[whatwg] Wish: Restrict Image Size on Upload

[Jim Ley]

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:12:17 +0000 (UTC), Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Dec 2004, Jim Ley wrote:
> This is a problem with the UAs, though, not with the specs.

The fact Mozillas XHTML implementation is too poor to be used, and
IE's XBL engine is absent and ... are all problems with UAs meaning
authors have to be hobbled with Web Forms 2.0 rather than good
replacements grounded in well specified technology unlike HTML.

The whole rationale of Web Forms 2.0 seems to me based on overcoming
UA problems in legacy specificatios.

> I assume you are asserting that a use case for this feature is allowing
> users to upload images of a specific size so that those images can then be
> targetted at specific UAs for use as wallpapers?

More likely sent direct, the 4 megapixel camera in my cell phone
delivering images to other cell phones is not useful to use the full 4
megapixels, neither is it useful to the user to upload hundreds of
megabytes for it.  Of course at the same time publishing to the web
may well usefully want the 4 megapixels uploaded.

The reason why server sampling is not a good idea, is that the user
experience of uploading huge files is not something they enjoy.

> If so, then it would seem to me that a better, more forward-looking design
> for such a service would accept images of any size, the bigger the better,
> and would then use high quality resampling to provide users with images of
> the appropriate size for their device.

I really don't understand how a company who I understand makes most of
its income in an environment where bandwidth is so expensive are
happily suggesting the "bigger the better" approach.

Jim.