Cover improvements : Cover information

I've made a number of incremental cover improvements, including a "light box" for every cover, showing it at a larger size. Member-uploaded covers also include other information—sometimes a little, sometimes more:



The link to get this can be found on the "Change cover" (or "Cover images") page when you mouse-over the cover:



The current cover information is less than we know. But it's what I have up now.

OMG...(heading off to play)

Nice. Really nice.

It would be great if something like this were eventually available in other areas of LT (with differing info, perhaps): catalog pages, tag pages, series pages...oh hell, I'll pony up and admit to wanting this sitewide.

Regardless of how far you decide to take this idea, it's a great upgrade. Thanks!!

...I should mention that I like the way that you only display those fields that are relevent for each image (as opposed to fixed fields with lots of blanks)...

Does this now usurp the high quality tag added onto the image - my latest covers are not marked as HQ, even though they are?

I love this new feature, BTW!

What an interesting development. Do you think this would be a valid place to surface all the "tags" that got applied to covers during the cover "game"?

> 5: No, I still see those High Quality labels in several places. So that can't be it.

But yes, very nice new feature.

High quality for 200x299 is debatable btw.

A nice addition though.

I'd still like to see some way of knowing which one I'm using. But at least now I can tell that on the ones I uploaded.

Very, very nice.

How about making the same functionality available for the work / book image?

In the pony department, it would be nice if you could get a page (under statistics/memes) showing how many of your covers are used by how many people etc.

Now all it needs is CK fields for artist and designer (allowing multiple entries).

It would be great if something like this were eventually available in other areas of LT (with differing info, perhaps): catalog pages, tag pages, series pages...oh hell, I'll pony up and admit to wanting this sitewide.

Can you explain more what "something like this" means to you here?

Does this now usurp the high quality tag added onto the image - my latest covers are not marked as HQ, even though they are?

It does, but it's a mistake. I shall be adding the "high quality" back in a moment.

Do you think this would be a valid place to surface all the "tags" that got applied to covers during the cover "game"?

Yes, that's a good idea.

High quality for 200x299 is debatable btw.

It describes things as high-quality if the height is more than 250 pixels. During the first year (?) LibraryThing downsampled images VERY aggressively, so everything was smaller than this. At present "high quality" means that it won't look bad on a work page, or at the largest size in your catalog.

I'd still like to see some way of knowing which one I'm using. But at least now I can tell that on the ones I uploaded.

You can get a list of all your custom covers within your catalog from http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/covers . Should I make this pop-up available from within your catalog?

How about making the same functionality available for the work / book image?

I'm unsure if this warrants it. Maybe.

Now all it needs is CK fields for artist and designer (allowing multiple entries).

Agreed.

And a way to alias covers together. And a way to mark covers as not being covers. And a few more things…

You can get a list of all your custom covers within your catalog from http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/covers . Should I make this pop-up available from within your catalog?

Is there a way when we're on the choose cover page, and we're looking at 2 or 5 or 50 covers, many of which look very similar, there can be a way to differentiate which one we currently have selected? A border around it, or an asterisk in the box that pops up that says "choose this cover" when you hover, or something?

high quality tag

Now added to all images again. Thanks.

Oh Tim this is great.
Will the info fields cover, the book edition?

T-http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/covers . Should I make this pop-up available from within your catalog?

YES please:)

Thank you Tim, this is a good improvement.

Q (#10): How about making the same functionality available for the work / book image?

A (#13): I'm unsure if this warrants it. Maybe.

Explaining why: Going to "Change cover" for the information is well and good while researching a work or adding a cover to a book.

After adding cover to book, I'll mainly be interested in information related to that particular cover. More so if CK (artists name, tags etc. as mentioned above) are added. Opening "Change cover" and scrolling through hundreds of pictures to find the information would be awkward.

>15 timspalding:
Thank you Tim!

Another 'yes please' vote for pop-up available in catalogue. :)

>13 timspalding: You can get a list of all your custom covers within your catalog from http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/covers . Should I make this pop-up available from within your catalog?

That tells me which books I have a custom cover on, but not which cover I have for works with several similar ones.

This is very nice. It even works (a bit roughly) on mobile devices. I also like the rearrangement of the Upload/Grab section. Very clear and compact. You might want to decrease the opacity a tad on the mouseover box, though. It can be a bit hard to read with covers with author names and such at the top:


Here's the same image but with a 0.9 opacity:


I second the request for an indicator that shows which cover you are currently using. But I want that before this new fancy thing pops up. Sometimes there are multiple covers that are very similar. A simple icon overlay or border on the currently selected image would make it more clear that you're currently on one cover without having to go to this cover information box (if you put that info there).

One question, though: What does the "Used by members" field signify? I see things like this: Used by members: 0812536355 (11), 0312856830 (2), 1857988515 (2), 1857988264 (1). Those look like ISBNs, not member numbers.

And in another place, it shows "Used on this work: 2 times" but no "Used by members". Is this because they are private books?

