The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Why do we have to have a web link for avatars for our own pictures? Why can't we upload them from our hard drives?

Cos they have to be stored somewhere.

You can use:
http://tinypic.com/

Thanx for the input. I wanted to know why we can't upload from HDD's which are storage devices :) I am a member of many forums and most allow uploads of the pictures from your own HDD, directly, and no storage for the file, except your own HDD. :) I personally use:

http://imageshack.us/

It depends on board software and board rules. Allowing members to upload directly to the board can cause some security issues.

Because your hard disk isn't accessible through HTTP? The board doesn't need to ever see your avatar; it just tells people where to find it. Not allowing avatar upload makes the board simpler to implement (one less feature to get wrong) and decreases the load on the board server (especially when people start using animated avatars and similar crazy stuff).

That said, it would be convenient for users without easy web hosting to be able to upload images directly to the board.

The reason why I left uploading avatars disabled (and attachments too) is that this is indeed a security snakepit. And it's not as if SMF inspires me with much confidence of its security to begin with.

Thanx for that. I know it would be a nightmare for some forums. The ones I access don't seem to have any trouble with it though. I respect your reasons for not allowing it. :)

What? You suspect that the people who recently broke the ability to post lniks and/or images with an official update aren't on top of their security game? Well I never!

Just because they haven't been hacked yet, doesn't mean that they are safe.

I'll give you some more reasons why I don't trust the security of SMF:

• SMF is written in PHP
• SMF is built upon the code of YaBB
• SMF has not been designed with security in mind (if it did, there would not be the need for so many security patches)
• In the one case where I reported a (minor) security issue, the responding devs didn't get it

I think this post has gone far enough to close it. can u please close it?

We don't usually close threads here. If no one is interested in it any more, it will disappear out of sight on its own.

Okies. I didn't know that. Thanx. :)

Speaking of avatars, why are the custom scaled to 65x65 and  gallery 100x100? could all be 100squared? Another thing is  the scaling itself - even if original isn't square, it  will be. For example 65x30 original is horribly "fattened" when becomes squared 65...

If that's a problem, you could add padding to the picture so it's square. Still, it really shouldn't be a problem...

It is if someone uses animated GIF, you can't "square" it by adding blank margins... Or can you ?

Why not? In GIMP, for example, load the GIF, use Image/Scale Image... to cut it down to size (if necessary), Image/Canvas Size... to expand to 65x65 (placing the original wherever you like it in the square), then save the result as a GIF animation.

That said, I usually disable GIF animation or at least disable looping (and block ads) because I find irrelevant moving junk to be very distracting.

You should be able to, but it would be rather more difficult. I highly doubt you could do it with MS Paint, for example.

EDIT: Oh, Novus beat me to the answer. And in more detail. There you go. :)