New Add Cover options

I don't see any mention of this new feature, so I dunno if it's been released into the wild early, or...? Anyway, when clicking the "Add a Cover" button, a new interface pops up with some editing tools, etc. All good, but when I hit "Save", it does a "Upload Complete" (or whatever) but then... that's it. The page doesn't refresh, new covers don't appear. A manual refresh fixes all of this, but it's not intuitive, especially since the old method did include an automatic refresh afterwards.

One feature request, if possible: I've always thought it would be nice if the upload interface could show the image resolution up front? Then one could cancel the upload if the resolution was lower than desired.

Thanks. I'm soft launching that right now and working out any kinks in the process before announcing it. It's a massive code change involving hundreds of source files...so I figured there might be some issues.

I'll take a look at what you're seeing.

>2 conceptDawg: Thanks! I just saw this feature and love it! And thank to @saltmanz for heads up about refreshing page.

>1 saltmanz: Ok. Those fixes are going out. It will reload that page again now.
I also added the original image dimensions to the top of the editor title bar when you upload an image.

Give it a couple of minutes for the updates to go through the system.

You may also notice if you click the enlarge option on the cover of one of your book pages you should now get an option to edit covers you've already uploaded. Which means that you can fix older covers that might need some editing.

>2 conceptDawg: Thank you! Big help, huge!

>5 conceptDawg: Even if someone besides you had used the cover?

>7 AnnieMod: Yes. For now. We'll see how that goes. My guess is that it in real world use it will be used for "good" and people will improve them.

We'll have a full talk post on all of the new features (maybe this evening, maybe in the morning).

>8 conceptDawg: I am not worried about people changing with nefarious intents.

But until now, if you chose a member cover, it never changed. Now it can. So if one cares what cover they have, they need to always upload their own I guess.

This seems to have broken the new Add image to Talk feature. When I try to add an image to Talk, the process goes all wrong. The image is added to a gallery but not really, and definitely not to the Talk topic which is closed without saving.

>11 anglemark: Hm. I'll investigate.

ETA: this should be fixed now. (after a few minutes for it to propagate)

Would it be feasible to make it so that when a cover is being used by others, doing edits makes a new additional image in the gallery rather than replacing it? Thus other members don't get affected by any editing. Choosing a cover should be a once-thing that sticks unless you actively change it. I'd find it frustrating if a well-intentioned user edited what at present does represent my book, without me having a say (eg. they darken their image because they think it looks too washed out, but I chose that original image because my book actually looked like that due to sunbleached, etc.).

>13 Nevov: "Choosing a cover should be a once-thing that sticks unless you actively change it."

I agree.

>13 Nevov: Wholeheartedly agree. Allowing changes to be made to covers others are using is a nightmare.

>13 Nevov: >14 ocrhdlg: >15 PawsforThought: That's a possibility, but I must remind you that most people use Amazon covers for their books and those change all the time. :)
But yes, it's a possibility. I'll look into it.

>16 conceptDawg: I must remind you that most people use Amazon covers for their books and those change all the time.

Yes, and I originally used Amazon covers because I didn't know better and that was the default I ended up with! :-p There were no warnings about Amazon covers back then.... To change them all now would be a major project for me, so I haven't fixed them all -- but I don't use Amazon covers for anything new; if the only available cover for a book is from Amazon, and it's "right," I'll grab a copy and re-upload. So I agree with >13 Nevov: et al: Once a person picks a cover from a non-Amazon source, that cover needs to stay. Monster of vanity and arrogance that I am, I will grant you the option to implement that however you like. :-)

>17 waltzmn: Seconded. If I'm using any Amazon covers, it's an oversight.

That issue aside, I am very excited overall about the new feature--thanks for your work on it!

Yes it could be a really useful thing! I like the idea of the adjustments as sometimes the exact edition image is online but it doesn't quite match in tone/hue/brightness to the real life book so having a few dials to twizzle with may do the job nicely.

>15 PawsforThought: >16 conceptDawg: Yeah, I put far too many hours into meticulously scanning my cover collection so that my LT books could I have my covers. So the thought that someone could edit the covers of my books is low-key horrifying.

Chiming in to echo several above, re: someone else being able to change the look of the cover I chose for my works in my catalog.

and, not to beat a hardworking and creative IT expert, but ...
>16 conceptDawg: I must remind you that most people use Amazon covers for their books and those change all the time.