I think the "Used by members" field says how many members use it for the given ISBNs. In your ex., eleven people use it for books with ISBN 0812536355, two for ones with ISBN 0312856830, etc.

#22 by @AndreasJ> Right, that was my guess, too. I'm thinking it should be "Used for ISBN". It's just not very intuitive.

I really wish there WAS a way to get to the individual users of a cover. It'd be a mess for covers used a ton. But very handy for covers used only a handful of times. Lots of help for Combiners.

I second the request for an indicator that shows which cover you are currently using.

The cover you have selected is now outlined in green, eg.,



decrease the opacity a tad on the mouseover box

Changed filter from 80% to 90%.

What does the "Used by members" field signify? I see things like this: Used by members: 0812536355 (11), 0312856830 (2), 1857988515 (2), 1857988264 (1). Those look like ISBNs, not member numbers.

It means that 11 users have selected it as their chosen cover for ISBN 0812536355. It is different from "Used on this work: 7 times," which is for all uses on the work, and from '"Best-guess" image for ISBN: 0312703694, 0606159819' which tells you which ISBNs get this cover image automatically, at present.

Yes, I know, it's confusing. Another site would elide all this stuff, but we tend to revel in detail, for better or confusing worse.

It's just not very intuitive.

ROTFL

I really wish there WAS a way to get to the individual users of a cover. It'd be a mess for covers used a ton. But very handy for covers used only a handful of times. Lots of help for Combiners.

It's doable at some point, but it's a slow and on-the-spot calculation, not something we have cached.

#24 by @timspalding> Thanks for the marker!

I'm not sure why the ROTFL, but as a natural comedian I'll take all the laughs I can get. :D

I mainly meant the label isn't very intuitive, because (at least for me), my intuition is that those should be member numbers or something. I can certainly live with it, though.

My point was that LibraryThing has a lot of such things—complex data and unintuitive situations. It's a flaw and to some degree a strength. I don't see how to make that label more intuitive; it could be made more clear, but only at the expense of making it longer, I think.

>The cover you have selected is now outlined in green.

Wonderful! Thank you! That will be such a help!

#26 by @timspalding> You don't think "Used for ISBN" is both clearer and shorter? Seems both to me. "Used for ISBN" is followed by a list of ISBNs and how many times the cover was used for each. I guess it's just me.

In statistics, I don't understand the group that says "Member-uploaded cover, best-guess for ISBN (109)". Does this mean only member-uploaded covers by me? The "best-guess for ISBN" part is throwing me off. If this isn't just a list of covers I've uploaded, is there a way to get one?

>28 brightcopy:

Yeah. You're probably right. I'd be worried that it conflicts with "Best guess." But yeah. I'll change it.

Member-uploaded cover, best-guess for ISBN

No, that means how many of your books are using the LibraryThing's best-guess cover—when we choose a user cover to represent an ISBN.

If this isn't just a list of covers I've uploaded, is there a way to get one?

No. The problem there is that we have incomplete information. Through various indirect means I can perhaps get it to 2/3 of covers, but no more than that.

#30 by @timspalding> That's okay. I just misunderstood something you said earlier as saying we could get a list of covers we've uploaded ("You can get a list of all your custom covers within your catalog").

Ah. Right.

It might be a good idea on those member-uploaded ones that you don't know the uploader to put "Uploaded by: unknown". If you don't think that's too fussy.

Eventually. But I'm still collating data, so the answer should be more like "We're lookin'!"

I also love that now there's a place for a button that says "Cover is for a different work". :D

Dang, no cover information for amazon covers?

Dang, no cover information for amazon covers?

Well, what would we say? We could say how many people have the ISBN and, by subtraction, say how many have opted out of the cover for that ISBN. But meh.

I've considered tracking the MD5s of Amazon covers, so we can know when they change. But it's hard and would slow us down. We aren't currently doing it.

#37 by @timspalding> Well, what would we say?

Not everything, obviously. But it'd be quite interesting to know how many people are using the cover. A user would have to sift through the editions data and do some calculation to figure that out for themselves. The "Used for ISBN" would indeed have only one entry.

There's no good way to see which ISBN a cover is for now (you used to could look at the javascript code for the change-cover mouseover and see the ISBN there, but that's gone in the revamp). Many times helpful knowing that a certain Amazon cover goes with a certain ISBN.

You could also show the original size.

Random: Pretty funny to see how many times the most popular member-uploaded cover for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is used: 122 times. This is for a work with over 10k members. Amazon is king.

Pretty slick. As an obsessive scanner, it's nice to go through and see how many people are using my covers. (Though it can be kind of depressing to pull up a work with hundreds of members where mine is the only member-uploaded cover, and I'm the only one using it.)

#39 by @saltmanz> Just look at the stats on Alice I noted above. Compared to Amazon, the use of our covers rounds to zero. :D

@40: Yeah, it's absolutely crazy.

