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Permlink Replies: 12 - Pages: 1 - Last Post: 15 Oct 18, 15:03 Last Post By: jimberry
jimberry

Posts: 591
Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 14 Oct 18, 11:29
 
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Have I missed some setting, or is this possibly a bug?
Here is how I have set the theme image in the UI

and here is the resulting folder image (scaled down for easier comparison)

The area exported to the folder image is not the same as that selected in the theme image.

Using jAlbum 16.1.2 and Tiger

Edited by: jimberry on 14-Oct-2018 17:30
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 14 Oct 18, 13:35   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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The theme image crop is not a strict cropping mask - it's for setting the crop focus, a subtle but important distinction. From a skin developer's perspective, it's a tricky beast to deal with, and we haven't all taken the same approach.

As an experiment, try another skin, like Mercury. Notice that when you change the theme image options in the Title bar tab of the skin settings, like changing the height, or switching between a banner style title bar and a non-banner style, the theme image crop mask will change shape (you have to OK out of the settings tab to see the change). That's my attempt to deal with the vagaries of the theme image sizing (and I use the same routine in most of my skins). Take a look at the resulting images in the output.

If it's just Laza's method of dealing with the theme image that's giving you problems, you should move your question to the Tiger forum section.
jimberry

Posts: 591
Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 14 Oct 18, 16:30   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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jGromit wrote:
The theme image crop is not a strict cropping mask - it's for setting the crop focus, a subtle but important distinction. From a skin developer's perspective, it's a tricky beast to deal with, and we haven't all taken the same approach.

As an experiment, try another skin, like Mercury. Notice that when you change the theme image options in the Title bar tab of the skin settings, like changing the height, or switching between a banner style title bar and a non-banner style, the theme image crop mask will change shape (you have to OK out of the settings tab to see the change). That's my attempt to deal with the vagaries of the theme image sizing (and I use the same routine in most of my skins). Take a look at the resulting images in the output.

Thanks for the info.
Now that I am aware of the problem, I think I can probably allow for it when setting the crop focus, but I think it is a serious flaw in the procedure if not a bug and probably should be dealt with at some time. It would be natural for a user to assume that what is highlighted in the theme image thumbnail is what the cropped image would look like.
If it's just Laza's method of dealing with the theme image that's giving you problems, you should move your question to the Tiger forum section.
The image I posted is the actual image file created, which I would have thought was output by the jAlbum engine rather than the skin.
However, as I say, I can probably work around the problem.
RobM

Posts: 3,815
Registered: 4-Aug-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 14 Oct 18, 16:52   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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Have another read of Good crop, bad crop blog post
JeffTucker

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Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 14 Oct 18, 17:31   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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jimberry wrote:
The image I posted is the actual image file created, which I would have thought was output by the jAlbum engine rather than the skin.

The image is output by the jAlbum engine, but the bounds that are applied are provided by the skin. That's where things get weird.
jimberry

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Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 12:26   in response to: RobM in response to: RobM
 
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RobM wrote:
Have another read of Good crop, bad crop blog post
Is there any reason why this 4yr old optional plugin couldn't be incorporated into the next release of jAlbum?
jimberry

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Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 12:30   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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jGromit wrote:
... ... That's where things get weird.
Maybe the removal of "weirdness" should have a higher priority? :)
JeffTucker

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Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 13:27   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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jimberry wrote:
jGromit wrote:
... ... That's where things get weird.
Maybe the removal of "weirdness" should have a higher priority? :)

We've been over this ground a lot, when theme image support was introduced. If you can propose a scheme for the core to adopt, one that will accommodate the different ways in which different skins use a theme image, I'm all ears.

But remember, a theme image is quintessentially different from a slide image. If your slide image is in a 3:2 aspect ratio, it's always shown at 3:2, no matter what the skin is, no matter whether it's responsive or not. But even within a single skin, a theme image might be shown at 2:1 on a phone, but at 10:1 on a large monitor. So how should the core generate a suitably-bounded image?

I've taken an approach in my skins that I believe produces very good results in all quasi-normal situations. I have no idea what "perfect" would be. And other skins are clearly doing things differently.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 13:31   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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jimberry wrote:
RobM wrote:
Have another read of Good crop, bad crop blog post
Is there any reason why this 4yr old optional plugin couldn't be incorporated into the next release of jAlbum?

It is in jAlbum. It hasn't been optional for a long time - it's in the ext subdirectory of the application.
jimberry

Posts: 591
Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 13:45   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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I guess that plugin has already been incorporated into jAlbum, and the problem is just that the "crop focus" shape is different to Tiger's theme-image shape.
But if jAlbum can access the Tiger settings when cropping, can it not also access them when adjusting the "crop focus" shape?
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 13:59   in response to: jimberry in response to: jimberry
 
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That context menu plugin is not doing anything to the theme image. Just one example: https://jalbum.net/forum/thread.jspa?threadID=53902. The theme image cropping is controlled only by the mask in the panel on the right. These are two different, unrelated things.

And jAlbum can access the skin settings when adjusting the crop focus shape for the theme image. If you change the "hero" height in the Tiger settings, then click OK, the theme image crop mask changes size.
JeffTucker

Posts: 8,039
Registered: 31-Jan-2006
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 14:16   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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The one bit of strangeness in this case is that the context menu crop mask is not actually applied to the theme image, even though there's a "theme image" mask including in the set of three. That's because the plugin pre-dates the introduction of separate theme images. Back then, a skin was pretty much stuck with using one image for both theme image and folder thumbnail. So, you might have wanted to adjust the crop focus differently. But there was no way to accommodate the two very different uses of the folder image. A crop for a thumbnail often didn't work well for a theme image, and vice-versa.

These days, having a "theme image" crop mask in the context menu options doesn't really make much sense.
jimberry

Posts: 591
Registered: 30-Aug-2004
Re: Theme image hit and miss?
Posted: 15 Oct 18, 15:03   in response to: JeffTucker in response to: JeffTucker
 
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jGromit wrote:
And jAlbum can access the skin settings when adjusting the crop focus shape for the theme image. If you change the "hero" height in the Tiger settings, then click OK, the theme image crop mask changes size.
So it respects the Tiger setting when you change it, but doesn't respect the default setting?
It just seems odd to me, but in any case I did mark this thread as answered after jGromit's first response, since I can cope with the weirdness if I know about it :)
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