The whole reason I stopped using Amazon covers was because they could change! One purpose of this cataloging project is to help make it easier for our heirs to figure out what we've got and what might be special about it. Having covers that look as much as possible as our covers is one big clue.

Most of the books in my catalog with Amazon covers are ones that have only been rough-cataloged (quick found and added, with ownership and shelf Containers assigned) and then boxed (with another Container identifying the box) so that we can clear out some old bookcases and replace them with ones that work better for us.

>16 conceptDawg: I must remind you that most people use Amazon covers for their books and those change all the time. :)

And the reason people don’t use Amazon covers is because they want to make sure their covers don’t change. If covers I’m using are at risk of changing randomly, I’m going to have to make sure all my books have covers I’ve added myself - which is not only going to be an absolute pain but might even mean I can’t find covers for all the books. And it will mean more people (needlessly) uploading covers and the cover pages being even more unmanageable than they already are.

And just a tip: adding smileys after statements like that do not convey anything good. It makes you sound passive-aggressive.

>16 conceptDawg: Which is why many of us DON'T use Amazon covers.

Please don't make member covers as unreliable as Amazon covers. As a side impact, this would encourage more people to post their own duplicate covers greatly increasing the number of covers to be stored.

>20 saltmanz: Nobody will be able to edit YOUR covers. Only you.
This was a question about if you edited one of your covers that somebody else happened to be using as the cover for their book.

>12 conceptDawg: I was having trouble yesterday, but was just able to add that same image.

I think everybody jumped to a conclusion here.

Nobody can edit your covers. Only you can do that. If you have uploaded covers for your books they will not change unless YOU yourself edit them.

Now, if you're using the cover that somebody else uploaded and they edit it, then yes, the cover will change to reflect the edit—just as it could have if you had selected an Amazon cover that wasn't your specific book's cover.

But in all honesty, I just don't see this as being a major issue in real life. I don't see people editing covers just to edit them. I'm guessing that it will be editing to improve cropping on poorly taken images, improving keystoning to get a proper rectangle cover that fills the image, better contrast, etc.

Let's not make an issue where there isn't one.

>26 conceptDawg: OK. I'll just stop using member covers that somebody else has added. I didn't want covers I have chosen to change. That's why I have been only using member covers. It's what we have been telling people for years. Chose member covers and they won't change. Now we will have to say, 'If you don't want to risk your cover changing, upload your own.'

I think the good will outweigh the bad. For every cover that someone changes fundamentally, there will be ten that are improved.

But I understand those who are concerned.

Let me add my voice to the choir of people who’d really dislike if others can change the covers of my books.

(If that’s the way it’s to be, I suppose I’ll have to change all my covers to ones I’ve uploaded myself.)

By the way, there's something wonky with the upload dialog now. Not the top text, that's just the Lorax style not working everywhere, it's the same on the English side, but that Proceed tag.

>26 conceptDawg: And if they decide to remove the little circle that says a book received an award? Or to add one? Change the language the title and author are in? Editorialise the covers of the Harry Potter books in their Read But No Longer Owned collection?

>23 MarthaJeanne: 100% agreed with every word. And the note about adding duplicates was exactly what I was thinking of. It's difficult enough to navigate the covers as it is - this will make the problem way worse.

>26 conceptDawg: I think everybody jumped to a conclusion here.

Nobody can edit your covers. Only you can do that. If you have uploaded covers for your books they will not change unless YOU yourself edit them.

Now, if you're using the cover that somebody else uploaded and they edit it, then yes, the cover will change to reflect the edit—just as it could have if you had selected an Amazon cover that wasn't your specific book's cover.

But in all honesty, I just don't see this as being a major issue in real life. I don't see people editing covers just to edit them. I'm guessing that it will be editing to improve cropping on poorly taken images, improving keystoning to get a proper rectangle cover that fills the image, better contrast, etc.

Let's not make an issue where there isn't one.

No one is jumping to conclusions, we're all just commenting on the exact fact that the person who uploaded a cover that we are using can now edit it, and thus change what we thought would be permanent - the exact reason why we chose that cover. The cover I am using for my books is MY cover, even if I'm not the one who uploaded it in the first place.