- - - - - - - - - -

Thought (as I go through looking at the covers in more depth): Would it be possible in the pop-up info box to have "previous" and "next" buttons?

- - - - - - - - - -

Also, for those who care about such things: the new largest-visible-anywhere-on-LT cover height is 635 pixels.

#41 by @saltmanz> Thought (as I go through looking at the covers in more depth): Would it be possible in the pop-up info box to have "previous" and "next" buttons?

That would be spectacular.

#3 by @SilentInAWay> It would be great if something like this were eventually available in other areas of LT (with differing info, perhaps): catalog pages, tag pages, series pages...oh hell, I'll pony up and admit to wanting this sitewide.

#13 by @timspalding> Can you explain more what "something like this" means to you here?

Although this feature is really great when you're choosing covers or browsing editions (so to speak), the times when I would most want to view large covers is when I come across an interesting book in another user's catalog, in a list of recommendations, in a list of tagged books, on a publisher's page, on the Early Reviewer's page, etc. -- all the places where I discover a new book and want to learn more by examining its cover.

If this feature were implemented in other places, however, you might wish to display different info alongside the book in the lightbox (cover usage by ISBN, I dare say, would not be of interest to someone browsing the Early Reviewer's offerings or new books from a particular publisher-- although the publishing date certainly would!).

The current lightbox in the catalog (cover view) could either be replaced by this new one (with the same information listed alongside the picture) or could link to the larger picture (perhaps when the member clicks on the picture in the existing light box).

On the page for a given tag, the "big picture" lightbox could list other tags assigned to that book -- as links, so users could tag-surf by clicking on tag after tag.

What would really be awesome would be if a "big picture" lightbox were somehow added to the coverthing_dynamic feature, so that members could view larger covers (and summary info) for covers included on user's profile pages or in talk threads...

These are all ponies, of course, since the cover page is never more than a few clicks away and can always be opened on another tab in one's browser. Just thinking about the power of being able to call up "something like this" on pages throughout the site -- without losing one's place on that page -- has me drooling like Pavlov's dog.

The feature isn't working at all for me. I have a very slow dial-up internet connection (nothing else is available where I live) so I suspect the pop-up just isn't loading.

I'm okay with that, though the internet in general is becoming more and more innaccessible to me I certainly don't expect everything to be streamlined for the few of use with slow connections. However, while I'm fine with not being able to use this feature, the new settings makes it impossible to change cover images for my books, so the only way to change my cover image would be by duplicating a picture already uploaded. Which, of course, I really don't want to do...is there any way you can implement the old 1-click cover change we had before?

Something weird I'm finding while looking through my covers. A number of my scans (which I scan at 1000 to 1500 pixels high) are showing as only 300 pixels high, although the 635px preview image looks decent. I know a few years ago, covers were shrunk down to something like 300px to save space, but were supposed to have gotten switched back at one point.

Some examples are Maia, Ender's War, and Battle Circle, with my scan being the most popular (i.e., first) member cover.

#44 by @Ape> I don't know why dialup would have any effect on this. Could you open a bug report for it in Bug Collectors? I have lots of questions to ask that might bog this thread down.

Wow, this is delightful!

Should we be able to see if a private member has uploaded a cover? As, for example, with the fourth cover here: http://www.librarything.com/work/787748/covers/85461674

Seems like that gives away data that shouldn't be.

#47 by @Stevil2001> Hah, I was wondering about that but couldn't find a good test case. Good job!

I notice that the "information/choose" popup never leaves the last cover you mouseover. I hope thats not intentional? It can be obnoxious.

Update: Apparently it's a browser issue, working fine on Firefox but not so much on Internet Explorer.

OOH! Hear me squeal!

#49 by @saltmanz> Mousing OFF an element can be a lot trickier to detect than mousing over. It's a bit of a coding headache across browsers.

@51: I suppose it must be: I was originally trying to word that post a different way, but I couldn't come up with a name for the opposite of a mouseover event. Probably because one doesn't exist! :)

45> You know, I'm seeing the same thing. I scan my books at a bit over 600 pixels high, but many of them are listed as being only 300 pixels high. They seem to display at the uploaded resolution in the new lightbox, however.

I notice that, for these books, there is no "Uploaded by" field in the lightbox. Tim mentioned in message 34 that they're still collating data ... so maybe the true sizes are coming...

>24 timspalding: "The cover you have selected is now outlined in green": Thank you, thank you, thank you!

During the first year (?) LibraryThing downsampled images VERY aggressively - Unfortunately during this period I uploaded over 2000 covers. I am working on re-entering them (of accepting good alternatives), fortunately I have all the original scans. There are however quite a lot of people using my old covers.

The cover you have selected is now outlined in green - I saw this and wondered why I had not noticed this before, now I know it's new.

Tim, Thank You for this! It's wonderful. Easy to understand and great info.

The cover you have selected is now outlined in green

Also, if you're looking at someone else's book page, the cover that they selected is outlined in green.

