Dynamic image server on shared hosting

englishpremier · 25 Sep 2013 at 16:03

Can anyone recommend a dynamic image server that automatically re-size images to the correct size when they are requested by a viewers web browser?

So far I've come across IIPImage but that's not something that can be installed in a shared hosting environment.

visibleman · 25 Sep 2013 at 16:55

Have a look at http://adaptive-images.com - it's a pretty decent implementation.
Although you first want to see what image libraries are installed on your shared hosting, which you can do by creating a php_info() page.

englishpremier · 25 Sep 2013 at 17:01

Thanks.

This strikes me as odd though

If there's no cookie with the screen resolution stored in it, AI checks the User Agent String: if it finds 'mobile', it will send the lowest resolution defined in $resolutions, otherwise it assumes you're on a large device and delivers the highest.

so if I upload an image at 1900px wide, and the user is on a desktop device adaptive-images will serve the full size version even though the HTML might only be calling for an image 1000px wide, meaning the browser will still be scaling the image.

Perhaps I've it wrong.

visibleman · 25 Sep 2013 at 17:30

AI is primary aimed at reducing the bandwidth for mobile devices, which i'm assuming is your intentions?

Otherwise, if you're just wanting to resize images from the native size to what your site design 'uses', then why not resize them prior to uploading?

englishpremier · 25 Sep 2013 at 17:49

I'd rather have everything done dynamically as I like viewers to be able to expand images to full screen. Plus I change theme/design more often than I'd like, and would like to save having to export my images again to a different size.

I would have thought that this would be a pretty common thing. Especially for photoblogs and the like.

visibleman · 25 Sep 2013 at 18:15

Which case the usual practice for photo gallery based sites is to offer up a scaled 'preview' image and then the original/larger image for the enlarged.

Alternatively you use CSS media queries.