You don't see this being a "major problem"? Good for you, but it's going to be a point of worry and stress for a lot of people, who are currently using the function for a reason you are now removing. And like MarthaJeanne pointed out (and I tried to), this is going to lead to a lot of people adding additional identical covers just to make sure the cover they use won't suddenly change.
I'm glad you think this will only be used for good, but we don't actually know that, and even if it is - that's still not the point. If you choose a cover you should be able to count on that cover staying as it is.

>31 Aquila: Luckily, I don't think most of those changes are possible.

The image can be cropped, flipped, rotated, or exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, tint, warmth, sharpness, clarity and haze can be adjusted.

There's plenty to make the image look weird and unlike the cover you have, but not quite so extreme as redrawing parts of it.

Many of us have switched from Amazon covers to member uploaded covers specifically because it has always been true that those would never change. This now means that covers we have carefully selected as representing our books correctly can change - member uploaded covers will now have the same problem that Amazon covers have.

It sounds like you're saying that there will be no way to select an existing cover that matches our book, and be sure that it will always match our book.

Can you implement this so that an edited cover is saved as a new cover image, leaving the original in place? And as always, if no other book is linked to that original image it will eventually be deleted, but if someone is using the original it will stay unchanged?

>26 conceptDawg:

Experienced users avoid Amazon covers because they might and do change.

If we extend that trouble to the uploaded covers of all other users, it will incentivize users to use only their own uploaded covers, which would explode the number of cover uploads. It seems like the sharing of images promoted by the current system is preferable.

>34 r.orrison: Can you implement this so that an edited cover is saved as a new cover image, leaving the original in place?
Yes, that is something we are considering. I mentioned this very early in the conversation.

>30 anglemark: screenshot and Proceed issue. Ah. That's a translation block that isn't being closed correctly. Might be in the translation, but might also be in the code. I'll take a look.
ETA: should be fixed in the next few minutes.

>26 conceptDawg: "I think everybody jumped to a conclusion here.

Nobody can edit your covers. Only you can do that. If you have uploaded covers for your books they will not change unless YOU yourself edit them."

You're the one who jumped to a conclusion. One person made that mistake and you're presuming that everyone else who commented must have made the same one. It's not a ridiculous position that if someone chooses a cover then they don't want that cover to change even to "improve" it.

>37 conceptDawg: "I mentioned this very early in the conversation."

You tacked the following on to the end of a comment where you were trying to argue the nonsensical position that because most people use Amazon covers then people who don't wouldn't mind if the covers changed.

"But yes, it's a possibility. I'll look into it."

No wonder many people didn't notice that.

Wow, lots of anger with the experienced members lately. I don't remember this from my youth. ;)

Suffice to say that I am looking into how we can allow edits and keep old covers stable. Let's just leave it at that.

Is there a way for me to see a list of all the covers I've added? Can I see how many people are using each one? (Other than visiting each cover page individually.)

That would give me an idea of how many people would be affected by any changes I might make to my covers.

ETA: Editing covers could perhaps be limited to covers used only by the member in question? The available options (cropping, saturation, rotation etc.) invite small fixes immediately after uploading, and not so much a collection-wide implementation of theme colours or whatever.

>41 Petroglyph: ...a list of all the covers I've added?
No way right now, but I'm working on that too.

Editing a cover no longer changes the cover for other people

If you edit a cover that you have uploaded and another user is using it then it creates a new copy of that cover image and assigns it to your book. The original cover is still available and still being used for the other peoples' cover images.
It is smart, so that if there are no other people using the cover it just edits the cover and doesn't create a new one.

>42 conceptDawg: Yay! Thanks!

>43 conceptDawg: Thank you. Now I don't have to worry about going through my entire catalogue to try and figure out which covers I've uploaded and not. (Although LT is claiming two covers were auto-assigned based on best guess and not chosen by me, which seems suspect - I could swear I had 100% self-chosen covers a few months ago.)

>43 conceptDawg: Like the others, let me say thank you for this.

Thanks from me too. Sorry for being grumpy.

>42 conceptDawg: I'm working on that too.

Cool!

>43 conceptDawg: That makes sense, thank you!

>43 conceptDawg: Thanks!

>42 conceptDawg: Nice!

>43 conceptDawg: Wow, fast! and Hooray!! and THANKS!!!

>43 conceptDawg:
Thanks! I've gone from grumpy to excited!

New feature/wrinkle: Edit as New Cover
Have you ever used another member's cover for your book but you wish you could improve it in some way? Now you can open the cover details popup and from there you can choose "Edit as New Cover" and it will let you edit their cover image and will save it as a new cover option and set your book to use it.