Suggestion: I get covers from one of two sources -- my own scans, which I upload from my PC, and elsewhere on the web, which I grab by URL. I try very hard to get my scans right and high quality, but if I'm grabbing from the web I'm not so fussy. For both, though, the lightbox says "Uploaded by r.orrison". I'd like it if it could distinguish between uploads and grabs.

There's no good way to see which ISBN a cover is for now (you used to could look at the javascript code for the change-cover mouseover and see the ISBN there, but that's gone in the revamp). Many times helpful knowing that a certain Amazon cover goes with a certain ISBN.

Yes. That's true. I'll add that.

You could also show the original size.

Not really.

Compared to Amazon, the use of our covers rounds to zero. :D

I need to do some stats on this--how many have a picked member cover and how many are getting it from guesses.

Would it be possible in the pop-up info box to have "previous" and "next" buttons?

Probably not—the data's not really in the right place for it--but I'll consider it.

The feature isn't working at all for me. I have a very slow dial-up internet connection

I don't believe it's your connection. That's very unlikely, unless you're so impatient you close a window a few seconds after opening it. What browser do you use?

Something weird I'm finding while looking through my covers

Noted. Will look at later.

Should we be able to see if a private member has uploaded a cover?

Good point. Killed. Covers are never private, but private users shouldn't be noted as uploading them.

I notice that the "information/choose" popup never leaves the last cover you mouseover. I hope thats not intentional? It can be obnoxious.

It's intentional after other options proved buggy.

They seem to display at the uploaded resolution in the new lightbox, however.

It upsamples crap covers. The covers are always ?635 tall.

I scan my books at a bit over 600 pixels high, but many of them are listed as being only 300 pixels high.

We stopped downsampling very early. Got one that's recent you think this is happening to? It may be that the script that fetches the sizes fetched a version of them, not the original.

Also, if you're looking at someone else's book page, the cover that they selected is outlined in green.

Right.

I'd like it if it could distinguish between uploads and grabs.

The "new" cover system distinguishes—it records the URL if you grab. But that's only been in effect for a week or so.

#60 by @timspalding> You could also show the original size.

Not really.

Yeah, that occurred to me later. You're really only directly linking to the size-specific amazon URL. You COULD get the original height by stripping all that stuff out. But it'd be an extra call and extra bandwidth wasted that's not needed.

Probably not—the data's not really in the right place for it--but I'll consider it.

Well, I could think of a possible way you could do it. Have your lightbox call know which DOM element it ties to. On clicking the next/previous buttons, go look at the cover list, find the DOM element and go to the next/previous one. That'd work, even if all the covers are ajaxing in. I think.

I don't believe it's your connection. That's very unlikely, unless you're so impatient you close a window a few seconds after opening it. What browser do you use?

In case you missed it, Ape later said it was browser-specific.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/137977#3424754

cool. I discovered the mouseover early today (pre-post of LT News) by accident

60> We stopped downsampling very early. Got one that's recent you think this is happening to? It may be that the script that fetches the sizes fetched a version of them, not the original.

Here's some examples...I'm giving you several so that you can see if there are any patterns across the sample set that might lead you in the right direction. I've noticed, for instance, that these are all books that I originally logged in 2007 or 2008 and originally assigned a very low-resolution cover, which much later I replaced with a high-resolution cover (over 600 pixels high). I checked out the books that saltmanz mentioned having this problem (message 45) and noticed that they were all logged in 2008 as well...don't know if this helps...

http://www.librarything.com/work/11862/covers/10598154
http://www.librarything.com/work/328265/covers/36139519
http://www.librarything.com/work/3141220/covers/16105096
http://www.librarything.com/work/1007340/covers/36367249
http://www.librarything.com/work/534079/covers/10597338
http://www.librarything.com/work/7893/covers/11488373
http://www.librarything.com/work/10129/covers/10589451
http://www.librarything.com/work/29122/covers/14131827
http://www.librarything.com/work/755085/covers/27084253
http://www.librarything.com/work/2402924/covers/26576654

Possibly related: I see one of my fairly recently uploaded covers with "Original size: 0 x 0" - now since I can see the cover, that obviously can't be right.

http://www.librarything.com/work/12616153/covers/86041733

i love the twilight book series by Stephonie Meyers

How old are you Erica?

Robert

I've tried to see this feature a couple times today and I'm not seeing it at all, except for the green outline of my current cover. No popups. no larger image. no info. I'm on a near new Dell Inspiron with Win7 and IE

#68 by @RBeffa> Try Firefox or Chrome or Safari and see if you have the same problem. Ape also reported problems in IE. What version of IE are you using?

I'm using IE9, up to date. I normally use chrome but don't have it on my new laptop - I'll check my old XP machine which has chrome and an earlier version of IE.

Yes, also having the problem with IE. I'm sure it's because my version is ancient, considering how painfully difficult it is to update on dial-up.

