Can .gifs be uploaded in Coppermine (v.1.3)

[starberry]

Hi, sorry if this has been answered before (I have read the rules and looked at several topics, but as I am new didn't especially know what I was looking for), but I have .gifs that I want to upload and always get this message:

Error Report
The following uploads encountered errors: 
URI/URL Uploads: 
File Name/URL Error Message
1. [my url here]/HappyHalloweenNicki.gif Not a GD extension.

It happens with every .gif and I wondered whether there was a way I could rectify this, or whether .gifs just don't work.

Thanks for any time spent in replying,

- Nicki

[kegobeer]

Have you read the documentation that comes with Coppermine yet?  They explain what formats Coppermine supports (in section Accepted file extensions for uploaded pictures).

[starberry]

I did not install Coppermine, so I haven't got the files, will ask the person who did though for them. Thanks for your help

[Joachim Müller]

you can look this up without downloading the coppermine package, using the "documentation" link at the top of this screen.

Joachim

[starberry]

Oh, thanks a lot, sorry I am just new to Coppermine

[Celtic]

Have you read the documentation that comes with Coppermine yet?  They explain what formats Coppermine supports (in section Accepted file extensions for uploaded pictures).

Well I have read the documentation and still am not sure about the answer to this question - and it's the same question I have.

The documentation starts out saying that it only accepts JPG and PNG, but then a little later on says some of the file types that can be uploaded are BMP and TIF as well... so which is it? All I want to do is upload some GIFs but it seems as if that's not possible. Any one care to help me out if it is, or answer with a simple "No, GIFs are not allowed" if it isn't? Thanks!

[Joachim Müller]

You can use the image file types that are supported by your image library - either GD or ImageMagick

• GD1 supports jpeg, png and gif (rudimentary) - drawback: limited color depth
  
• GD2 (versions 2.0.0 to 2.0.27) supports jpeg and png (for legal reasons no gif support)
  
• GD2 (versions 2.0.28 or higher) comes with PHP4.3.9 or higher supports jpeg, png, gif (gif support has returned, as the patent has expired, although some changes in coppermine needed to make gif support work)
  
• ImageMagick - supports jpeg, png, bmp, tif and others. Supports gif (without compression though, as the gif patent was on compressed gifs; results in ridiculously high file sizes for intermediate sized pics and thumbnails for GIFs, making gif unusable)

I hope this makes it clear: it's not up to coppermine to determine what image file types can be used, but up to the image library that exists on your server. In theory, you could use bmp and tif, but those formats are not fit for being published on the internet, as they are uncompressed, reulting in file sizes that are way to high for proper use on the internet.
None of the image libraries can deal with animated gifs properly, which is the main advantage of gifs (if you need transparency, you can easily convert your gifs to png). In fact the format gif should only exists for miniature graphics and navigation elements, but should not be used for actual larger images anyway.

Joachim

[Celtic]

The images I'm trying to upload are small little 50x50 animated GIF avatars.

All the other images I have uploaded I just converted to JPG, as it wasn't worth the hassle to try and figure out how to get GIFs to upload, but the animated avatars can't be converted so now I'm at a standstill and was wondering if there was anything I could do.

[Joachim Müller]

you can set coppermine to allow the download of nearly every file format - you will only get thumbnails from those file types that coppermines "knows" and works with (as written above). Since none of the image libraries can deal with animated gifs anyway, why don't you just let users download the gifs and create custom thumbnails for the avatars? Sounds complicated? It'll get even easier if you package the gifs up (into zip files) for a start and then try to come up with a custom thumbnail (read that up in the documentation). Once you understood the concept of that, you could go even further and not zip the gifs up, but add them to the list of allowed file types (needs some fiddling with the database settings though).
If this all sounds too complicated for you, then you will have to live with what you've got: you can't have gif support "out of the box" on your server using coppermine. Sue unisys, blame the coppermine dev team for being stupid, but that's it.

Joachim