Joomla GSoC 18 with Geetanshu Mathur

Finally all milestones are accomplished. The plugin is well integrated with the new media manager. All the features discussed before the coding period or within its time frame are implemented.

First of all have a look over the demo video about how this plugin works here.
Excited about it? Learn more...

In the continuation of my previous blog post:

So, after the first evaluation the procedure of cropping and resizing has been changed. Previously the original size images were going to the client and then adjusted/shifted to the main focus area in the client side only. Now, the images are cropped and resized at the server side only and sent to the client side based on the width of the viewport of the requesting device. This procedure saved a lot of bandwidth when the page is shown in smaller devices without compromising with the emotions/message associated with the image.

Some additional features have also been added to the plugin, you can find more in the documentation.

Now coming to the questions you might have about the plugin ...

How can this benefit me with the article I just wrote?

This plugin can actually benefit you in two most important ways:

  • The main objective is to preserve the message associated with the images, now let’s take the example of a page in two scenes i.e with this plugin and without this plugin.
    • Without plugin: Original image is send in both the case of size ~340 kb
      Geetanshu 3 1
    • With the plugin: Resized / Smaller image is sent. ~170 kb for iPad and ~57 kb for the Galaxy S5
      Geetanshu 3 2
  • It will decrease the load time for your article, keeping the viewers more intact with your thoughts without irritating them with a slow loading.

Can I select the focus area as the whole image?
Of course you can, it depends on how creatively you can think. But why would you try to do that like it would be of no use until and unless you want smaller images for smaller devices to enable fast loading of images in the article.
P.S This can be another feature for this plugin, developed unknowingly, it would resize the images to smaller sizes without worrying about any specific focus area in the image :-).

How to install this with my current version of Joomla?
I would say you can’t without changing too much in the plugin’s codebase. This is the new core feature of Joomla 4.x, so if you want to test it, you will have to install Joomla 4. Joomla 4, which is in alpha testing phase at the time I’m writing this article, is a perfect example version of State Of Art content management system introduced by the Joomla. There are many many more exciting features waiting for you in it.

Can we use this plugin for our Wordpress site?
Well, you can’t because this plugin is specifically made for Joomla 4. But, as this is an open source platform you can migrate this plugin to any other CMS, frameworks or specifically for you own website. BTW, I would be soon launching the distribution for npm and composer.

As a conclusion, I would like to thank Niels and Kasun for giving their precious time and efforts on the project, Sandra and Tobias for supporting me when I need help with the docs and some strange issues, Anurag for testing my PRs and discussing the issues. My beloved parents, brother, friends for keeping me motivated. Lastly, to my JBL flip 2 and Sennheiser CX180 for giving me a company and keeping me awake :-).

I hope this feature will help the Joomla users.