It's as if you downloaded their cover, edited it, and uploaded it as a new cover.

ETA: you can actually do this from ANY cover's detail popup on the covers page of one of your books.

New feature: Number of people using the cover
The cover details popup now shows the number of members using the cover (if it's more than 1).

>54 conceptDawg:! >55 conceptDawg: That is all very cool! Thank you.

ETA I remember once somebody messaged me that she had downloaded one of my covers, fixed it and uploaded it again, in case I wanted to use the improved version. I hadn't been quite careful enough placing the book in the scanner, and she had adjusted it by a few degrees.

>54 conceptDawg: Are these features not live yet? Nothing happens on latest FF, though the button is there

Fun note: I added this cover five minutes ago. And my first thought was that the dots in the sides and top were part of the new GUI for cropping / editing / rotating / flipping the image :-)

>57 SandraArdnas: Yes. Live, so I'll check to see what FF is doing different.

>57 SandraArdnas: >59 conceptDawg: It is working perfectly for me on Firefox, so I'm going to need more information from you. Are you possibly running any sort of network blockers? Do you see any errors from the browser?

>60 conceptDawg: working fine here. Firefox 148.0.2 (64-bit) Mozilla Firefox Snap for Ubuntu..

>60 conceptDawg: This is the error upon clicking:

Uncaught TypeError: lt.loadBundle is not a function
onclick https://www.librarything.com/work/301685/308768392#:1
308768392:1:128

ETA: No network blockers I know of, just Privacy Badger addon if that makes a difference, but it normally gives a warning when it's blocking something and why. Either way, if it is working fine for others on FF, it doesn't matter and don't waste time on it. I am personally unlikely to use the edit function unless from phone, and it works there, though it's also FF. Thanks

>62 SandraArdnas: Interesting. Seems like you aren't getting our newest JS files. (since that's an addition to our base JS file). It's probably some aggressive caching by either your browser or some point in between our servers and your computer (your ISP, network, VPN).

You can try holding the shift key down while reloading the page and see if that fixes it (that would fix it if it's your browser cache).

If it's not then I'll investigate possible other solutions.

New feature: Your Covers
If you go to your normal Gallery page there is now an option on the left to see all of your covers you have uploaded.
Link to your member covers

>63 conceptDawg: Just reloading the page solved it on laptop too. Much obliged

We need to announce things for real.

BTW: This is not all the covers you've uploaded, it's the ones since some early period when we started tracking them in the new system. We'll have to dig that up, CH.

>64 conceptDawg: Ooh, nice. I'm going to check that out when it's not past my bedtime.

>64 conceptDawg: Nice. A couple of things to add if possible: the count of added covers, and some way to expand the pagination links (like in catalogue view).

I think the gallery should show the covers at their correct aspect ratios.

We'll have an official announcement in the morning. It will talk about the features in detail, and talk about what it offers in addition to the cover editor. It was also a big feature add for us on the administration side, allowing more of our staff to correct image issues that they couldn't do before (or it took time and focus from a dev to fix them).

I see you've thought of nosy parkers (edit: the gallery link in >64 conceptDawg:):
"You can only view your own covers."
:-)

>64 conceptDawg: Not sure what’s going on, but there seems to be something wrong with the Your covers page. This is what it looks like for me at the bottom of the page.



Also, am I the only one having issues with slow loading times with this new cover/image upload system? It used to take a second or to to load a new cover (after pressing Grab), but now it’s taking a minimum of 20 seconds, sometimes close to a full minute. Seems a bit to slow.

>64 conceptDawg: Nice! The paging function is a bit weird? I'm seeing 1 to 5 and then I can press the > button and get some more, but I don't get any idea of how many pages there are (I have a lot of covers, so I'm guessing "a lot of pages", but I also don't know how many covers I'm seeing pr page here).
But very nice to see them this way. (Scaled to a fixed height and then cut to a certain width including the middle, i.e. cutting the sides if necessary).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan ?

>72 PawsforThought: Can you tell me exactly what you're doing that's taking a long time? Are you dropping an image from your computer onto the yellow box? Putting in a URL to get the image from the web?

