#2 – Suggestions

Status: Closed - Category: Econa
Hi,

we just bought Econa and would suggest you some improvements that could be really usefull for many users. Actually Econa is not usefull for our purposes.

That's the main problem: our customers need to manage easly intro and extended article images. They don't know anything about resolution, image size, etc..., they just take an image from somewhere (internet for example) and upload this image as intro and extended joomla article image. Usually those images that they upload are not optimized.

Ok, Econa will resize those images (width and height, but it seems that image weight after resize is very bad, not good compression) but it just override the original file setting the new size. Also if we use the same image for intro and extended article it will use the same resized image. At least I would expect 2 different images renamed for intro and article. But that's not all, because to have a good website for different device, it's good to have different images of different sizes used according to the device (mobile, tablet, desktop).
So need to improve different image sizes according to different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile). That's the big point indeed.

The solution in my point of view, that I would suggest you to implement in Econa, is:
  • user assign an intro image in the joomla article (loading from server or uploading) -> Econa set 3 different image sizes renaming them as namefile_intro_L, namefile_intro_M, namefile_intro_S; possibly using a good no-lossy compression;

  • Econa ask user if he wants to delete or leave the original image (uploaded or already in the server): this can save server space;

  • Econa assign those 3 different images according to the device (if mobile for example will load the namefile_intro_S; this will improve loading for small screens where we don't need (and must not) load images bigger that the screen resolution.

  • the same thing for the extended image article but in this case with the suffix "ext" for example: namefile_ext_L, namefile_ext_M, namefile_ext_S;

  • the same process could be adopted for any image loaded also inside the article via WISIWIG editor, so for any image uploaded Econa will generate 3 different size of the same image and will assign it to the right device (small images for small screens, etc...); would be perfect if it can work with JCE Editor, Tiny etc...

  • it would be fantastic if Econa would handle any image uploaded by the Joomla media manager (or JCE editor, etc...) and do the process that I described above;

  • the 3 images could be putted into 3 auto created subfolders of the the original image folder: for example if we put original image in the forlder images/test, thenEcona could create 3 folders images/test/L, images/test/M, images/test/S and put the 3 different resolution images into the relative folder for a better images structure.

  • finally an Econa gallery/slideshow responsive, managed with those 3 different image size, automatically assigned to 3 different devices (mobile, tablet, desktop), would be faboulous... :-)


That's what we really need, and I'm sure that this is one of the actual thing that Joomla need to handle correctly images specially for the clients.

We really hope you will consider those improvements if possibile.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi,

First of all i would like to thank you for your feedback, it's greatly appreciated.

Regarding your suggestions:

  • Produced images file size: There is no choice on compression when re-sizing images on server. There is only a quality flag ( 0 - 100 ) which is set to 100 right now. I will add an option for that in the next version so advanced users like you can tweak it according to their needs. It would be a separate option for each functionality ( Econa Image Tab , Article Images and Content Images ) . However in case of content images i am thinking to add something like a range of quality depending on the image width, since the width is defined by the user and can be different per image. By the way, content images resize should also work with JCE editor. If not let me know.
  • Responsive images: This was actually planned to be added in the next release but only for images uploaded through the Econa image tab. Responsive images require changes in HTML markup, so i don't think that there is a point adding this in articles images ( I am talking about the "Intro" and "Full" images ) . Since you want responsive images you should use the Econa image tab from the next version. It provides the same functionality as article images plus asynchronous uploads, a nice image editor and three different sizes of the image. After all, that's the basic functionality of this plugin. Responsive images could also be added for content images ( images in the WYSIWYG editor ) . This needs some thought since the image dimensions are defined by the user using the editor.
  • Joomla media manager uploads This is an excellent idea and i am thinking of implementing this also in the next release. However, as i wrote before, responsive images require extra markup in front-end, so this cannot be implemented the way you described. Even if Econa creates three image sizes the way you described, they will be unusable since the markup that editors insert will not include those images. On top of that, media manager is used in several different places across the CMS.
  • Gallery/Slideshow functionality: This is totally out of the scope of this extension right now. There are already several great galleries and slideshows extensions.


Waiting for your thoughts on this.
 
Econa version 1.2.0 has been released and implements many of your suggestions. I am closing this ticket now. Feel free to create a new one if you face any issues.

Thank you once again for your feedback.
 
This ticket is closed, therefore read-only. You can no longer reply to it. If you need to provide more information, please open a new ticket and mention this ticket's number.

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