My IE version is 7.0.5730.13, running on Windows XP.

When I move my cursor over a cover image, for the briefest millisecond something flashes in my status bar. It looks like "error on page" but it's difficult to read because it flickers so quickly. As previously stated, it works fine on Firefox.

The feature on my old XP machine works fine in Chrome but not in IE8. If it makes any diff, the security bit is 128 on the IE8/XP and 256 on the IE9/Win7

ETA: My couple week old Win7 latop has IE version 9.0.8.8112.16421
update version 9.0.6 (KB2675157)

I'm glad I'm not a web programmer any longer ....

Can anyone confirm that it works with any version of IE?

@73: Works fine in Win7/IE8.0.7601.17514 (256-bit).

Edit: Also works in XP/IE8.0.6001.18702 (128-bit).

I just added Chrome to my Win7 and the feature is fine in Chrome. No go on the IE9

72/74> Works fine for me in IE8/XP. 8.0.6001.18702 to be specific.

as an addendum to the non-working of the pop up I now find that I can't change covers using IE

#77 Interesting! I am working at changing covers. Using IE and it's working flawlessly.

Very nice feature Tim. Thanks.

> 13: "And a way to alias covers together. And a way to mark covers as not being covers. And a few more things … ." Yay! Yay! and more Yay!

Any chance of getting this from the work pages? I think it's pretty standard web-expectation these days for a click on a cover to get a larger image of the cover. Even though I know it doesn't work here, I /still/ try it regularly from habit!

PS I love it.

Thanks Tim

You've made a very good job in this.

> 81
I agree in what Aerrin99 said.

61 @timspalding: The "new" cover system distinguishes—it records the URL if you grab.

Should that info appear in the lightbox? I've just grabbed a cover for http://www.librarything.com/work/3307/covers/82603206 from Amazon (it's the one that's predominantly blue). The lightbox only says "Uploaded by: r.orrison", and interestingly "Original size: 0 x 0".

@83: I'd like that. Something like this (I think I prefer the second option):

#84: I second that.

Since we're discussing cover picture development, may I suggest an improvement to the Book Covers statistics?

I'd like to see the "Member-uploaded cover, chosen by you" category split into hi-res and low-res, so that we can work towards higher-quality pictures. Perhaps it would also be interesting to split the "Member-uploaded cover, best-guess for ISBN" class as well.

Tim, thank you for caring so much. Your improvements are great, and I am impressed how responsive you are to suggestions. Library Thing is lucky to have you.

>87 kssunflower:

Tim is the Founder; if it wasn't for him there wouldn't be any LT to have luck!!!!!!!

:-)

Thank you ,Tim!

86>

I've requested this before -- two or three times, actually. My request hasn't been explicitly rejected...just ignored (perhaps because I've always combined it with other requests).

At any rate, I like the way that you've worded this request better than I have in the past: "so that we can work toward higher-quality pictures" -- my sentiments exactly!!

86, 89> You aren't the only ones who would appreciate this - see http://www.librarything.com/topic/91305

90> Oh, absolutely. Enhancements to the Cover statistics page have been requested by members periodically over the years -- pretty much since the day it was introduced (in 2008, if I'm not mistaken). With a couple of tweaks -- the most useful of which would be the ability to list one's low-resolution covers -- this page would be a godsend for those of us attempting to provide high-quality cover images for every book in our catalog.

Thanks, Tim. A great improvement!

johninvienna found a funny bug - a (non-specific, applied across a lot of books) member-uploaded cover is showing as both the member-uploaded and the Amazon cover for a book. The popup for the Amazon cover shows the right thing, but adding it to the book leaves the generic cat showing as a cover.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/138154

I've added pop-up info/large sizes on all top-level covers:



Reading from 62 on. I was side-tracked by other stuff.

Here's some examples...I'm giving you several so that you can see if there are any patterns across the sample set that might lead you in the right direction

Got it. A number of covers had the wrong sizes listed. I must have estimated the size from a sized version, not the original.

http://www.librarything.com/work/11862/covers/10598154#

Is now:

Original size: 436 x 632

It's re-processing the rest now. Give it a few hours.

Possibly related: I see one of my fairly recently uploaded covers with "Original size: 0 x 0" - now since I can see the cover, that obviously can't be right.

http://www.librarything.com/work/12616153/covers/86041733

Let's see if that recalculates.

How old are you Erica?

You should write "How old are you Erica? I'm gonna report you!" :)

I think it's pretty standard web-expectation these days for a click on a cover to get a larger image of the cover.

I added the blow-up, but I enjoy the current functionality—going to the main page for that work.

Should that info appear in the lightbox? I've just grabbed a cover for http://www.librarything.com/work/3307/covers/82603206 from Amazon (it's the one that's predominantly blue). The lightbox only says "Uploaded by: r.orrison", and interestingly "Original size: 0 x 0".

Okay, that's annoying. It's fine for me when I upload an image. Urgh.