I'm going to drop some suggested edits here:

1. It says "Uploading Image" and below that "Please wait." The "Please wait" isn't necessary.
2. All things being equal, I'd prefer the uploading image to one we use elsewhere. We have a jillion processing images now. Let's not add another.
3. Let's kill the wording underneath "Copyright statement."
4. Move the two checkboxes "Make Primary Picture" and "Allow Comments" above the text boxes.
5. When I click on perspective "Preview" is in the middle of the image; when I do anything it runs over to the right. Intentional?
6. If you click the 1:1, 5:7, 2:3 boxes a bunch of times, the selected part of the image gets smaller and smaller. This feels wrong. I think they should resize from the starting box, not from the current box.
7. If you're on a group page, like https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/382/Touchstone-Testing, there's a link on the right that's aplus sign. For some reason it adds the image to your personal gallery, not the group gallery. I'm worried there are other such cases.

What does "make primary picture" do?

I assumed it would replace my profile photo, but that doesn't make sense for cover uploading. And if I'm uploading a cover, that's the one on my book so is it making it the work's cover? That seems bad.

>76 keristars: You should no longer see that button on cover uploads. It was present for a short time today during a code transition. Your browser might have it cached. Hold the shift key down while reloading the page to force it to update all code.

Another comment on the paging function. I get 50 covers pr page, so I have about 200 pages of covers, but I can only advance by two pages at a time. I.e. it starts by showing 1,2,3,4,5 as options. clicking 5 gives me 3,4,5,6,7, clicking 7 gives me 5,6,7,8,9 , etc.

>74 conceptDawg: It's happening both with uploads from my ipad and when I'm using a URL.

>64 conceptDawg: Could we perhaps filter on which of these we're actually using? I.e. uploaded by me and currently picked and uploaded by me and not currently picked.

Also, as a private user, when viewing a cover I've uploaded on the work page (when logged in), I only see Contributed by Private user, while it should know that it's one I uploaded. Could that be changed as well?

ETA: I guess now there's a clue, in the wording of the edit button (Edit Cover vs Edit as New Cover). Still it seems it would be nice to see Contributed by You or something similar. Maybe other private members would freak out if they saw their actual username there?

>79 PawsforThought: That's likely because it is now using your local machine for downloading the image instead of our server (which is what happened before because there were no actions to be taken on it then). Your local network speed is the issue in this case.

>80 ianreads: Definitely. I don't expect that the current iteration of Your Covers will continue without some fixes/additions. It was a kind of last minute feature added because someone asked for it. We'll flesh it out a bit. These are good requests and I'll take a look at getting these changed.

Would love to be able to upload something like this and, instead of chopping a square out of the middle to make it 1:1, expand the field vertically to make it 1:1. Any chance of it?

>83 davidgn: We can do ANYTHING!
Heh. In all reality, yes. I think we could figure out something here. Let me think on it. I don't think many would use the feature, but it might be worth something.

>84 conceptDawg: Massive boon to awards and corporate authors workflows, for reasons that should be obvious. It will get a lot of use, even if not by many people.

While I'm at it, bug report:
Uploaded that as-is here:
https://www.librarything.com/award/19483
But it doesn't show up on the page. Go to add again, and it shows up as a duplicate post-upload, but still not on the award page.
Also doesn't show up here:
https://www.librarything.com/author/daummeghan
Pretty sure something got broken in the plumbing.

>81 conceptDawg: Can that really be the case when it’s happening BOTH to images I’ve uploaded from the iPad AND images pulled via URL. Doesn’t make sense to me. And my network speed it great.

>87 PawsforThought: No, it would only apply to a difference in speed for images pulled via URL. Images uploaded from your computer should be the same speed as before.

>86 davidgn: Those should be fixed now.

@bnielsen I've introduced a new pagination UI type for this since you have....checks notes...over 100 pages of covers...wait, that can't be righ— yep, that's correct. {nods an approval}
Anyway, you can jump to any page now. Let me know if there is a problem using it.

I had a look at my covers page and I found that the last seven covers on page seven are not uploaded by me.
Would that be a mistake or is there some reason for it?
Thanks

>90 victorianlibrary: Same here, except for me it’s the last 3 1/2 pages that were uploaded by someone else.

>90 victorianlibrary: Ah. It's likely just a mistake in the way I'm merging some data. I'll take a look and get it ironed out.

>90 victorianlibrary: & >91 Charon07: Should be fixed as soon as an update rolls out in the next few minutes.

