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[DJW]

Afternoon All

A few weeks ago the old MBM image hosting service went down, I've been working with Martin to replace it with a new tool, built specifically for this forum, and I wanted to give you the highlights as it's just gone live.  The aims have been to retain the 'old' archive of images so existing forum threads work again, also that users of the previous solution can reconnect to their images, and finally to allow new images to be uploaded, simply and efficiently.

The site is here: https://modelboatmayhemimages.co.uk/

A couple of users have migrated to this solution to help me test and have given the thumbs up, similarly a couple of new users have set up accounts, so I think it's good to go...

What's new:

- Photos are automatically resized on upload to a sensible size for forum posts, so forum pages load quickly and nobody's data allowance takes a hit from a full-resolution phone photo.
- It works the same on your phone, tablet, or PC - no app, just a normal website, and it's built to work properly on a small screen too.
- Every gallery image comes with two one-click copy buttons: a plain link, and ready-made BBCode you can copy / paste straight into a post to have it appear inline, no fiddling with tags when posting.
- Organise photos into albums if you like, maybe by build or project, or just leave them in your general library - entirely up to you.
- Images you upload can be downloaded in the event you lose them locally.
- Allow posting of multiple new images in a single process.

If you used the old MBM Hosting gallery:

Nothing's been lost, but you will need to set up your account again - it doesn't carry across automatically. Click "Create an account", not "Sign in" (your old password doesn't work here, and there's no way to recover it ? don't worry, you don't need it). Enter the same email address your old photos were under, choose a new password of your own choosing, and confirm the six-digit code that gets emailed to you. Once you're signed in, everything you've already uploaded will be waiting for you under "Your images", in albums if that's how you set it up, exactly as it was.  If you're unsure what email address you used please contact me and I can try to assist.

If you didn't have an account on the 'old' site:

You're just as welcome. Click "Create an account", enter your email address and choose a password, then confirm the six-digit code sent to you ? that's it, you're signed in and ready to upload.

A couple of example workflows, once you're signed in:

On a PC: go to Upload, then either drag your photos straight onto the page or click "Choose files" to pick them the normal way. Each one queues up with its own progress bar ? add as many as you like, then click Upload to send the batch. Once they're in, find the photo in your library (or the album you put it in), and click the BBCode button underneath it. That copies a ready-to-paste tag straight to your clipboard ? switch to your forum post and paste it in.  You may need to use the 'preview' button on the forum post to see the images rather than the code.

On a phone: it's much the same. Tap Upload, then "Choose files" ? your phone will offer you the choice of picking from your photo library or taking a new picture there and then, so you can shoot something and have it in a post within a minute or two. Once uploaded, tap the photo, tap BBCode, and paste it into your post the same way.

Posting several photos at once? You don't need to copy them one at a time. Straight after a batch finishes uploading, a "Copy BBCode for everything just uploaded" button appears ? one click, and every photo from that batch is on your clipboard together, ready to paste as a group. Already got photos in your library you want to post together - Tick the ones you want (the same tick-boxes used for moving photos into albums), then use "Copy BBCode" in the bar that appears - same result, for anything you've already uploaded.


A couple of things worth knowing: this tool is built for our MBM community specifically. A direct link - by email, WhatsApp, wherever - will always work fine, but the images themselves aren't available for other sites or forums to display. That keeps things running smoothly here, rather than this becoming free image hosting for the wider internet.

If anyone has any suggestions to improve please let me know, post here or PM, similarly any niggles.

If you do give it a try, please do let me know how you get on.

Best regards
David.

[DJW]

Thought I'd add some screengrabs.


This is images sorted into Albums:





And the gallery view inside an album, buttons to copy image links, tick box to select multiple images to copy links or move:





Click on a gallery thumbnail to view full size image, action buttons at top right:





And this shows a 'BBCode' link pasted into this forum post (To see the image before posting you need to use the 'Preview' button at lower right):

[Martin (Admin)]

This is Seriously Good Stuff David !

 

[Martin (Admin)]

 

Test 1

[DJW]

Very pleased you like it and have it up and running. 


David.

[TheLongBuild]

Looks good, Not found it yet but is there a way to sort the pictures in the Album into the order they were taken as they have uploaded in reverse, also how do you delete a picture ? as at the time of typing I have not found it.


Also what is the system this is using to host the pictures ?.

[DJW]

Hi LongBuild


Thanks so much for the feedback.  There was not a way to sort images, but there is now..!  I agree it was an oversight and added a fix today. Albums should now display new images in their 'shoot date/time' order, it was just the order they arrived in which in hindsight was not ideal...  I've tested with new uploads and it seems to work, but please let me know if you have any issues going forward.


As for deleting images, this is not possible via the user interface, the concern being if an image has been linked to from the forum, then that image is deleted, the forum will display a broken link.  As the account holder is the only person to see the albums in their entirety I felt rather than offer a delete button, there are two more options to clean things up if required.


1. Create an album called 'not used' or 'rubbish bin' or whatever, and move unrequired images to that folder.
2. If you really don't want the image there any longer, send me a message via the interface with the image ID (shown top left when viewing an image) and I'll remove it.  In this case it will be replaced with a graphic  saying 'This image has been removed', just in case it's been linked to from the forum.  Hope that makes sense...


And the 'system'... The new image hosting tool is a custom build, not an off-the-shelf product. The main reason: we needed to migrate around 23,000 images and hundreds of member accounts from the old Chevereto-based gallery, while keeping years of existing forum links working ? a packaged solution wouldn't have handled that cleanly. It's built on ASP.NET Core (C#) with a SQL Server database, using ImageMagick for resizing, format conversion, and stripping personal metadata on upload. Going custom gave direct control over how legacy accounts reattach to their existing photos, and how moderation works ? things a stock package wouldn't offer without real compromise.  Part of my business is development of and hosting of web services, so this was done as a side project at no cost now or going forward to the forum, just helping out recovering the legacy images and offering a way forward for image handling.


Hopefully as you see with the ordering fix, it can be tweaked reasonably quickly if there are issues, or we want new features.


Please let me know here or via PM how you get on.


Best regards
David.

[TheLongBuild]

Hi David
Thanks for the update and the information about the new system, well over my head but interesting.


Regards
Larry