[nodebb-plugin-imgbed] Image Embedding with only a URL

julian

Ah, that functionality is available when you associate your imgur client ID with NodeBB. Otherwise the feature is disabled -- as should that message!

<baris>

That message only shows up when you enter a imgur client ID in the admin/settings section.

Bri

I know I have access to this __default variable within the plugin, but that only gives me access to the root directory of the plugin. Is there a way to get to the actual uploads directory from a plugin?

julian

@bdharrington7, try this:

var nconf = module.parent.require('nconf'),
    uploadPath = nconf.get('upload_path'),    // this
    absolutePath = path.join(nconf.get('base_dir'), nconf.get('upload_path');    // or alternatively, this

Bri

@julian Thanks!

Now I'm seeing some weird behavior, I'm requiring the spawn child_process now, and calling curl, but when I load the forum (or when supervisor reloads it), it crashes 3-4 times before staying alive, and it's these kind of error messages:

NodeBB/src/webserver.js:376
		var footer = templates.footer.parse({
		                              ^
TypeError: Cannot call method 'parse' of undefined
at module.exports.init.translator.translate.templates.logout (~/NodeBB/src/webserver.js:376:34)
at Object.Plugins.fireHook (~/NodeBB/src/plugins.js:256:5)
at module.exports.init (~/NodeBB/src/webserver.js:375:11)
at Object.templates.ready (~/NodeBB/public/src/templates.js:47:5)
at EventEmitter.nconf.file.file (~/NodeBB/app.js:124:18)
at EventEmitter.g (events.js:185:14)
at EventEmitter.emit (events.js:115:20)
at Plugins.init (~/NodeBB/src/plugins.js:42:23)
at Plugins.reload (~/NodeBB/src/plugins.js:89:5)
at async.iterator.fn (~/NodeBB/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:579:34)

DEBUG: Program node app exited with code 1

<baris>

Can you post the code that causes the crash?

Bri

Sure, here's the code snippet, from my library.js:

fs.exists(fullWgetPath, function(exist){ 
    if (!exist){
        console.log ("File not found for " + fullRelPath);   // seeing weird behavior here, crashes a few times and then loads??
        var file = fs.createWriteStream( fullWgetPath );
        var curl = spawn('curl', [rawUrl]);
        curl.stdout.on('data', function(data) { file.write(data); });
        curl.stdout.on('end', function(data) {
            file.end();
            console.log("File downloaded! " + rawUrl);
        });
        curl.on('exit', function(code) {
            if (code != 0) {
                console.log('Failed: ' + code);
            }
        });
        // var wget = "wget " + rawUrl + " -O " + fullWgetPath;
        // var child = exec(wget, function (err, stdout, stderr){
        //     if (err){
        //         console.log(constants.name + ": Error wget-ing " + rawUrl);
        //         console.log(err);
        //     }
        //     else {
        //         console.log(constants.name + ": Successfully downloaded " + rawUrl + stdout);
        //     }
        // });
    }
    else {
        console.log("file exists: " + fullWgetPath);
    }
});

Bri

I've made a few improvements to the plugin, including allowing custom extensions to be specified, and uploading to the server when an image is linked. I had some issues when in the downloading case: The post would be parsed, and the local url would be returned, but it was before the file was actually downloaded, so the image would show up as broken when you post an image. The way I resolved it was using the websockets, and signaling the client when the file was finished downloading.

I welcome any comments or concerns about the code, especially before I publish it to npm. I do still have a few more ideas for this plugin (progress bar, maybe making an option where the conversion to a local url can be made permanent, imgur uploading)... I remember that @psychobunny mentioned incorporating a CDN but that sounds like something for a separate plugin, to handle all other types of uploads.

Chris

@BDHarrington7 excited for the downloading linked images. If an imgur api is specified does it move it over to imgur?

Bri

@Chris Not yet, soon!

Bri

@baris I did find the problem, it was stupid. I was staying up too late when I introduced the bug that caused the crash.

Bri

Also, is there a global debug flag that you can reference on the server side?

julian

@BDHarrington7 -- start nodebb using ./nodebb dev. This will set the NODE_ENV environment variable to "development"

Scuzz

Isn't this possible with markdown anyway?

Schamper

@Scuzz said:

Isn't this possible with markdown anyway?

Ye, you should be able to embed an image using ![alt](link)
Like so:
Much stylish

Bri

Right, and the advantage that the markdown has is that the link doesn't need to have a specific format of matching the pattern of http*jpg|gif|png etc. I could change it to parse looking for img tags, and downloading those URLs

? Offline

@BDHarrington7 said:

@Chris Not yet, soon!

Has there been any further updates on this?

psychobunny

Oh this is cool, I never realized that you actually fetch the image and save a copy to your server. So potentially you could do something like GitHub does (ie. host all images on your own CDN), so you don't have to worry about serving non-secure images from random sites when you're on SSL

Bri

@psychobunny said:

...so you don't have to worry about serving non-secure images from random sites when you're on SSL

Yep, exactly. Well that and I didn't like that an image takedown would make my forum look crappy.

@Albus are you referring to the upload capability or the imgurl capability?

Punkbob

@BDHarrington7 Is the imgur upload still something you are looking at, or are you done with the plugin for now?