>93 conceptDawg: It's fixed now, thanks!

>89 conceptDawg: {nods an approval}

:-) Thanks

Also thanks for making it much quicker to go from one end of the cover pages to the other!

Very nice! Browsing though some of the pages found a single cover with problems, so I uploaded my cover again and that fixed whatever was wrong with it. (It was the black cover for Burgess: 1985 in case anyone wants to investigate. It displayed like a white rectangle, also when I looked at the book in Your books or Edit book mode, so something must have gone wrong with it.)

@conceptDawg:
What's this, from page 19 of my covers?

>97 r.orrison: I may have wrecked your example. I just combined a lot of singletons.

>98 MarthaJeanne: No, it's still there.

The gallery is very cool! Some of the covers I uploaded 15+ years ago are used by lots of people, which is neat to see.

The gallery sends you to the work page, not the book page, so sometimes if you have multiple copies of a work, you might click through to an edition that doesn't have the cover you just clicked on.

>97 r.orrison: Fix should be out in a few minutes.

>100 Stevil2001: The links on the covers send you to your covers page for that book (if you have multiple books for that work it will only link to one of them, obviously, if they share the same cover image).

>101 conceptDawg: If you switch to a different langauge and view the covers gallery, you will see that it doesn't look quite right. In addition, the mouseover shows a tooltip that says <span id =.

And now it looks like this:

>102 conceptDawg: The links on the covers send you to your covers page for that book (if you have multiple books for that work it will only link to one of them, obviously, if they share the same cover image).

This is inconsistently true for me, but I can't figure out what makes it one way or the other. I've attached a photo where you can see the URL of the link in the bottom left, and it's the work page.

>104 anglemark: Already fixed before you mentioned it. Just hadn't been sent out yet. Thanks.
>105 Stevil2001: Interesting. I'll dig and see why that is.

We've announced the feature, so we should probably move conversation of it over to that thread:

New Image Editor Announcement
https://www.librarything.com/topic/383170

>106 conceptDawg: The issue in 104 is but not the one in >103 anglemark:.

And extended ASCII characters are replaced with HTML entities in most places, but not everywhere (interestingly):

>106 conceptDawg: If you want an example, it happens on page 2 when sorting by "Most Used": https://www.librarything.com/gallery/member/Stevil2001/yourcovers

But just for Little Lord Fauntleroy and the two covers to its right.

@ConceptDawg, the problem in >103 anglemark: persists.

>110 anglemark: and >108 anglemark: I think the change was overwritten by another change. Sigh. I'll make the changes again and push it out. Thanks for the reports.

>109 Stevil2001: Yeah. I think I've figured out why that is. Should have a fix out later this evening.

>111 conceptDawg: For me: I also want to add the ability to directly link to a specific page.

>111 conceptDawg: Let me know when you think you have corrected it. It's hard to know whether the fix failed or whether you haven't had time to work at it yet. A new bug, by the way: The page navigator dropdown at the top is blank now (but it works!).

>113 anglemark: If it works then what's the problem? That looks perfect. ;) Just kidding, I'll check on why that's cropped up.

I just added my first cover since this change. I got a message "converting HEIC image" . . . but I wasn't uploading an HEIC image . . . it's a regular jpeg.

Also, while some people might like getting the chance to edit the image here in LT, for me it just adds one more unnecessary step. And the save button was hidden below the page on my screen so I also had to scroll to find that before I could actually upload the image.

So thumbs down from me. Is there anyway to make the edit feature optional? or provide a more direct way to add images that are already just the way I want them?

I'm usually adding images that I've just scanned into my computer or pulling images from a URL that are already the form I want. Only rarely would I want/need to edit them in LT.

>113 anglemark: What browser are you using there? I can't get that to replicate here (and I even faked being your account to test it and it was ok for me).

>116 conceptDawg: Now it populates visibly, so whatever it was, that righted itself. But I can no longer use it to navigate, if I choose a page from it, it takes me to page 1. The arrows work, though.

Firefox 149.0, MacOS Tahoe 26.3.1.

>117 anglemark: Ahhh. Firefox. it has become the new Internet Explorer for bugs. Fun times.

>118 conceptDawg: Firefox. it has become the new Internet Explorer for bugs.

Is it that, or is it just that LT users have a strong tendency to be Firefox users because we're too smart to trust Google? :-) It really does seem to me that the fraction of FF users around here is much higher than the claimed numbers in the wider world.

