Cant display images in the same way?

[MWP]

Hi all,

On the old forums (and 99% of other forums), this would work:

[imga]http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/gallery/pic.php?pic=Car%20Work/Mine/Celica%20RA28%20New/2005-05-28%20T3%20Camber%20Tops/dscn5323.jpg&x=640&y=480&fill=0&cache=1[/imga]

(i used imga instead of img above otherwise the tags dont show)

Why doesnt it in these new forums?
There is nothing wrong with the image.

Thanks.

[ed]

the url isnt that of a jpg or gif etc (even though the destination file is)...

is it a way that new forums software is preventing bandwidth use by decreasing external linkage of uploaded attached images??

[MWP]

As far as browsers are concerned, it is a JPG... it doesnt redirect or anything like that, it passes JPG headers and data.

Sometimes adding "&a=.jpg" on the end of the URL works, but not here

It wouldnt reduce traffic... its not as if the forums server gets the image then forwards it to the browser.

I cant think of an reason as to why a forum wouldnt allow it...

[Nark]

We allow linking to pix. I think it's something to do with the URL not being a link to a JPG but to a PHP page that gives you a JPEG.
The forum software must do something strange. I haven't had time to look into it though.

[MWP]

Ive got member access to the VB forums, i might have a search around for the answer.

[MWP]

Found the answer:

Admin CP / vBulletin Options / Message Posting & Editing Options / Allow Dynamic URL for [IMG] tags = yes

Would be awesome if you guys could change that setting

[MWP]

Sorry, just a quick test to see if its working....

[edit]
Ok, its not
Can we have this changed?

[thu187]

the url isnt that of a jpg or gif etc (even though the destination file is)...

is it a way that new forums software is preventing bandwidth use by decreasing external linkage of uploaded attached images??

Fair enough.
What about http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/...s/dscn5322.jpg
That should work. However it doesn't. Care to explain?

Example -- >

[MWP]

That wont work because its a PHP generated HTML page with an image in it... that URL should never work.

[Hydra]

I have been having the same issues... I use gallery2 to manage my images on my website but the forum software doesn't like it too much!

I'm sure it is possible to render the image correctly, in fact, in the editor it shows me the image (handy!) but as soon as I save it, it'll either replace the [IMG] tags with [URL] or just not show the image.

[takai]

Mine works on Gallery2 flawlessly. But im pretty sure i enabled saving the jpgs to reduce server load in Gallery2. That way i can reference it from the url of the JPG.

The problem with the forums is that it doesnt parse the URL as a whole, it tries to be smart and parse through the URL as it goes, and so it hits the .php which it recognises as a destination and just gives up and assumes its a link rather than an image.

Basically its trying to implement smarts that the designer thinks the user doesnt have, which is all well and good, except when you explicitly specify [img] tags, and then it fails. (For the software engineers this is a classic case of where tryign to be smarter than the end user fails).

[MWP]

Heh, nice theory takai

Fortunatley its actually as simple as a VBB setting:

Admin CP / vBulletin Options / Message Posting & Editing Options / Allow Dynamic URL for [IMG] tags = yes

Happy new year

[takai]

Hm, that must be a new setting. Because i have an old version here (2.0) and i delved into the source code to find how it works. Good to see that they have woken up to themselves.

[Nark]

MWP,
Thanks for finding that!
Please give the Board some time to deliberate over this.

There are security issues involved in allowing Dynamic URLs.

[EvilJack]

Ive come across the same thing, found in a module and the below taken from the FAQ

How can I use Gallery 2 Images in other Websites?

You would like to show your Gallery 2 images in another website or forum (bulletin board) or you would like to add a link on another website to a specific image / album of your Gallery 2.

* For image links, right-click with your mouse on the image in Gallery 2 and copy the image address (most browsers offer this feature)
* For links to a specific album / item in your Gallery 2, browse to the album / item and copy the address that is in the address bar of your browser (remove the g2_GALLERYSID= stuff, if there is any)
* If you are wondering why the links look like main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=35 for item links and main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=35 for image links: These links may look a little weird, especially the DownloadItem link since you'd expect that a image URL looks rather like album/image.jpg, but it is actually a image link. If you want nicer links that look more normal, e.g. image links that end with .jpg, then actuvate the Gallery 2 URL rewrite module in site admin -> modules
* There is a module that prepares image and item links for you such that you don't have to right-click etc. See: Preformatted URLs Module


I installed this module and can now right click in firefox and say "copy image location"

[takai]

Yeah, im runnign the rewrite URL module

[MWP]

There are security issues involved in allowing Dynamic URLs.

Hmm, i wonder what security issues there are.

There cant be any to the forum itself as its just passing a HTML image tag.
I cant think of anything that would effect a user of the forums either... i have never seen any complaints in forums that do have it turned on (did you guys get any from the old forum?).

[Nark]

I doubt that the security issues would be to the forum software unless there was some buffer overflow exploit.

The main issue is with the forum users. People can put links in that can take advantage of holes in the browser that could possibly run malicious code on the user's computer.
Not saying that it would happen, but it could happen.

[MWP]

I cant see how that is any different than just a static image/file though.
After all a dynamic URL is just data that can change over time, it has nothing to do with its content.

For example, the forums would allow this because its not dynamic:

[imga]http://virus.com/thisisbad.exe[/imga]

(i used imga instead of img above otherwise the tags dont show)

In the end its up to the web browser to decide whats ok and whats not.

[Nark]

But what if the PHP file produced code that utilised a flaw in the browser's/OS's image rendering functionality.
Such as the WMF code execution vulnerability that's currently on the High Risk list?
It's not the first time there's been a hole in a graphics rendering engine.

Having said all this, I do agree that not enabling that option is being a bit paranoid.