Hi,

I'm doing some tests with setting up a site with K2. I want to have front-end user submission of items, which may have images. One of the reasons for trying K2 is the broad range options to create custom fields. Another reason is the fact that images are resized automatically, which is alway nice with front end submission as users may not be skilled in resizing images before uploading.

Now I have some questions regarding the processing of images:

1. At present I have 2 options for uploading images with my submission: in the content area using my default editor JCE and on the Image tab. The second one offers the automatic resizing options. There's also a tab called Image gallery which requires the Simple Image Gallery Pro plugin. Question: if I install this plugin, would it offer the same automatic resizing options? Or, to put it differently: can I create an image gallery in my submission and benefit from the resizing options?

2. When images are uploaded using the Image tab, the original files are in a folder called "src". Can I delete these original files (or even auto-delete originals) in order to save space on my server?

3. I know that JCE can be set up to create a folder for each user so that in case of front end submission the users have access only to their own images. Is this possible with K2 and/or Simple Image Gallery Pro?

4. When uploading an image using the Image tab, the original file is stored in a folder called "src" and the resized versions are in a folder called "cache". Both are sub folders of /media/k2/items. However, when using the button Browse server om the Image tab, I'll get the contents of the folder /images (the default folder of the Joomla core image management) and I cannot view the image that I just uploaded. Maybe I'll need to change settings for that?

Hope someone can help me on these questions.

Kind regards, Frits

Edit: addtional question:

5. It seems that large portrait images are being rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise and made into landscape this way. I hope there is a way to avoid this?

Hello Frits,

1) The Gallery option will create a new image gallery. This extension has it own settings.

2) You can delete the contents of the /src files but do not delete the index.html file.

3) The Simple Image Gallery Pro component will create a new folder for each gallery.
For frontend users it will create one new folder per user.
You can learn more about this extension here: www.joomlaworks.net/extensions/commercial/simple-image-gallery-pro

4) You can change the root folder of the media manager to browse other folders as well.

5) This is not caused by K2. K2 uploads and resizes images only, it does not alter them in any other way.

We've been using K2 for almost a year and post articles daily. Thus we have around 330 articles with images. I've noticed that the src folder has become huge, more that 180 mb.

1 Shouldn't there be some cleanup function built in into K2, removing the src file after it has been resized for use with the article.

The cache folder is even bigger. In our case almost 240 mb. This is due to the fact that each uploaded file is resized to 6 sizes, even though we don't use all the sizes on our site.

2. Does K2 always create 6 sizes?

K2 stores the relation of image to the article in the filename, not in the database. The result of this is that the reuse of images with an other article duplicates the images. It also makes it harder to find which file belongs to which article.

3. Is there a way to smart-reuse an image?
4. Why doesn't k2 store a reference to the image in the database?

@Steven Trooster

Regarding your questions:

1. We will not going to add a function for this. In the upcoming version 3 of K2 you will be able to define the image sizes you need for your site.

2. Yes in K2 v2 it will create 6 sizes and this cannot be changed. The same goes for the filenames.

3. You can only reuse images that you insert in the introtext/fulltext not the K2 images. For reusing K2 images you probably need to develop a plugin.

4. This decision was taken while designing K2.

I apologize for my English! Good day! K2 makes 6 pictures say it always will be in the new version of K2 version 3 will there be changes? I removed from the cache folder of images and they are deleted on the website too ( As you want preserved 2 size options and not 6 th?

Hello,

If you remove the images from the /cache folder it is possible that you will cause issues in your site's functionality.

If you want to cut down on your site's size you can backup (do that, seriously do it) and remove the original images. Just make sure to keep the index.html file.