Screenshot images and other class image file types - PHP Classes blog

By Manuel Lemos
manuellemos.net
<email contact>

Hello,

Finally I have made time to implement a feature requested by several class authors for a long time, which is the ability to upload binary files, specifically files of graphical image formats. So, from now on you can upload image files of the types: GIF, JPEG and PNG.

I have added a few new file roles for these types of files which are: icon, image, screenshot and photograph. Image files may also have the role auxiliary data and sample output. I am not sure if I missed any other important role of image files. Just let me know if you need any other role.

There is also a new section in each package page reserved for screenshots. If your classes are meant to produce special Web pages or other type of graphical output, it would be very interesting for the users if they could see the screenshots first.

The page for adding screenshots is basically the same for adding any other types of files. However, since most users may want to see the screenshots without any requirement to subscribe or login to the site, screenshots added using the link in the screenshot section are made always accessible without requiring login. In this case screenshot file accesses do not count for your package downloads.

You can change that the login requirements option later, but if the login requirement is imposed to a given screenshot image file, that image will only be listed in the Files section below, and so, it will no longer appear in the screenshots section that is displayed first in the top of each class page.

One of the reasons why I relucted to allow images to be uploaded, is that these files tend to be much larger than source code. So, to prevent exaggerated disk space usage, the allowed file size is limited to 300KB. The image size is also limited to 640 x 480 pixels.

I recommend to use mainly the JPEG format, especially for screenshots and photograph images that can be made much smaller with good compression ratio.

In the future I may allow uploading also Flash and PDF files. For now, enjoy this new feature and make sure you upload some compelling screenshots if your classes present viewable output to make a good impression of your work.

To finish I leave you with an example of a class that already has a screenshot.

The class page
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/1.html

The screenshot image page
http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/file/8178.html

Regards,
Manuel Lemos