In some areas of TriumphRat.Net the allowed image upload size has been increased to accomodate the larger file sizes associated with today's digital cameras. The increased allowance has been applied to:
- The Member Albums
- The Blogs
- The Classifieds
- The Product Reviews
In the Features listed above, the max file size that can be uploaded is Five Megabytes (previously 1.9mb). If you are unsure what your image file size is, most operating systems will show that information if you right-click on it. If it is larger than 5mb, there are several ways to reduce the file size before uploading.
I've got a FAQ on the subject here for one way to do it, but any photo-editing software would suffice.
File Attachments can also be done in Forum Posts, and may be preferred if the image is related to a particular post. The allowed file size has been increased here as well, but the image will be resized. Up to five images are are allowed with a post, but in order to ensure that the server isn't strained with processing large files they must be uploaded one-at-a-time.
Some Guidelines to go by:
- If the image would be useful or enjoyable to the community; then upload it into a Member Album. After it is uploaded, you will see BBCode that you can include in a forum post which helps automate the inclusion of the picture and is easy to view by other members. Examples would be pictures of your bike(s), or a modification that the entire community would enjoy viewing.
- If the image wouldn't be understandable or useful for anything but a particular forum post, then attach it to the respective forum post. Examples would include a flyer for a particular rally, or expressing a question you are asking others (like showing a part you are trying to replace).
- If the image or attachment is considered informative, and you plan to contribute text that would be considered a "reference" for others, then create a new document in the Blogs and include the images with it in a single document. An example would be a how-to on a bike, or sharing an enjoyable trip with words and pics. Blog documents can be linked from forum posts.
The Photo Gallery represents one of the world's largest collection of photos related to Triumph Motorcycles, built by the contributions of many TriumphRat.Net Members. It will stay in service, but very few members will be allowed to upload images into it. Soon, the current Member Albums will be expanded to include other categories (like RAT Pack and Forum Albums). If you are new to TriumphRat.Net, the Photo Gallery represents the former Member Album system that was in place for five years. You'll see some modern Triumphs, but there will be a lot of older pics in there as well.
Finally, TriumphRat.Net won't be maintaining original images any longer. In other words, all images uploaded will be automatically processed and resized before going into the storage system. Over the last several days, I've processed the 30,000+ pictures and resized all originals. While it was cool to be the resource of thousands of high-resolution images all of these years, the changes outlined above were going to multiply my storage-management headaches if I continued to maintain original image uploads. The server that TriumphRat.Net moved to a few days ago has much more storage space than the old, but it wouldn't have lasted a year if I made it easier for picture uploads to take place and still kept originals. This way, I can support 500,000+ images on TriumphRat.Net and still be able to manage it. The issue hit home a few months ago when I had to skip a group ride to deal with storage problems
Anywho, I hope you find these changes positive. Thanks for continuing to make TriumphRat.Net enjoyable for all of us.
