Feedback No support for .PNG :(

L0n3Gr3yW0lf

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Location
Somerset, UK
Name
Ovi
I've been wanting to write this for a while, I can't remember when I first noticed but the forum no longer accepts .PNG files for uploading.

The most frustrating situation I'm finding myself in is if I need to "Copy" an image and quickly paste it on the forums, I am constantly reminded the format is not accepted so I have to save the specific image in JPEG format (be it screenshot, window snap or just image off the web), which is very slow and frustrating and counter-intuitive for 2023.
Is anyone else out there finding this difficult or frustrating?
 
I see no response or update on why the site infrastructure dropped one of the most basic and useful features: insert support from Copy/Paste and other image formats besides JPEg.

I can't Copy/Paste images from other places, I can't share screenshots and I can't even post without having to go to damn Paint to save anything in JPEG and then upload it here ... which nearly kills any interest in sharing anything that's not just my pictures.

JUST ... WHY? ... funny thing is I can't even share the screenshot that shows me I can't share the screenshot that I can't share the screenshot ... and now my brain is broken.
 
I thought I already got this one but there was a different '.png' thread in the "Mods Team Support' that I responded to.

The short answer version is because the site is using ImageMagick and it has a security issue with .png images.


The longer answer is that over time & testing ImageMagick was shown to provide a better result as an image processor when pics are resized so IM is being used over the GD processor. At the current moment, with the version of the server OS and configuration, updating IM doesn't have a clear path and switching to GD would result in our members likely noticing the change in quality with the resized images so the easiest path was to disable .png for now.

At some point within a year our server will end up having to rebuilt and moved to a new environment so as part of that getting either IM upgraded, or an alternative processor chosen, will be done.

In the interim though, if there is really enough of a wish to use .png images then we can switch the processor to GD and see how it goes. To date you're the second member that I'm aware of wanting to use .png so if there are others out there reading this, speak up! If (when?) there's momentum to having .png supported over the quality of the resized images then I can switch the server settings.
 
I thought I already got this one but there was a different '.png' thread in the "Mods Team Support' that I responded to.

The short answer version is because the site is using ImageMagick and it has a security issue with .png images.


The longer answer is that over time & testing ImageMagick was shown to provide a better result as an image processor when pics are resized so IM is being used over the GD processor. At the current moment, with the version of the server OS and configuration, updating IM doesn't have a clear path and switching to GD would result in our members likely noticing the change in quality with the resized images so the easiest path was to disable .png for now.

At some point within a year our server will end up having to rebuilt and moved to a new environment so as part of that getting either IM upgraded, or an alternative processor chosen, will be done.

In the interim though, if there is really enough of a wish to use .png images then we can switch the processor to GD and see how it goes. To date you're the second member that I'm aware of wanting to use .png so if there are others out there reading this, speak up! If (when?) there's momentum to having .png supported over the quality of the resized images then I can switch the server settings.
You can add me in. For any image that I’ve been working on in Photoshop, I save a version for online sharing in .png format. I really don’t want to go back and re-save in jpeg as well.
 
I found a little workaround that might help you out – try using a JPEG optimizer before uploading. It's not a perfect fix, I know, but it can save you the hassle of manually converting every image.
 
I'm actually pretty new around here and stumbled upon this thread because I was facing the same issue. It's kind of a bummer when you're in a hurry to share something and then bam, the forum's like, "Nope, not accepting PNG today." One thing I found that might help is this JPEG Optimizer thingy. I was skeptical at first, but it surprisingly worked wonders for me. You can quickly compress jpeg before uploading, and it saves you from the hassle of converting everything manually. Just thought I'd throw that out there as a little workaround I discovered. Hope it makes life a tad easier for you!
 
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testing - .png screen grab

1708705442477.png
 
^ confirmed : it works (for me) - thank you for turning it back on, I haven't tried it since November, because I remember it didn't used to work
Unfortunately it was disabled longer than I hoped 🙁 but the best fix for the problem was when we did the last big server update instead of trying to shoehorn in a temporary solution.

.png is not a big deal for me however I'm finding more need, from an interoperability perspective even though I think it's a vile format, for .webp so support for that would be helpful too.

I just saw this mention about .webp support. Until the next big forum software update .webp won't be coming. Most browsers now have support for the format so it's not as big of an issue as it used to be so at this point it's really a matter of having the forum software recognize the files as a valid image type.
 
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