Source image links

Not now. Sometime perhaps.

I'd like to see the "Member-uploaded cover, chosen by you" category split into hi-res and low-res, so that we can work towards higher-quality pictures. Perhaps it would also be interesting to split the "Member-uploaded cover, best-guess for ISBN" class as well.

Interesting idea. I think it might be fiddly.

Tim, thank you for caring so much. Your improvements are great, and I am impressed how responsive you are to suggestions. Library Thing is lucky to have you.

Thanks. I'm telling the boss. Maybe I'll get a raise. :)

My request hasn't been explicitly rejected...just ignored

Sorry. I think it's a decent idea, but I'm worried it's fiddly. I could make it a "more info" thing, perhaps.

The popup for the Amazon cover shows the right thing, but adding it to the book leaves the generic cat showing as a cover.


See that bug http://www.librarything.com/topic/138154

95> I don't think any of us who want this care where you put it, so the least fiddly place is fine. But being able to see a list of the books that have low-quality covers would make a lot of stuff easier.

I'm not sure what you mean by "more info" thing - if you mean something like the popup, that's not very helpful, since you have to be at the cover already to check it. If you mean a More Info link on the coverstats page, that offers filters for quality of cover, maybe your uploaded (for those that are tracked)?, stuff like that - Yay! I will use it often.

>94 timspalding: I've added pop-up info/large sizes on all top-level covers

Ahhh. Thank you, Tim. I really appreciate that!!

Thanks very much for this, it's a fabulous addition. Can I add another plea for being able to download the original image?

Interestingly, the new pop-up/larger image button on the main page works fine for me, but the Change Cover page still doesn't work...

>99 Ape:

Sorry. I'll look into it soon.

But being able to see a list of the books that have low-quality covers would make a lot of stuff easier.

See new feature here!
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138204

>64 SilentInAWay:
http://www.librarything.com/work/11862/covers/10598154 works perfect; my compliments, bravo!!
http://www.librarything.nl/work/11862/covers/10598154: I do not see a possibility to get the information.
I this because Ï have not enough patience or does this system only works on the .com site?

So why, after being Amazon free for a long time and free last month, do I now have 24 default covers listed as Amazon?
All 24 were entered Jan through September, 2008.
None have ISBN numbers.
I can NOT add member or Amazon covers nor see any change to my existing covers.
IE/Vista

>102 flabuckeye:

Interesting. Definite bug.

A limitation http://www.librarything.com/work/11104610/covers/46316219 as exemplified here. One cover, but is it what is wanted? The box over it obscures the information required (the title). The box over the image does not go away if so wished.

I also wish the covers didn't take so long to appear (as previously they were so quick and already there!) ... shrug, but as it seems with many advances there are steps backwards in other ways.

I noticed a default cover appearing in the blank cover on the statistics page. I never chose a blank cover. The statistics page is taking too long to load, as is the cover statistics page (even though the connection is fast), but you should be able to see it as a (1).

Overall it is very nice to be able to see the larger image, and ISBN attached to covers! Note: some people put any image on a book, though, so it may not match the ISBN. What happens for books with no ISBNs? I suppose including the year (edition) wouldn't really help due to multiple reprints and some books using the same ISBNs etc. What about the publisher?

Right, but if you then click that information box you should get to a large scale image of that cover.

If you refresh it will lose the box until you hover over it again. There seems to be a bug in that moving the mouse off the cover doesn't make the box go away.

I also noted that if I click the magnifying glass on a default cover I get a completely empty lightbox. If there isn't anything to show there probably shouldn't be an icon to click.

I'd like to bump brightcopy's suggestion of showing the ISBN on the Amazon covers. I think it might also be useful to show your current ISBN in that box so you would know whether selecting the cover would change your ISBN.

I like the intention, but not the specifics. I think it'd be confusing to show information that's not about the cover.

Instead, how about a note on the Amazon cover page indicating that choosing this cover will change your ISBN. And that note only shows up if it will actually change your ISBN.

Those who are having problems getting the feature work, it has something to do with whether or not you've clicked the "compatibility mode" icon in IE9. (The icon's up by the URL and looks like .) We're looking at the headers we send, to make sure everyone's on the same mode for us.

The large image and associated data are working fine now, but, even with the compatibility icon clicked, I still can't select an alternative cover from those displayed.

I think you need to make sure that compatibility mode is *not* on.

Thank you, jjw. Sorted!

We've fixed the problem at a deeper level, so whether you have compatibility on or off won't matter.

THANK YOU. The big cover blow-up link on work pages is FANTASTIC. The magnifying glass is pretty obvious and easy to use.

Shiny! And thank you VERY MUCH for the green border on the cover I'm using!

I have been working on my covers the last few days - great time-sink Tim thanks - and noticed a few problems. Covers that I changed, and I go to Change Covers to check the new ones are High Quality then Refresh, are still listed as small or low quality. Also the count in more Details is wrong e.g 387 covers of poor quality are just 301 when opening the list. 77 covers lists at just 50. Perhaps there is a delay on refreshing the stats?

