RadioRob said:

By the way...  I've changed "Unread Content" to "Unread Site Content".  This will have the full site content available.  To make it easier to filter out the other portions of the site such as the Gallery, I've created a new stream called "Unread Forum Content".  It will filter the results down to ONLY the forums.  You're still free to create your own custom stream that only has the EXACT forums you want to see, but this new default option might help you to just cut out the Gallery from appearing in that unread area.  You can change your settings to use that "Unread Site Content" stream using the steps I outlined above.  It's just meant to remove you needing to define a stream first.   

You are a prince.  Thanks.

[+ poolboy48220]

I'm having trouble navigating the new gallery.  I did like the feature of the forum-based gallery where it'd take me to the first unread/post picture and I could view them in order;  then do the same thing next time I visit that forum.  Is there a way to do that in the new gallery?  It seems to be ordered oldest-newest, but I don't see an indicator that I've reached pictures I've seen already.  

[RadioRob]

12 hours ago, poolboy48220 said:

I'm having trouble navigating the new gallery.  I did like the feature of the forum-based gallery where it'd take me to the first unread/post picture and I could view them in order;  then do the same thing next time I visit that forum.  Is there a way to do that in the new gallery?  It seems to be ordered oldest-newest, but I don't see an indicator that I've reached pictures I've seen already.  

When viewing an album such as:

The DEFAULT sort order is set to age.  So the images shown first should be the newest ones.  (You're viewing them most recently posted to oldest).  You can change YOUR default sort when viewing an album.  

To confirm this should be working as intended, I opened the first image and confirmed it's upload time was 1 minute ago.  The second was 2 minutes, the third was 4 minutes ago, etc.  

If you don't like them displayed with the small thumbnails, you can change your view when looking at the images in the album.  To the left of the SORT BY dropdown is three buttons.  

The first will display the small thumbnails like in the screenshot above.  The second option will show large versions of the image where they display one image per row blown up as much as possible.  The final option will display it in a list/table.  

[Buddy15]

I'm not seeing the 3 buttons next to the sort by dropdown.  Am I doing something wrong?

[Buddy15]

Please ignore my last post.  Now the 3 buttons are there.  Not sure what happened before but it's all good now.