Deciding how to dimension thumbnails, based on images with widely varying aspect ratios, and then present them in a grid, has been a problem that has dogged graphic designers since the earliest days of the Internet.
The two most popular way to do this are “Facebook Style”
http://foxly.ca/facebook-style.jpg
and “Flickr Style”
http://foxly.ca/flickr-style.jpg
I’m actually writing code for *both* options *right now*, and after some back and forth with @francescolaffi we’ll probably get it set up as an option in the administrator backend.
We could probably add the ability for users to manually crop the thumbnail for each picture in their gallery using the avatar cropping tool, and I will look at the feasibility of doing this. Experience has shown that most users do *not* want to do this for every picture they upload …and that’s why neither Facebook nor Flickr include this functionality.
^F^
I prefer the Flickr Style myself. Any ideas on this?
One thing I noticed. After I upload a photo, then I post a regular update (not a reply). It acts like a reply sorta. But it shouldn’t be displayed under a photo upload. Here are some screenshots
http://i41.tinypic.com/2lmpcg6.png
http://i42.tinypic.com/21nmzcy.png
Then where could I place this code so it will run when a new photo is uploaded or deleted so my members can earn points for uploading pics
‘
if( function_exists(‘cp_alterPoints’) && is_user_logged_in() ){
cp_alterPoints(cp_currentUser(), 20);
cp_log(‘Photo Upload’, cp_currentUser(), 20, Community)
}
‘
So far I love it! Keep up the great work guys!
Facebook style. But really don’t code it so we theme developers can’t re arrange it.
My first request is to allow more than one album for better organization.
Second request is group albums that anyone in group can upload to.
Third request is in activity stream uploads.
Flickr style. 
As for requests,
Modemlooper pretty much named everything that this plugin should have.
^^^ What @modemlooper said. That will make the plugin useful to 1000% more people, also I consider these to be basic functionalities (apart from activity stream uploads which is sexy although not essential).
Facebook style. But really don’t code it so we theme developers can’t re arrange it.
Was going to say exactly the same as modemlooper has.
Theming must be left as much as possible to the fronttend coders, I understand the necessity to have to have some default layout out of the box but it’s crucial that if we develop themes (rather than skins ) they be as sacrosanct as possible. I already have a degree of apprehension in building themes after the transition from the 1.1.* approach to 1.2 where the default theme is moved to the plugin directory for ease of upgrading as this suggests each upgrade will actually cause us issues.
Modemloopers suggestions are just about on the money, group albums, and maybe the ability to aggregate all albums on one page possibly? but not sure if that is that important just reminded that SN such as Ning have a page where all uploaded images may be viewed.
Great Plugin folks! As bandwidth, and storage space can easily become an issue, is there any plan to integrate Amazon S3 (or some other CDN) functionality to it? Thanks. Keep up the great work!
We hear ya!
Template developers will LOVE the next release.
You’ll see…
^F^
So since this is to discuss new features: I would like to see groups to be able to upload picture to a group album.
Attention template developers! Your Feedback is required!
We have finished the template set for the next release of the plugin, and we’d like your feedback so we can modify the plugin to make your life easier.
Download the code here:
http://foxly.ca/bp-album_0-1-6-FOR_TEMPLATE_DEVELOPERS.zip
You have 24 hours to evaluate it and post your feedback.
Thanks!
^F^
@acousins – BP Album is designed to be highly extensible. The plugin uses an abstract data object, so with a minimal amount of coding you can make a “micro plugin” to handle just about anything – including image files, audio, movies, streaming videos, flash files, and data formats yet to be invented.
@Bpisimone – This is on the features list for an upcoming version.
^F^
FEATURES IN THE UPCOMING 0.1.7 RELEASE
Okay community, we’ve just finished our developer’s meeting and have decided what features we’re going to include in the next BP Album+ release. They will be as follows:
1) Multiple album capability based on image tags. We will be mimicking Flickr’s image tagging, sorting, and gallery functions. Users will be able to tag their images, and create albums based on the tags they apply.
There will be two classes of image tags: user tags, and admin tags. User tags can be used for sorting and grouping images, admin tags can be used by administrators to approve images for various purposes, as well as for use by other plugins on the site. For example, on a dating site that charges users to view or upload images, or a realty site that charges realtors to post property photos.
2) The ability to tag site members in photos, with the ability for the photo owner to remove unwanted tags from their photo, and the ability for a user that has been tagged in the photo by the owner to remove themselves as well. The tagging system will tie into the @mention system within BuddyPress. Support will be included for “bounding box” tags on images as is done on Flickr (face tags on FaceBook), but the function will not be activated in this release.
3) Configurable thumbnail aspect ratios. There will be a setting in the admin menu that allows the plugin to be switched between “Facebook Style” AND “Flickr Style” thumbnail display.
4) “Perfect” templates – all of the HTML will be generated IN the template and be fully editable by the template developer. Image rendering functions will accept size parameters. This will allow template developers to dramatically alter the look of the plugin.
… That’s it …
We’re targeting Monday next week for a beta release.
Get excited!
^F^
wow drooling 
Testing your theme stuff
EDIT: genius to keep the default BP structure. All plugins should do this. Easy to customize. Including a custom theme in your child theme is the way to go if BP plugins want mass inclusion. This is the only plugin that I’ve seen do this.
Can you think of anything you would like improved, or did we anticipate pretty much everything you want to do?
^F^
Nothing besides the features listed above. Add those and I think you have a perfect BP picture plugin.
Yep sounds like you have covered just about everything. Admin and User tags sounds very useful. ‘Perfect templates’ inspires lots of confidence, hopefully that will act as a role model for other plugins.
@francescolaff and @foxly, you guys are amazing. I’m really excited about Monday!
What about image upload from within the “Whats new John Doe” Box on the Activity Streams, similar to this idea:
https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/attachments-for-activity-items
Also @usernames are not converted to profile links within picture titles or descriptions. Don’t know if that’s the way it’s supposed to be though, seems out of the ordinary.
Not sure if anyone’s suggested this yet…..I really think the need for multiple albums is a must and great to hear it’s coming next week. Multiple file uploads is a must too. Can the inherent WP flash file uploader be used….?
Users will not want to upload each photo one at a time…..
Maybe a ‘tagging’ feature in the future & add Flow Player for media
SWFUpload would be very nice! Nobody wants to sit in front of a laptop for an hour just uploading one image after another. And rather than restricting the amount of images a user can upload, it’d be better imho that the user has an upload limit based on file size, much like the WPMU upload limit for blogs.
Basic image editing like automatic rotating and import of meta data would be nice too. If meta data are present you could populate the description automatically for example. Also, rather than keeping the image at the original size, I’d restrict that to something like 800×800, which is perfect for the web.
For photo upload and photo deletion. Would it be possible to use a do_action?
Reason I ask is I got the points awarded for photo upload/delete working!
But I have to put the code directly in the bp-album-core.php file. Not a big deal, but I have to re-do that each time the plugin is updated.
Here is how I award points for a reply in buddypress, I put this code in my themes function.php file at the end.
// Add 5 Points for a comment or reply
function my_bp_update_comment_add_cppoints() {
if( function_exists('cp_alterPoints') && is_user_logged_in() ){
cp_alterPoints(cp_currentUser(), 5);
cp_log('Comment', cp_currentUser(), 5, Community);
}
}
add_action('bp_activity_comment_posted','my_bp_update_comment_add_cppoints');
Looking forward to the 0.1.7 release, sounds very cool!
