Modify the userpic resizing tool

[matt1993]

Title
Modify the userpic resizing tool

Short, concise description of the idea
The page where one can select the portion of a userpic that they want should either not stop animated userpics from being animated or not show up at all if the userpic is animated.

Full description of the ideaI have attempted to upload two different animated userpics (which

Comments

[boredinsomniac]

I'm approving this one for the suggestion that the userpic animations be displayed. The suggestions to skip that page for animated pics or those less than 100x100 can't be implemented as requested, for this reason: That page only shows up if the userpic exceeds LJ's limitations, either the 100x100 limit or the 40kb file size limit. The alternative to using the Create Userpic page in that situation is for the upload to be rejected completely.

So, Matt, it sounds like yours were hitting this page because they were over the 40k limit. You can avoid it by making sure they're under that limit before you upload them.

[matt1993]

I just checked and, indeed, the userpics I were trying to upload recently were over 40KB. What's weird is that I didn't think about this even though I've had trouble reducing animated userpics to under 40KB in the past (that's why this one has such bad quality). D'oh!

I wonder why Create Userpic showed up for the Invader Zim one I mentioned if it was only 14.16 KB and 100x100, though? Maybe I had accidentally made it slightly more than 100x100 at first? (It's been a while since I uploaded it, so I don't remember)

[boredinsomniac]

Yeah, possibly just slightly too large. If it happens again for a picture that is definitely under all of the limits, you might want to open a support request.

[andy]

Apparently, this behavior is confusing; perhaps the userpic factory can give a notice saying that the picture size is fine, but they still need to work on it because the file size exceeds the limit, no?

ETA: alternatively, the system could outright decline to handle files that are too large, which is quite a good straightforward response as well.

[lady_angelina]

This.

I'm not savvy in icon-making, but I do know that any kind of manipulation of animated icons involves manipulating the individual frames that comprise the whole image, and then reorganizing them back into the image itself. I'm not sure that this would be technologically feasible in the Userpic Factory to automate something like this.

Anyway, thanks for explaining it better than I could.

[charliemc]

As someone who makes icons all the time, there are varying issues regarding resizing ANY photos (something else I do all the time as a webmaster in RL).

When you add animation to the equation, it gets quite dicey.

I think it's great that LiveJournal even offers a way to create a basic icon. But I'm glad they didn't when I first came here in 2002, because if forced me to learn a graphics software (and animation software) -- and that's been extremely helpful to me in my life (and job!).

Okay, sorry. I'm officially rambling now... (grin)

[matt1993]

But I'm glad they didn't when I first came here in 2002, because if forced me to learn a graphics software (and animation software) -- and that's been extremely helpful to me in my life (and job!).

Yeah, I always resize my userpics in Paint (or maybe Irfanview a couple of times), so I don't even need the Create Userpic page :)

Migrated

[boredinsomniac]

As danceinacircle pointed out above, this is a bug. GIF's that exceed the limits are supposed to be rejected rather than going to the Factory, because the factory can't handle animated pics.

This is already in the bug tracking database awaiting a fix, so I'm marking it Migrated.

https://jira.sup.com/browse/LJSV-1270

Re: Migrated

[matt1993]

No problem!

[matt1993]

The bug might be fixed now - I just tried uploading another animated GIF userpic over 40 KB (not this one, because for this one I remembered to check the file size before downloading it from gickr.com) and it was rejected completely like it was supposed to be!