Hosting pictures - bandwidth considerations

Hi,

Pretty much on the point of buying ASP Playground - but I have a couple of quick questions:

Part of the reason for switching to ASP Playground is that I want to encourage our users to upload photos - both as attachments, and to photo galleries. I see that there are user quotas for galleries - but haven't found one for attachments - is this possible currently / planned?

I'm also thinking about how much bandwidth lots of photos will use (since bandwidth on our main site's dedicated server is quite expensive). Is it possible to configure ASP Playground to upload pictures to, and serve them from, another server, used just for pictures - since there are some cheap deals out there for bandwidth on unmanaged servers. If not, is it planned, or how much programming would be required for us to implement this?

Finally - any plans for a WYSIWYG posting interface in future versions (like VBulletin)?

Thanks!

While it's not a quota, you can specify per forum what sort of files you will allow to be uploaded and the max file size per attachment and max attachments per post.

Since the forum software generates the Thumnail, you won't have users clicking on every attachment, just the ones they like.

All attachments go into a folder called 'upfiles', but I am not sure about hosting the 'upfiles' folder from another server.

You can always eliminate Guests access to any forums with attachments and Guest access to the Photo Gallery. That will cut down on Bandwidth significantly.

Version 3 of the software will be a ground up rewite to take advantage of .NET and may have some of the features you mention (like individual user upload limits). That won't be out for a while though.

A little thought into permissions of who you allow to view the attachments should work out for you.

You can also set any post with an attachment to be flagged to be reviewed by a Moderator.

I guess what I'm saying is with some careful planning your bandwidth shouldn't be much of an issue...probably much less than you think.

Thanks Dean for the detailed explanation.

1) attachment quota is not currently implemented. I will add it into version 3.
2) no, we do not have plan to add the feature which will direct attachments to a remote server. Part of the reasons is that you will not be able to stream a file that way.
3) WYSIWYG is planned for version 3

Where is the online manual page for the photo gallery? I bought a recent version from this year and have configured the gallery correctly but I am not able to upload any pictures.

Hi vranet,

please register your software and I will be able to help you with this type of questions in the dedicated support forum.