Topic Image/Thumbnail/Featured-Image

bentael

had a little chat with @trevor about this feature, initially as a plugin, but after digging around the topics source a little bit, it sounds like NodeBB core maybe a better place for it.
with your blessing, i'd like to implement this feature (PR), but I would first love to hear any specific sub-features, design opinions or whatever else you have in mind on this.
My major concern is where to store the images urls, on the topic objects in the DB? or on separate meta object?

if the decision remains a plugin for this, we're going to need few hooks for the topics create and getTopicData, which I will PR as well, but IMHO this feature sounds like core.

bentael

Qui tacet consentire ?

psychobunny

Was wondering how you intend on implementing this. How does the user select an image from the composer? Or are you taking the first image that the user uploaded and using that. You'll probably need an option switch this ability on/off from the ACP as well

To get this all working you'd need a fair bit of hooks so making this core will definitely be easier... as for whether it does belong in core or not for me I don't see why not (as long as the ability to switch it on/off is there)

Qui tacet consentire

haha yup. story of NodeBB dev.

me: "@julian @baris what do you think of this?"
no response for 5 minutes
me: "okay np already committed and pushed to live"

bentael

yea, I was thinking of an upload icon on the topic composer, that toggles a field to paste url and a button to upload from file system, then add that url as a property on the topic. The setting in the ACP can be arranged as well. Also, each topic, if it doesn't have a thumbnail, it will fall back gracefully in the templates and styling.

trevor

@psychobunny said:

Was wondering how you intend on implementing this. How does the user select an image from the composer? Or are you taking the first image that the user uploaded and using that. You'll probably need an option switch this ability on/off from the ACP as well

It would take the first image the user uploaded from the composer and use that. ^_^

bentael

@psychobunny said:

me: "@julian @baris what do you think of this?"
no response for 5 minutes
me: "okay np already committed and pushed to live"

hahaha, i can imagine.

<baris>

Yeah if it's a setting in ACP that enables the feature then its fine to be in core. And the templates can just do

<!-- IF topicThumbnailsEnabled -->
<img src="{topic.thumbnail}">
<!-- ENDIF topicThumbnailsEnabled -->
 //rest of category.tpl

bentael

sweet .

kevin

I like it. Im wondering how you see it working for the end user. Would you type an image url into the subject line? Could it pick up the first image in the body? I keep thinking about how facebook does it for almost any kind of media, and all the end user sees is one text box. I like tumblr's method of creating a different layout depending on the type of media but one of the strengths of nodebb is how user friendly it is. You just type what you want to type and nodebb figures out the formatting.

Nifty

Is this feature somehow possible ( and planned ? )
Would be really nice.

bentael

it's done long time ago, but you have to enable it, it's not enabled by default.

It's been a while since anyone tested it, maybe the elements were removed from the default theme

but go ahead, we'll fix it if it's broken.

Go to
Admin Control Panel > Settings > Post > and check "Allow users to upload topic thumbnails"

Then when you attempt to create a new topic, you should see an "image" link at the right of the topic title.

Nifty

@bentael Ah, ok i found it. The Theme does not support it as you expected ;).
But it is not what i was searching for. I don't want that people to upload Images. I want them to select a image from a list which i can configure for the forum (like thumps up/down or what ever.). You find this functionality on nearly ever forum software around.

bentael

oh then that a different feature
create a new topic in the features request category, explain what you're looking in detail.

a_5mith

@Technowix said:

fix

It was never implemented beyond replacing the avatar on the topics page, so, it's not really broken. What you're looking for is a Topic Icon. Not a Thumbnail. They're slightly different.

Topic Thumbnail is an image that preceeds a topic. Similar to how Reddit shows images on /r/all etc.

What you're after isn't in NodeBB yet, and if it was, I'd rather it were a plugin, I had similar functionality on SMF, and I hated it. Waste of Real Estate just for a thumbs up icon. Doesn't necessarily reflect what's in the actual topic. Imo, of course.

bentael

but I still think we should fix the Topic Thumbnail for the default theme, since this option shows up in the Admin panel, but does not really work when you enable it, so it's confusing.

a_5mith

@bentael Does it not replace the users avatar anymore then? It used to...

bentael

@a_5mith
if the options is enabled, and if an image is available for a certain topic, it will replace the user's avatar, if not, fallsback to the use the user's avatar

kps

doesnt work on persona , version 0.7.1

pichalite

@kps What version of persona are you on? You need persona v1.0.21 for topic thumbnails to work.

kps

@pichalite said:

@kps What version of persona are you on? You need persona v1.0.21 for topic thumbnails to work.

1.0.26