PHP Replace Images with GD Library Resampled Images in Joomla

Question

I am the tech intern for an online independent newspaper, and the writers on the staff are not tech-savvy. They don't quite understand how web pages work, and often they upload and include images straight from their digital cameras, or scanned from original media. These images become a burden when there are 10 images on the front page each at 3.5Mb each.

We are trying to work out some sort of training method for teaching them how to resize and optimize the images they want to include in their articles, but like I said, they are not very tech savvy, and any method we attempt to employ may go way over their heads.

So, I wanted to know if it is outside of reason to attempt to resample and cache images that are included in the articles using a PHP function and the GD library in order to stream line the amount of data that has to be passed per article.

I think it's possible, I'm just trying to figure out if it would be worth it to just take the time and effort to train the writers, or if creating an automated process would be better.

Answer 1

You'd be better off doing the GD image processing during the upload process. GD can take up quite a bit of resources, so processing each image on every request would not be a preferable solution. If you can't do it during the upload process, you should cache all the resampled images and use those if/when available.

Answer 2

It's certainly possible, and I'd be very surprised if Joomla! doesn't already have modules that do just that.

Answer 3

With the current web site that I'm working on I needed to answer a similar question. I've opted for using the joomla addon Easy Gallery. The two stand out features for me are the automated thumbnail creation and the image resize feature. The sizes are configurable with the components configuration page. You'll have a thumbnail, a resized image and the original image with each upload.

This component is a Joomla 1.0 component, so, if you're running a Joomla 1.5 install you will need to turn on legacy mode. Work seems to be in progress for a native 1.5 version.

I also found a couple of places where the generated thumbnails weren't being displayed. I raised the question on the Easy Gallery forum, and managed to work out the answer for myself.