ETA the count differs over Collections.

FYI For anyone who uses my LibraryThing Amazon Image Highlighter - I've updated it to be compatible with the change to the new amazon image urls:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/66694

Yep, it's working for me now, thanks Tim! :)

Awesome:)

Tim - did you see the bug with using the https site? http://www.librarything.com/topic/138281 - nothing shows for the cover, and there's a 1x1 surrounded by a green square in Potential Covers. The same page served through http works fine.

Got that one, thanks.

New feature: Cover flagging.
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138519

I've tried to upload a cover today with "Or grab one from the web" and later uploading it from my PC but it shows only a blank 1x1 square surrounded by a green square. I didn't use https, I used the normal http address.
Worked fine for me yesterday.

Tried a second one, same thing. Doesn't show a cover even if it seemed it has uploaded it. :((

*edit*: Plus, just when I added a new book and said "Choose a cover" (that was already uploaded) it shows the cover at the right side of my browser but in the middle, where I am to choose the cover, it shows the blank square with the green square around it (Member uploaded pic).
Yet, when chosen blindly it's there after changing to the pic.

Something is really off with your site today regarding the covers.

http://www.librarything.com/work/5316745/covers/85725197
Even though I uploaded my own scanned cover, twice, it is not showing.
The amazon cover that is showing does not belong with the book either.

https://www.librarything.com/work/806179/covers/79858274
Another example, six white blanks.

And apparently author picture upload is down now too : http://www.librarything.com/topic/138524

I'm missing lots of covers

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mysterymax

Yep, tons of member uploaded covers are just plain white. Amazon covers are fine though, from what I've seen.

A total disaster... All my uploaded covers have disappeared

update:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/138520#3443807

Sounds to me like nothing is being lost; they're just having problems with the smaller covers they generate from your full sized one.

Brian fixed it. As he wrote, the cache file filled up—as regards file count anyway.

Hmm. Well I am still showing a blank, white box on my Home page for a High Quality I just recalculated. But perhaps that is related to Tim's "rootling" around for other cover bugs?

Ironically, it stopped working again right about the time Tim posted that it was fixed. :P

Feeling like a failure with the new revisions for covers. Actually, I have added and upgraded a few but this morning I have not been able to upload two images from my computer file (has never been an issue in the past) for two books added. Oddly, sometimes it will appear and then it will disappear and then just a blank box with green edges appears. I am the only one with the two books in question so there are no other images to be found on this site or through other sites. Am I doing something wrong?

Just noted all of the most recent messages and it now appears to be an issue with LT site.

Don't panic. Cover upload is experiencing some nasty bug at the moment : http://www.librarything.com/topic/138524

Brian writes that there's a removal process that's running a very close race with the automatic addition of new sizes of covers. We'll see who wins this footrace.

I may need to take the site down briefly, to give the process more power and less competition.

Everything went back to normal. Thanks

No more issues with covers for me! Thanks for fast action.

Thanks. Sorry for the hiccup.

> 140

Have you tried breathing into a brown paper bag?

>141 lilithcat:

I prefer the method where you drink from the other side of a teacup.

The tablespoon of sugar approach?

"Cover information" is so disappointing, because I would really like it to include credits and other notes ... i.e., "cover illustrator"; "cover designer"; "notes" - for cover models, etc. Linked into the cover-tagging-data thing that was running way back when ....

@143/4: I can actually drink from the opposite side of a cup, but it's the tablespoon of sugar that works for me.

@ #108: Instead, how about a note on the Amazon cover page indicating that choosing this cover will change your ISBN. And that note only shows up if it will actually change your ISBN.

Wait, say what? I must've missed this effect..

When/why does your book's ISBN change when you change an Amazon cover?

In order to display an Amazon cover, LT sends a request with an ISBN attached and Amazon sends back the image that belongs to that ISBN (in their records). Theoretically, if you pick the cover that's actually attached to your book, either you have no ISBN (and Amazon's record of the ISBN is then attached) or the ISBN you already have matches what Amazon has (but you still get the popup saying your ISBN will change...which is annoying, but better than the reverse, I guess - change with no warning). The "theoretically" part is where publishers change things - it _should_ never be a new ISBN without a change of cover, but given some of the other ways ISBNs are abused, I wouldn't completely trust that.

So any time you pick an Amazon cover for a book of yours, the ISBN in your book record will afterward match what Amazon has for that cover - it has to, if LT is going to ask Amazon to send that cover over for that book. This is one of the reasons some of us are trying to not use any Amazon covers in our catalogs, only member-uploaded (which frequently means uploading the cover yourself, when there isn't a correct member-uploaded yet).

> 148: But, as said, it will only change your ISBN info if it's different than that which Amazon has. But this is one of the reasons why I try to avoid Amazon provided covers.

