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Just a thought: sometimes it's not possible to cram an image into 500K and have it still look good, which means the gallery won't accept it (unless you put a version there that looks bad). I understand that storage space is at a premium and raising the file size limit to, say, 2MB would probably break the bank.

But how about providing an option to use a URL instead of a file upload in the gallery add form? The full-size image would be retrieved from the remote URL and only the thumbnail would be stored locally, along with the ratings, comments, and other metadata.

If you're concerned that remote images might sometimes be replaced unexpectedly with zombie donkey robot tentacle pr0n, store the SHA1 or MD5 of the remote file locally as well, and have the gallery view fetch the file, check it, and pass it on to the browser only if it still matches up, rather than directly embed the remote URL as an html img tag. That unfortunately will cost bandwidth on each remote-image view, but still no permanent local storage.

In the meantime, it'd also be nice if the part of the upload form that mentions the 1200x1200 size limits mentioned the 500K file size limit as well. If remote image capability is added, that text and the error page should both mention the feature as one suggested fix.

Nice idea. Not only could the remote image be over 500kB, but it could be larger than 1200x1200 px also.

You already can host images externally.

Just use the [img] tag,

This works in posts and gallery comments, so you can use the "Rate My Image" section of the forum, or post an image within the gallery limits in the gallery, and then post the externally hosted image in a comment for the gallery image.

Hope that helps.   O0

Works for forum posts and gallery comments, but not for gallery images that can be voted on.

If it's the first comment on the image, yes it does.

Voting is meaningless anyhow, except in those rare instances where it's a competition and the users ratings count for something.

There will never be a way to put the large image in the gallery as the first thing you see in the post.  Those have to be uploaded given the way the gallery works, and bandwidth and disc space prohibit it  If that's critically important to you, just make a tiny black and white image that says "Look at comment for image" and nobody will ever see your lower resolution images.  

Of course you'd lose the thumbnail too - but such is the cost of it.

Or you could program a better Gallery for us!

It's software. Software you can modify. Almost anything is possible. In fact, the possibilities are infinite. ;)

Like I said, feel free to make a better gallery!