955611 - [meta] Eliminate the need for external hosting for images, vectors and audio

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Webmaker Graveyard :: Popcorn Maker, defect)

Description

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Having asked a group to produce a Webmaker presentation to a deadline, I would say that by far the most difficult aspect of using the app for the students was the need to use external hosting for image, vector and audio files. 

Yes, if an image file is not edited, you can just paste in a URL off the web, but that doesn't help for locally-created resources. I was asking them to use their acquired skills in image, vector and sound editing, so most of the resources they were using were edited. And this fits with the Webmaker ideal of "remixing". So remixing images and audio shouldn't be harder than simple copying.

Even with a "simple" image hosting site like imgur.com or mediacru.sh, they regularly forgot the steps, or pasted the link of the image display page into Popcorn rather than the direct link to the image (and got an unhelpful error). When trying to do an assessment, inability to do this sunk them - and so I had to give them guidance, even under exam conditions. Which is not ideal. The standard sites are also full of ads, unsuitable images on the front page, and complex options. Sometimes they don't work, or time out (audiour.com). 

I don't know if there are legal or server-space issues here, but it would be awesome if the team could find a way to make it so that including self-edited or self-created images or sound (OK, perhaps not video) in a Popcorn presentation were as simple as a file upload widget. Perhaps using the API of an existing hosting site might do it, so you can conceal the complexity? But anyway, please find some way to make this easier.

Thanks,

Gerv

Comment 1

[Jon Buckley [:jbuck]]

Image uploading is currently supported in Popcorn maker, when you add an image plugin there's an option to drag and drop an image.

This image upload feature does not support svg images, so perhaps we could morph this bug into "Support SVG image uploads".

We cannot host audio/video ourselves (legal issues), but perhaps we could make it easier to upload audio/video.

What services are the least annoying in terms of uploading audio/video? Youtube, Vimeo, and Soundcloud are obvious ones since we already support them.

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

(In reply to Jon Buckley [:jbuck] from comment #1)
> Image uploading is currently supported in Popcorn maker, when you add an
> image plugin there's an option to drag and drop an image.

Wow, really? We _so_ didn't discover that. I was expecting the word "Upload" somewhere, and a link, or a filepicker. Can some of those cues be provided?

> This image upload feature does not support svg images, so perhaps we could
> morph this bug into "Support SVG image uploads".

That would be awesome.

> We cannot host audio/video ourselves (legal issues), but perhaps we could
> make it easier to upload audio/video.

Can you integrate with the API of another provider, such as audiour?

> What services are the least annoying in terms of uploading audio/video?
> Youtube, Vimeo, and Soundcloud are obvious ones since we already support
> them.

Video upload seems to me to be a less common case, because the extra difficulty of processing video locally means that people will either upload straight to YouTube or import something already there to remix it. Local editing of audio and images are much more likely, to my mind.

Do YouTube or Vimeo even do audio-only uploads?

Soundcloud requires an account, AIUI, which would be a big barrier. Audiour does not.

Gerv

Comment 3

[Brett Gaylor [:brett]]

Hey, Gerv - audior looks decent!

As Jbuck mentions we've decided against self-hosting our own media files, so indeed 3rd parties are what we use.  Soundcloud seems to have the broadest penetration.

As you mention, Audior has the advantage of not requiring accounts, and they seem to have a robust API here:
http://audiour.com/api

It looks like there are several issues here, so I've filed:

-add support for SVG to image uploader
bug #960341

-add a file picker option to image uploader
bug #960339

-add audior support to media tab
bug #960336

Good feedback!

Comment 4

[Jon Buckley [:jbuck]]

\o/