Why upgrade old Image Uploader

Image Uploader 7 (and subsequent Upload Suite) was not just another update of Aurigma's flagship product.

It was a milestone in the evolution of image uploading - completely rewritten and more polished, stable and convenient than ever.

Compatible with all latest browsers and Java

Back in mid-2010, when Image Uploader 6 became discontinued, the latest versions of most popular browsers were:

• Internet Explorer 8
• Google Chrome 5
• Mozilla Firefox 3
• Safari 5

Time passes so quickly in the IT industry that these versions are now antique. nowadays. Everybody uses much newer versions and no one can be sure that old uploaders are compatible with them.

Moreover, Oracle just acquired Sun Microsystems and the Java runtime version was 6. In approximately one year, they will release Java 7 and start their struggle for security (making old applets incompatible with new Java). If you don't have the latest version, your users will experience a lot of problems with it.

We understand the importance of being compatible with the latest browsers and Java, that's why when these updates affect the uploader, we highly prioritize the release of updated uploaders. In addition we try to keep one version of the old generation up to date as well, in case you don't have enough resources to migrate to the new uploader immediately. Upgrade and you will receive both the old and new uploader as well as all updates released within one year.

Additional HTML5/Flash uploaders

Java/ActiveX is a very powerful platform and for many years it was the only technology to implement a good uploading interface. However, today HTML5 and Flash technologies can replace it, making the upload process more user-friendly. Java/ActiveX still provides you with additional benefits which will never be available in HTML5 or Flash (especially, if your users upload tremendous amounts of data), however sometimes it is an overkill.

The latest Upload Suite contains not only the Java/ActiveX uploader, but also its HTML5/Flash counterpart. Feel free to use it together with the Java/ActiveX uploader as a fallback option or make it your main upload interface. It is up to you!

Fresh new user interface

When we created the first version of Image Uploader, our concept was to make it as close to the standard Windows user interface as possible. It was a good idea back then, but nowadays this concept is a bit outdated.

So we have redesigned the user interface to make it more modern and friendly. Now instead of three different layouts, we have introduced one layout which combines the benefits of all three. The user can expand/collapse different panels - e.g. upload list or file tree can be hidden.

We have refreshed all elements of user interface.

Full-fledged multiple selection is introduced in Java version.

One of important changes was getting rid of modal dialogs that were pretty annoying and prevented full-fledged usage of tabs in browsers. Instead of popup alerts messages are displayed in a special bar now.

Progress bar dialog is a part of the Image Uploader window, rather than a separate modal dialog. 

If you use Image Uploader in the "instant upload mode" (i.e. upload starts as soon as some file is added to the upload list), progress indicator is displayed in the special bar.

New features were added to the user interface - new view mode called Tiles (more compact than Thumbnails and as informative as Details), 

Search within the current folder,

possibility to filter out the files that cannot be selected for upload, simple image editor, and many others. 

Another great improvement will be noticed by those users who work with large amounts of files. Old versions were not very good in handling folders with thousands files. It took pretty much time to load a list of files in such folders. New version works fast regardless to the number of files. User interface never hangs if you walk through the network share or open the folder with a lot of files.

Crop Functionality

Ability to crop photos before upload is a long waited feature. You can configure whether the user can crop only according to a specific aspect ratio or freehand, as well as whether both album and portrait orientation is allowed. You can even crop images automatically through JavaScript.

If your website requires photos to have a specific aspect ratio, you can use JavaScript to check whether photos selected by the user meet your requirements. If not, you can force the user to crop the photo before it can be uploaded.

Cropped images in the upload list are marked with a special icon.

Chunk Upload

Uploading large amounts of data always was a challenge. If you upload huge file, you have to prepare HTTP POST request on client side, load it in memory, open HTTP connection with a server for pretty long time, and the server has to have enough memory to receive the file. Earlier we had to do some tricks to avoid memory problems, but in Image Uploader 7 we have found an ultimate solution. 

Now you can configure Image Uploader to split files in multiple chunks. What it means? Imagine, you have 500 MB file. Earlier you had to create a single HTTP POST request containing this file. Now you can split this file into 500 pieces 1 MB each and send them separately.

The benefits of this approach are obvious:

• Memory friendly - you deal only with 1 MB chunks instead of a huge file.
• Supports really heavy files - need to receive files of 2 GB, 5 GB, 10 GB size? Not a problem anymore. 
• No need to increase HTTP request length limitations on the server - now you can receive gigabytes of data even if the server has strict limitations for a max HTTP request length.
• No need to open HTTP connection for a long time - it is much more friendly for your server resources, especially when a lot of users access it at the same time.
• Automatic upload recovery - if the upload fails in the middle of the process, no need to restart the upload from a scratch. No need to re-upload chunks that were succesfully transferred.  

Improved Upload Speed

The upload performance has been significantly improved. Now photo resize works simultaneously with the upload. So the upload completes much faster - the user does not have to wait until all thumbnails are generated.