The other is that Amazon can change the cover attached to the ISBN. It happens in real life: publishers give a work a different cover without necessarily changing the ISBN. So I can understand the practice on Amazon, which is there to sell books. But I don't want any of that in my catalogue.

OK. I was thinking of a situation where my cover isn't uploaded yet, but was one of the Amazon covers, or closely resembled one, and I'd pick that one, and all of a sudden without me realising my edition's ISBN would change. That'd be WRONG.

Good to know. I tend to scan my own covers lately too.

#149: it _should_ never be a new ISBN without a change of cover

Why not? The barcode and the ISBN printed on it have to change, but if a bunch of copies of a British book are printed locally in the US or Australia, I don't see why they couldn't reuse the British cover.

> 151: Yes, that can happen.

> 152: Yes. For example in Belgium it "often" happens that exhibition catalogues get published in multiple languages but with the exact same cover (because that country has three official languages).

Examples : http://www.librarything.com/work/4690044/editions/25464168 and http://www.librarything.com/work/10725308/editions/25464585

Having one cover for them all saves the museum some money.

Going back to the question of putting some info in the box for Amazon covers:

I notice the image that comes up on the left could be checked to see what the size is after loading via img.height and img.width. At least it worked in both FF and Chrome when I tried it. You'd probably need an javascript hook in there to do it when the image finishes loading. Something like:

var img = document.createElement('img');
img.addEventListener('load', function () {
console.log('load:', img.width, img.height);
});
img.setAttribute('src', 'http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/185723135X.01._SX450_SY635_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg');

With "attachEvent('onload'" for IE (or just use your scripts event abstraction layer).

It probably wouldn't work EVERYWHERE but you could make it so that when it doesn't it just degrades to not showing it (the current status quo).

I think this would be worth it because to me one of the most important parts of an image is the original size (along with the quality and "is it the right image for my book"). I feel hobbled by not being able to tell this on the amazon ones.

Also, you could still put the nice stuff like the # of times the image is used on the work and "Used for ISBN" (just to make it obvious which ISBN this cover is tied to).

On another topic, I still think you could totally do the prev/next buttons with the clever bit of javascript I outlined in #62.

Finally, I really wish there was an option to be able to view the original image stored with LT (talking about non-amazon here). An image says "Original size: 690 x 1084" and the little gray text says "high quality
690x1084", but I can only ever see the 404x635 size. Why can't I see the 690x1084 one so I can download it and crop it if I need to? Is it a worry about copyright?

I've created a greasemonkey script with some extensive modification to the cover image popup:

Discussion about it here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/152680

On all cover images it would be nice if we could scroll down the enlarged image to read the text at the bottom.

#157 by @MarthaJeanne> Is that directed at me or at Tim? If me, pop on over to http://www.librarything.com/topic/152680 if you don't mind and continue this there. Don't want to clutter up Tim's thread with support for my code.

At Tim. I don't use your things. Not comfortable enough with fiddling at the computer.

I haven't used the @brightcopy scripts in a while. However, I decided to do so yesterday and installed Tampermonkey (for scripts) and Stylish (for themes) on Chrome on my Mac and installed 6 or 8 of the scripts without incident. I have found no conflicts so far and the functional and structural enhancements are a big help.

James

Can you rephrase?

Who, Me? When I click on the Information I get a larger image of the top of the book cover, but I can't scroll down, for example if what I want is to read the author's name that is down there but not legible in the small version. This information can be important in combining.

So no scroll bars appear? What browser are you on?

Firefox 3.6.6

#164 by @MarthaJeanne> On a related note, you should really update your browser to the newest Firefox. Your version was released almost three years ago. Aside from all the functionality increases, there are all kinds of security holes that have been found and fixed since then. Using that version puts you at much higher risk of getting a virus.

It may or may not be causing your problem (I can't seem to reproduce it in FF 20). But regardless it may cause much bigger problems so I'm just trying to keep you safe. :)

@JBD1 can you Browserstack this? If it's just 3.6.6 I'm afraid MJ is going to have to do as BC suggests…

Re. #164: "Firefox 3.6.6"

Wow ... given that the current release is 20.0 I was wondering just how old Firefox 3.6.6 was! It turns out (see this) that there was a change in their numbering starting with 4.0 (mid-2011), with lots of frequent version updates. Sill, why use a 3-year (and 17-version)-old release of FF?

 

#167 by @BTRIPP> Oh, I can understand the reluctance. I stayed on 3.6.whatever for longer than I probably should have. There's always the annoyance of addons breaking from version to version. And something they change the interface and that can be a hassle. But 3 years is just too long to be safe when it comes to browsers.

brightcopy (how do you get those to turn to links - it used to be triple square brackets but that's not working) ... a year or so I just bit the bullet and let Mozilla push updates when they're ready ... I haven't had any noticeable problems that I could attribute to this, but I do from time to time have "Huh - where did that come from?" moments when they tweak the UI.

how do you get those to turn to links

Put an @ sign in front of the name.