Image resizing/cropping

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Hello all!

I am making a website for a client. When the website is done, the client wants to be able to remove and add their own images to the website. They want the adding of the images to be as less time consuming as possible.

As I see it there is already a feature in C5 that allows the images to be resized but the images still need to be cropped in order for them to look good. So here goes my question:

What would be the best (fast and simple) way for the client to add their image, resize and crop it?

Thanks in advance.

Fulbright
 
Shotster replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
Shotster
There is already such capability built into C5 via the Picnik web service. When you click an image in the File Manager and choose Edit, C5 connects to Picnik, and you can crop and scale images. It's convenient and appropriate for simple edits, so give it a try and see if it works for your needs.

-Steve
Fulbright replied on at Permalink Reply
Fulbright
Thanks for your quick reply Steve, quite dumb of me to not try that.

However, when I click edit I get the following error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in C:\xampp\htdocs\concrete\concrete\elements\files\edit\image.php on line 42

Is there any way to fix this?
Mnkras replied on at Permalink Reply
Mnkras
do you have curl installed? if not, you need it
Fulbright replied on at Permalink Reply
Fulbright
Errr, I don't think so. I'm still locally hosting this website and I'm fairly new at this, don't know much about php, how or where to install curl, any help with this would be appreciated.
Shotster replied on at Permalink Reply
Shotster
Eeewww, sounds like it might be a server config issue. Basically, C5 is saying that it doesn't have access to a particular function it's attempting to call. Maybe the necessary functionality (the curl utility) is not available on your hosting provider's servers. Hopefully, someone with more experience in that area can help.

:-/

-Steve
jordanlev replied on at Permalink Reply
jordanlev
I have never been able to make the Piknik editing work (and I'm a programmer)! Unfortunately there's no way to crop images within concrete5 -- although you can scale them down fairly easily. To make this easy for your client, I would just figure out what the optimal width is for images based on your site's layout, and instruct your client to put that width into the Image Block when they place it on the page. (Don't worry about the height -- C5 will scale the height appropriately based on the width).

If you're using an image gallery addon, there's usually a width and height setting that you can enter to apply to the entire gallery -- again, I think the best thing is to figure out what the best width is and tell your client to use that number.

Not a perfect solution, but hopefully gets you a little farther along.

-Jordan
Shotster replied on at Permalink Reply
Shotster
What part of it doesn't work for you, Jordan?

It's always worked peachy keen for me. The only issue I've encountered is that the thumbnail on the file manager page doesn't update when the dialog window is closed after editing.

I mean, it isn't Photoshop, but it works for crop and scale. :-)

-Steve
jordanlev replied on at Permalink Reply
jordanlev
I can just never get it to load -- just like the OP (not sure if it gives me a curl error specifically -- I definitely have curl installed, enabled and working on all local and server machines -- but it just never works). Who knows, maybe it would work now, but I gave up on even trying it.

Hopefully one day we can get a cropping helper in the system (remember that other thread from a few weeks back?). I'm currently working on another project that needs this so ideally when that's done I can roll it into a more generalizable helper and replace that infernal "Edit" command in the file manager popup once and for all. Bwa-ha-ha!! [okay it's getting late]
Shotster replied on at Permalink Reply
Shotster
Well don't get me wrong. A nicely implemented native C5 crop and scale utility would be far superior to Picnik, but at least it works (for some) in a pinch.

-Steve
jordanlev replied on at Permalink Reply
jordanlev
Yeah, I know -- it's just one of those things that always frustrates me because it seems to work for everyone else. But in all seriousness, it's a good option to have.