[X] My Assistant

[tau]

Sol 203 Mastcam-Z right eye panorama with enhanced colors



I just found out that in addition to the file size limit for uploading images, there also seems to exist a limit to the total number of pixels in an image.
When I try to upload images with a file size of less than 3 MB but with more than or close to 25 million pixels, the attachment management menu disappears.
So I had to reduce the size (and hence resolution) of the above image to 92% (linear).

Did anybody make a similar observation?

[Bill Harris]

Good point, Tau. I recall that there are file size and image size limits, but I so rarely approach either limit that don't recall much in the way of details. I think they go to the days when many people were on Dialup.
Probably the best thing to do is to ask in "Forum Guide" at the top of the page.

--Bill

[djellison]

I think they go to the days when many people were on Dialup.

The original limits ( significantly smaller than they are now ) were put in place to dissuade people from using UMSF as a place to host content, and encourage people to use image hosting services like flickr etc etc.

Paying for hosting of and backing up a large image repository also has time/bandwidth costs.

I've not been a UMSF admin for getting on for a decade so I have no idea what the total hosted content size is on UMSF, what the current server's specs are, or what, if any, steps are taken today to secure that data. Backing up the attachments was many gigabytes in 2010.

I would continue to encourage people to put their content elsewhere and use UMSF as a place to discuss content, not host it.

[Cherurbino]

Dear djellison, if you consider my proposal valuable, you may create the special topic 'How to store your attachments in the „Wayback”' and move it there. Although I decided not to post at this forum anymore, I shall make an exclusion to answer there the colleagues' questions upon Wayback, if any.
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I would continue to encourage people to put their content elsewhere and use UMSF as a place to discuss content, not host it.

1. By strange contra-coincidence, this summer the moderator of the 'nasaspaceflight' forum shocked me with the opposite requirement: not to 'hotlink' images (they call it embedding "Do not embed images") from the third sites, but to upload them directly at their host. Moreover, mr. 'zubenelgenubi' personally reloaded many pictures from my posts into the NSF attachments - see an example of USGS map reloaded from Wikipedia here. However I would not recommend anybody the NSF as a storage facility: forums are not eternal and forum policies change even more frequently.


2. My personal 'storage' is Wikipedia where I write articles for >11 years. I also upload images there (do not laugh at my ugly martian panoramas' compilations) and I'm sure in the relative eternity of this storage. However I shall never recommend Wikipedia to anybody who is concerned about his copyright. All original work uploaded there automatically receives a 'common license' which prohibits you to refer to this content as to the work of your own. Thus, if (for example) Phil Stooke whose maps are admired all over the Solar system uploads one of his maps to Wiki, he loses the right to refer to it as "map of Phil Stooke" in his future book. So be careful: "the free cheese may be found only in the mousetrap".

3. A good solution could be the 'Wayback' - the world internet archive, www.archive.org. It is more eternal than Wikipedia, since the last is not free from anonymous volunteers who may nominate your image for deletion. I did not try this tool on the USF, but let's do it together:

When the entire forum page is full, query its address at the archive.org. Let it be page 12 of the Perseverance- Mars 2020 Rover.
Syntax for the query is: [https://web.archive.org/*/] [URL of the page queried]. Thus, for

CODE

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8600&st=165

we get query like this:

CODE

https://web.archive.org/*/http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=8600&st=165

Put this string into address bar with "paste+go". This page was not archived, thus my first steps there were like this

After passing these (and some other) steps this page is already at the Wayback. Its address there is (note two 'htpps' inside; it's normal):

https://web.archive.org/web/20210918065336/...8600&st=165

However this is not all. You've archived only thumbnails, not the attachments! Continue your archiving job.

To start archiving attachments you must open them, one by one with the right-click in new window. At this step you must be attentive: 'Wayback' shall automatically propose you addresses which include session tokens (syntax 's=' + [32 characters] + '&')

This address includes a token:

CODE

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php? s= efde22aa3ef9e1afe1a9b658cdbf22f7&act=attach&type=post&id=49195

Clear it (s=efde22aa3ef9e1afe1a9b658cdbf22f7&) to make address look like this:

CODE

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=49195

Only in this case each new user shall be able to open the full-sized attachment. I did that, so thanks for my efforts at least two maps from here shall be kept at the Wayback forever until it disappears. They are:

by Andreas Plesh: https://web.archive.org/web/20210918065717i...st&id=49195

by Phil Stooke: https://web.archive.org/web/20210918070443i...st&id=49206

I said that 'Wayback' could be the solution for the hosting of attachments because now it is not. Hypothetically, everybody could make the following.

1. Temporarily upload their attachments here.
2. As soon as the page with attachments is full (this disclaimer is to prevent Wayback from overloading with multiple copies of unfinished pages), store it at the Wayback.
3. Insert the archived attachment into the post with the [img] tag...

Halt!

This forum does not dispaly wide images (that's why I had to use the 'URL' tag), and at the same time its "IP.Board" engine (or inner admin settings?) ignore the " width=" parameter of the "img" tag ([img width=]).

Meanwhile this option is available at NSF (it runs on SMF 2.0.15) - I've just checked: all images from Wayback are visible, resizable and back-clickable to their original size from the pages of that forum (and others runnung SMF forum soft).

Conclusions
1. Storing your forum uploads at the Wayback is always necessary. Do that before something undesirable may happen.
2. Wayback does not delete the stored images, even if they are subsequently deleted at the source, or even if the whole forum 'disappears'.
3. Condition (2) could release the forum quota at the host server from a burden of uploads (algorithm: 'attach - store - link to the stored image - delete the attachment'). But to make this workaround available, forum settings must allow forum members to use the image resizing parameter in the IMG css/bb tag.

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P.S. This page is also stored at Wayback: you may follow this link

[djellison]

forums are not eternal and forum policies change even more frequently.

Yup. This.