EE and Photohosting sites

[bradleyphillip]

Hi, all,

I'm using a photo hosting site (eg. PBase, SmugMug, Photobucket...) to hold my images. The advantage of these services over a typical webspace provider, is that, for a small fee, they offer much more storage space and transfer bandwidth.

These sites are not typical webspace providers, so you don't get a true web account-- they just provide a specialized photo-centric 'hard drive in the sky' at a good price.

Is it possible to get EE, installed on my webserver, to reference photos that are stored on an external photo hosting site?

Link to a sample photo in the context of the site: http://photobucket.com/albums/y43/bradleyphillip/Gallery/Landscapes/?action=view&current=Elephant-Graveyard.jpg

Direct link to a sample photo:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y43/bradleyphillip/Gallery/Landscapes/Elephant-Graveyard.jpg

Thanks,
-brad

[Pekka]

Yes of course, if the hosting site allows direct linking then you can just add a size path
http://photobucket.com/albums/y43/bradleyphillip/Gallery/Landscapes/

Then open the photo in photo editor and choose/save that size path from the list.

What EE really needs is that filename matches exactly. Where the images are retrieved from is not restricted in any way.

[bradleyphillip]

I'm sorry if this is a basic question-- I'm just getting started with EE.

What's a size path?

-brad

[Pekka]

I'm sorry if this is a basic question-- I'm just getting started with EE.

What's a size path?

-brad

In path editor you see the size paths. Each size path means "a folder somewhere in internet where EE stores large images to, and where it reads them from to web browser".

Other way to put it: size path is a folder in internet. It must be accessible by both http and ftp.

You can choose how you use them, but my advice is to keep it simple: if you upload image size X, set that to e.g. "big size" and give it a path with resize method "NONE" (meaning the file is just copied to the path), then you could make one smaller size, let's call it "small", so you make another size path which has resize method e.g. "500 wide" (you make resize methods yourself) which will resize the uploaded photo to 500 wide and copy it to size path "small".

In order to have resize automation work with upload you'll have to have graphics modules and ftp in working order. If you do not have access to ftp and any graphics module (GD / Imagemagick) then you'll have to create the paths with ftp and upload to them manually, paths are assigned to photos in e.g. photo editor.

If you need to ask more feel free to do so. I'll keep explaining until I find the right words :)

[bradleyphillip]

Thanks so much Pekka!