I’ve had a list of changes and updates to apply to the JavaScript Image Cropper for quite a while now and I have been thinking of these in a lot more detail recently. There are lots of changes that I plan to make that would bring the cropper up to V2 level and ensure that it remains a viable cropping solution for the future.
These changes include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Fix as many bugs as possible, if not all.
- Add a couple of new features to the base cropper.
- Core architectural changes to improve flexibility of the cropper, read alternative framework support.
- Improved documentation and support network.
- Improvements to maintenance and updates, read more regular updates.
- Any performance improvements that can be made (a fresh look at the code always seems to reveal areas that can be improved).
Over the past couple of evenings I have documented and investigated my plans and the architectural changes that I would need to implement to take the cropper to the next level and these have provided me with a rough timeframe for completion of V2.
However I am incredibly busy at the moment and other commitments are taking priority, but I also do not want the cropper codebase to stagnate as I understand the popularity of the cropper — it’s the main traffic driver on my site and has had nearly 32,000 downloads so far and is averaging over 1,000 per month.
But as I say my other commitments are taking priority and a lot of my spare time, so I thought I would try an experiment, fund raising.
Why fund raising?
Firstly I must state that this is not about the money, if it were I would not release my code for free (and this will continue for version 2 of the cropper). But it is the only thing I could think of that could give me a clear indication of the desire for an updated version of the cropper. It is all well and good having the odd comments praising the cropper and/or mentioning the desire for feature x or bug fix y, but it is something different to put your money towards achieving that.
So far the cropper donation ratio is about 0.04% of all downloads result in a donation (that’s 14 donations out of around 32,000 downloads), so the fund raising activity should really test the reaction of the version 2 plans — thus the target figure I’ve entered and the timeframe are not as important to me the reaction.
So when will version 2 be released?
That is partly down to the results of the fund raising, I do seriously want to implement all my plans, but whether that’s this month, next month, next June etc. I cannot specify right now due to my current commitments, all I can say is that if the reaction to the fund raising is successful then it will help me prioritise the cropper appropriately and will result in version 2 being released sooner rather than later.
Okay, enough of the sales patter, how do I donate?
I’ve setup a campaign on Pledgie, which you can use your existing PayPal account (or credit card if you don’t have a PayPal account) to make a donation.
I look forward to your help and support and the changes that V2 will bring to the cropper.
Comments
There have been 33 comments so far, join the discussion.
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33. John Davies - 12th Jun 2008 - 8:49 pm
I’ve made a pledge in hopes it’ll bump up the priority of the zoom feature. I’ll keep pledging as progress is made (betas, etc.). I know it’s not much in the scheme of things but it’s the best I can do right now. Thanks!
32. Dave - 12th Jun 2008 - 7:33 pm
John:
The zooming is something that has only been requested a couple of times and it is quite a bit of work, that’s why it has been added to the feature request list. Basically most of the code would need re-working to account for the fact that the co-ordinates will at some point may not be relative to the image size.
I’ve not looked at implementing this in great detail however, the reason it is low priority is that bugs are more important than new features in my eyes.
31. John Davies - 12th Jun 2008 - 7:04 pm
Dave, would it be hard to add the ability to zoom into/out of the image without changing the crop size? e.g. say you want to get a 100×100 images of a people’s faces, but the source images come in different sizes so you need to zoom in/out to get the faces to fill the 100×100 crop area.
I saw a zoom-related request, but it was marked as low-priority. It’s not for me! It’d make the tool much more powerful. Is it compatible with the existing code at all?
30. AJenbo - 22nd Apr 2008 - 9:08 pm
old ecard guy, there is no circle shape, but you could use an image with a circular hole in it as as overlay on the selection, but some browsers will sample the image (smoot edge) and some won’t and it would have to be bigger then the image to prevent it form getting blurry or pixilated.
you might be better off using flash in this case.
29. old ecard guy - 22nd Apr 2008 - 7:09 pm
How hard do you think it would be to modify the code to select a circle instead of a rectangle?
Are you accepting contributions of time to improve the code as well?
28. AJenbo - 9th Apr 2008 - 9:35 pm
It is usualy preaty easy to hook this up with any server side script, one way could be to call the asp page in an iframe using the values from the croper, or a form submit where the croper updates the values.
27. Raf - 9th Apr 2008 - 6:08 pm
Dave: thanks, no problem. Then i will have to start using PHP as you have an awsome script :-)
26. Raf - 9th Apr 2008 - 6:06 pm
ajenbo: Yeah i know, its a javascript, but to save your crop after the cropping as an image on your webserver you will need a serverscript language. The cropping is javascript, the saving and editting of the picture is not. thats why i would like very very very much an example of an asp script that converts the original image to the one with the cropping coordinates.
25. ajenbo - 9th Apr 2008 - 4:52 pm
it’s clientside javascript so server side scripts like .aps and asp .net doesn’t enter in to it.
24. Dave - 9th Apr 2008 - 4:22 pm
I’ve not seen any implementations for ASP, I’ve had a quick look through the comments but can’t find any.
23. Raf - 9th Apr 2008 - 3:47 pm
Very nice work on the javascript image cropper. I took a look at all your examples and i am impressed by the good feel of your work. It looks great and it feels great. Although i saw some examples to implement in PHP, i am interested in an server side asp script example. If i would this javascript image cropper work on Asp (not asp.net) then i will surely donate you for your efforts! thanks on advance.
22. Dave - 2nd Apr 2008 - 5:52 pm
Jean:
To disabled the resize ability simply set both the min coords and the max coords to the same values, it will also stop the resize handles from appearing.
21. Jean Stojkov - 2nd Apr 2008 - 5:45 pm
Thank you for the use of the Cropper code. It saved me a lot of time. I appreciate you making the code available…. thanks!
I am making a donation via your Pledge site.
I do have a question, I do not want the cropper box to have ability to “resize”. I only wish the cropper box to crop. If you have time, please direct me to the appropriate code to disable the “resize” capability.
Sincerely,
Jean S
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