Pushing Boundaries

[Sparra]

We're not removing the ability to crop thumbnails or upload custom thumbnails. I would expect this to greatly reduce the amount of use the crop tool gets, however.

Here's hoping. Misleading thumbnails is pretty much the reason myself and a number of people I know are kinda hesitant about Weasyl.

Nothing's more annoying than getting an inbox of faces and each have their own different rating, and the name of the image doesn't really imply the exact content.

[Noxid]

there's always my hover-preview browser extension ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Sereverus]

oooo i like the changes very neat and useful, good job you've done good work!

[batbot]

*shrug* sounds good!
TBH i like cropping my little thumbnails, but also i like the "flow" of the new previews...and I couldn't muster to care about any thumbnail scheme....except egg.

egg was great.

Also I agree about the fake-outs and squick-factor thumbnails: a combination of rating, tagging, and filtering by both the uploader and the viewer should negate the need for them.

I think if there was a way to have writing uploads provide an excerpt or synopsis that would be really cool. But Also it's an inherent difficulty of uploading writing to galleries primarily targeted at images. Even a site like tumblr which is supposed to "do" both text and image, can't sustain longer text posts...Wordpress/Blogger/*Journal still are better formats because they are totally about text uploads. (huh: idea, if browsing written work or journals was in a different, but complementary UI...but that might be needlessly complicated and may "other" those kinds of submissions more.)
(idk i don't upload any writing or even read a lot on the site; maybe because I'm more comfortable doing it on Journal/Blog sites than "Gallery" sites)

[raptorarts]

FINALLY!! I got so tired of people making their thumbnails a zoomed in view of a face when theres so much more to be seen. Thank you for doing this!!!!!

[Firehazard]

To be fair, it is physically impossible to provide as much information about any other format of media in a thumbnail-sized space as a thumbnail can provide about an image. I suppose, in a way, the poor thumbnails we currently have are evening the playing field somewhat. But that would only be worth something if we were the only game in town.

So long as this is being worked on, I do have one other idea. FurAffinity lets you click on the corner of a thumbnail to get the author's description. I like that. Could we maybe do something like that, but... well, Weasylier? Like, remember how the titles used to be overlays that would slide in when you moused over the thumbnail? Maybe recycle that code for pop-up descriptions. Now that thumbnails will mostly be big enough to fit all that in.

[Ois]

While I appreciate the effort made, Weasyl is certainly the most slick looking of art galleries I visit, this type of thumbnail usage I find difficult to browse and keep place when scrolling. Tend to jump right into a Stylish plugin and see if there is alternatives for sites I use that do this over set/square ratio thumbnails.

I'll still try it out, but past history use with this type of thumbnail layout has just made me cringe. But I know I'm also from the group who likes text based links over thumbnails anyway so I can't complain that much!

[piñardilla]

To be fair, it is physically impossible to provide as much information about any other format of media in a thumbnail-sized space as a thumbnail can provide about an image. I suppose, in a way, the poor thumbnails we currently have are evening the playing field somewhat. But that would only be worth something if we were the only game in town.

So long as this is being worked on, I do have one other idea. FurAffinity lets you click on the corner of a thumbnail to get the author's description. I like that. Could we maybe do something like that, but... well, Weasylier? Like, remember how the titles used to be overlays that would slide in when you moused over the thumbnail? Maybe recycle that code for pop-up descriptions. Now that thumbnails will mostly be big enough to fit all that in.

One of the devteam's design goals is that Weasyl work just as well on mobile devices as desktop computers without them being two separate projects, and anything "mouseover" flies in the face of that, since mobile interfaces don't use pointing devices. We do have an open API so that users can create third-party extensions that enhance Weasyl's functionality on their platform of choice. Noxid's Weasyl Enhancer extension mentioned a few posts up seems like exactly what you're looking for.

[Kaida]

Interesting. Honestly since joining I've been perfectly happy with the current thumbnails system. It's already far better than DeviantArt who has been at this for years. I really appreciate the option to create the thumbnail from the image itself. It saves me a lot of time and effort making a whole new one or cropping it myself in an art program.

I'm interested to see how this new thumbnail system works out. Thanks for all the effort devs. :3

[PlayPossum]

On the Multimedia discussion, I can add some food for thought:

First, by reviving a suggestion I've made some time ago on indicating media type through an icon.

Next, about the thumbnails themselves:

- Text
If no custom thumb is given, make it a square block of text using the beginning of the text (like deviantART);
If the user wants to insert an excerpt instead of a custom thumbnail, that could be possible as well, like magazines do to catch your eyes even if you don't read the whole thing;
The latter could be abused with unrelated words being used, though, so maybe a check for the excerpt in the body of the full text would be required.

- Music
If no custom thumb is given, check metadata for embeded cover art (I'm pretty sure this one is easy);
If nothing is found, use a default music thumbnail (like a Weasel with headphones or something);

- External websites (YouTube, SoundCloud etc.)
If no custom thumbnail is given, use the website's thumbnail (YT) or cover art (SC), for example.

- SWF
Tough one. Out of ideas. Maybe, as suggested in music, have some default thumbnail related to SWFs.

On a final note, I know Soundcloud will use the user's avatar by default if the user doesn't provide specific cover art for a track, so maybe doing this as a last resort could be an option.

__________

And another question that came to mind: it's been said custom thumbs will have the 2:1~1:2 aspect ratio limit, but will this be free reign to the user? Like having a wide image, but making a tall thumbnail? I find this confusing, and the thumb having the same ratio of the full piece would make more sense. But, on the other hand, there are a couple of submissions of my own that would benefit from this flexibility.
Example:
(Moderate) https://www.weasyl.com/submission/93...2-wrong-number
This group shot is taller than it's wide, but a good thumbnail for it could be a wide framing of their busts.