Can we get support for GIF file tumbnails?

Question

I've got some stereoscopic images from the 1950s that I'm converting to GIFs.  They upload, but the GIF suffix confuses the thumbnail code.  For example see this GIF page that has nothing for the small version whereas the full image page is correct.  Maybe we also need a template for GIFs to go with the Image template?

Note we do get a thumbnail in the edit history of profile.

Comments

Thanks for the example. I've added this to the bugs list.

Answer 1

William, there is no such thing as "thumbnail code" and the image shown on the image page would not be described as a thumbnail.  The thumbnail image is what is displayed at the top of the profile page and it is typically 75 pixels wide by 98 pixels high.  The image displayed on the image page is typically 500 pixels wide by whatever height is proportionate for that image.  The image displayed on the full size image page is whatever the original size of the image is, in the case of your linked image, 1062 pixels wide by 1199 pixels high.

I have seen this before on gif files that I have used.  The algorithm that shrinks the image to 500 pixels wide for display on the image page appears to result in an invalid file, although as you mention, shrinking it to 75 pixels wide (as on the edit history page, which would properly be described as a thumbnail) seems to be fine.

I doubt that this will be a quick and simple fix and it does not seem like a compellingly urgent need to do so, therefore I would not expect the very small and greatly overburdened programming staff to get up to dealing with it anytime in the next year or two.

The Image template can be used for gif files and the best news of all is that I have found that I can use it to display the image at any size I wish without ever having encountered any problem.

Comments

I have noticed it only seems to happen with many* animated gif images, not static ones.

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* Not all, as I have uploaded some animated gif images and they display fine.  I'm guessing it might be file size, not image dimensions, because the Wizards of Aus image I animated doesn't display, but my roses do.

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My off-the-top-of-my-head wild guess (note ALL the disclaimers of what I am about to say having any validity) is that it is size and/or shape related.  I can imagine it being related to the scaling process, in which only either very specific ranges of original widths or only very specific ratios of width to height are not compatible with the arithmetic processes by which the scaling is accomplished.  Although not this, just for example, if you attempt to divide any number by zero, you cannot get a meaningful result.

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The animated gif images I have, have all been posted to G2G without any problems .. even if I scale them down to fit inside the post box.  Scaled down for this post .. click for full size.  (It's not a huge image even full size.)

Answer 2

Work around is to use small (s) size like this example:

{{Image|file=Mundy-431.gif
  | align=r
  | size=s
  | caption=[[Mundy-431 | Aunt Claudine]] + [[Turner-28429 | Ann Turner]]
}}

Comments

You don't have to be limited to small, medium, and large.  You can specify a number of pixels (which will be used as the width, and height will be proportionate) if you want more precise control.  700 will be as wide as you can use on a profile page and you can experiment until you get it to appear exactly as you want it.  While you can use the PREVIEW button on the edit page, when placing images you will not always see it precisely how it will look on the view page, so you may have to enter a number, save, look at the view page, return to the edit page and change the number …. several times before you're satisfied.

There is an additional parameter that you can use if you wish - that's wrap, with value choices of y (for yes) and n (for no).  The default is n, which will stop the text, display the image with blank space to left and/or right of it, and continue the text under the image.  If you choose y, then the text will fill the blank space alongside the image.  The way you use it is under the caption line and above the }} you would put a line that says:

|wrap=y    or |wrap=n

Answer 3

I changed your gif to size 227 x 256 pixels (61.8k) and still works but the smaller size might work better on WikiTree because of less memory is needed. Used GNU/GIMP to resize and resaved to run at speed 500.