Image Resizer Build GMC4 Available for WCE

Announcing a brand new Dreamweaver extension, called Image Resizer... which is ready for beta testing.

Download the build here.
Serial #: 098dC-PJRgW-0yAl6-PQj4o

Image Resizer is the easiest possible method to re-size images in your website on the fly. Simply specify the width and height for a given image (in the code or the PI) and use the extension's Server Behavior to stretch, crop, fit to box, or proportionally size to fit in the area specified.

Main benefits include:
- no need to store multiple sizes of images in your database (thumbnail, large, etc.)
- no need to re-size all of your images if you re-skin your website

Yet you still don't have a large, uncached image to load!

To use this extension, put an image on your PHP page in Dreamweaver. Specify the size you want the image to be in the HTML (or in the PI). Then access the extension in Dreamweaver from WebAssist > Resize Image. Specify what folder you want to store the re-sized or cropped image in and how you want it re-sized/cropped. Upload the page to your server and the first time the page loads in a browser, a new re-sized image file will be created and cached.

Very, very simple to use... yet could save you hours and hours of work. Please provide feedback when you can!

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As usual, there are a limited amount of activations so please do not install on more than 2 machines. We look forward to any and all feedback! Please remember that the beta build is only available to the WCE group so please use this forum to provide us input or ask questions.

Goodness me, you've all been real busy there with all these great new plugins.

What a wonderful, simple and effect productivity tool this resizer is.

Just when I though things couldn't get better its up another notch.

Well done!!

Russ

Hi,

I noticed that it does not automatically create the "images_cache" folder.
Maybe it would be good to say in the manual to do so, and also to set the correct permissions on the cache folder once created.

Regards

Russ

Originally Said By: Russell Collins

  Hi,

I noticed that it does not automatically create the "images_cache" folder.
Maybe it would be good to say in the manual to do so, and also to set the correct permissions on the cache folder once created.

Regards

Russ  

Russell,

It automatically created the folder on my server. Perhaps you have a permissions issue that is not allowing folder creation by a script but I have ran the extension on two sites now and both times, it worked creating the folder.

Brian

So far so good. I have used the Crop from Center function quite a bit as I love this feature for making square thumbs (thanks Ray!).

But, I am curious to know if any better quality can be reached in the resized image -- or is this a limitation of PHP and the GD library?

Also, I would actually prefer to specify the dimensions of the new image right in the dialog box. Not a huge deal, but that would be my preference. I am curious to know what others think.

Thanks again for a great tool.

Brian

Yes, I can see the benefit of this.

Just a couple of things. I did a test page with three images (all the same one) and resized them in various ways just to see how it worked. Then in the Server behaviours panel I get three instances of the behaviour but they all say the same "Image Resizer (image_cache)" Is there a way to show which is which? A small thing really.

Secondly, I'm a bit confused over what crop from centre actually means. I had an image 250 x 226 and cropped from centre expecting it to crop out a section of the image but all it did was resize it to the new size (in this case 50 x 50). So I end up with a thumbnail of the complete image. What's the difference between that and fit to box. I'm sure it's just me being thick.

Apart from that marvellous! :)

All of the Resize options are actually only applicable when you have changed the image dimensions. If your dimensions are consistant, then it will always do a simple resize.

When the proportions are changed:
1) Stretch will be similar to what an image does naturally when dimensions are changed in html
2) Fit to box will find the largest proportional image that will fit in the width and height specified, center it in the image and fill the rest with the fill color (except if the image uses transparency, then transparent becomes the default fill color)
3) Crop from center will resize as much as it can to fill the entire area, then crop the leftover. Unlike fit to box it won't fit the whole image and fill, it will make it larger so no fill is needed and crop the remaining.
4) Proportion to box will find the largest image that will fit in that area, just like fit to box, but instead of filling with a color to make the final image the exact width and height specified it will change the html to reflect the new image dimensions so that no fill is needed.

Originally Said By: Ray Borduin

  All of the Resize options are actually only applicable when you have changed the image dimensions. If your dimensions are consistant, then it will always do a simple resize.

When the proportions are changed:
1) Stretch will be similar to what an image does naturally when dimensions are changed in html
2) Fit to box will find the largest proportional image that will fit in the width and height specified, center it in the image and fill the rest with the fill color (except if the image uses transparency, then transparent becomes the default fill color)
3) Crop from center will resize as much as it can to fill the entire area, then crop the leftover. Unlike fit to box it won't fit the whole image and fill, it will make it larger so no fill is needed and crop the remaining.
4) Proportion to box will find the largest image that will fit in that area, just like fit to box, but instead of filling with a color to make the final image the exact width and height specified it will change the html to reflect the new image dimensions so that no fill is needed.  

Now I totally understand. Thanks Ray.

The reason why the server behavior only refers to the cache folder is that you can actually apply it to the entire page at once.

If you have a page and you want to use "crop from center" or "fit to box" on all images on the page, then instead of applying it to each image you can actually apply it to the entire page body and all images will automatically use the resizer... just change the width and height in the image property inspector and the rest is automatic.

This is also why we didn't include the width and height in the resizer itself.

Originally Said By: Ray Borduin

  The reason why the server behavior only refers to the cache folder is that you can actually apply it to the entire page at once.

If you have a page and you want to use "crop from center" or "fit to box" on all images on the page, then instead of applying it to each image you can actually apply it to the entire page body and all images will automatically use the resizer... just change the width and height in the image property inspector and the rest is automatic.

This is also why we didn't include the width and height in the resizer itself.  

So presumably you highlight the body tag as opposed to highlighting an individual image?

As I said no sweat on that really. I had three instances and it really wasn't hard to work out which was which.