>119 waltzmn:, that's quite possible. But it's also the buggiest of current browsers because they are going their own way. There's something to be said for that, of course.

>117 anglemark:
I've fixed the pagination issue for Firefox.
I also fixed the issue with some bad unicode characters.
I've also improved the loading speed for people with large amounts of covers (that's you). It's not instant, but it's better.

These changes should go out in the next 30 minutes, just waiting on our distribution pipeline.

>121 conceptDawg: We're getting there step by step! :)

1. Loading speed. Improved, many thanks.
2. Navigation. Functional now on both FF and Chrome.
3. Extended ASCII characters. Seems to be fixed now, many thanks!
4. Visibility of commands on navigation dropdown. Nope, white on both FF 149.0 and Chrome 146.0.7680.154, both on Windows 11 Enterprise 25H2
5. Original bug (display of number of cover users). Still not fixed:

>120 conceptDawg: Is it the buggiest? I'm no developer, but my impression has been it's treated as second class citizen by developers due to its small market share compared to Chrome and Safari. Some do not test on FF at all

>123 SandraArdnas: I think what >118 conceptDawg: means is that FireFox is the most idiosyncratic. It is most likely to respond to something unusual in an unusual way. Which, from the standpoint of a web site developer, feels like a bug. Whether it's a bug in the usual sense is a much deeper philosophical question.

I think most FF users use it for reasons not related to its actual page renderings, so their definition of bugs will be different. :-)

>124 waltzmn: Yes. That's exactly what I said. Right? :)

>122 anglemark: Thanks for the review. I'll get to the remaining items today.

>122 anglemark: Fixes have gone out for both of the remaining issues you mentioned. I hope these fix them (I can't reproduce the menu issue on my end...so it's a bit of a shot in the dark for the exact solution).

>126 conceptDawg: Success on both counts, at least on Mac OS! Your shot in the dark hit the mark. I checked both Chrome and FF. Sterling work!

Oh yay! How many times have I had to delete and reload my covers because editing on my tiny phone screen didn't look right when I looked at the saved image on my computer screen. This should be an improvement.

Now let me go and take a look at this feature ...

The zero makers on the cover galley appear to be all over the place.

Waterfox/Firefox on Android*

*Gecko 149 engine

>129 tallpaul: Ahh. more firefox. But this time on mobile. Fun times, but I'll see what I can do. It's quite possible that browser is just so non-standard in how it handles modern layout that it can't handle it. We'll see what I can workaround.

ETA: Ah. Yes. That browser doesn't handle some more modern rules of layout that use CSS nesting. We are using those in a few places on LT now since they have good support across nearly all browsers, you just happen to be using one that doesn't support it. So you may see some strange layout in places if you continue using it.

I have removed the nesting for these rules, so let me know if it looks better in a few minutes.

I'm on Firefox for Android and everything looks right for me right now so that probably fixed it.

>131 darius52: Thanks for the check.

>132 conceptDawg: Seems to work fine on Firefox on IPhone too.

By the way, why are you using 50 covers per page when the cover view rows are set to 9 on larger screens (and three, obviously)? It leaves two covers on a row of their own at the bottom which looks really weird. Why not cut it to 48 and have it look much more clean?

Because on most screens it flows to an uneven number anyway. And 50 just feels right. Or did at the time. Magic number or something.
Basically, no reason.

>133 PawsforThought: >134 conceptDawg:
48 would make it divide evenly for those whose screens give them row length 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12...
50 only gets you a perfect arrangement for 5 and 10.

So it would give you a better hit rate to go with 48, if having them tidily arrange for more people, more of the time, is desirable.

60 alternately, would perfect arrange for those who have rows of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12...

Bias disclosure: I am on a 6-length row display at the minute :-P – but I like altering the browser zoom level to get a different perspective if I need it, nice that it copes with that on the fly.

I have a question and a comment/request about the cover gallery now that I'm paying closer attention to it.

Question, is there a way (or going to be a way) to delete covers that absolutely nobody is using (aka listed as unused) and thus can't be used because they don't show up in the cover explorer for the associated work? I have 29 unused covers that only I can see, and some of them are absolutely terrible. This is mainly housekeeping but I really don't need to remember that I uploaded bad covers and then probably immediately replaced them with better ones.

Comment/request, I have uploaded covers that I am no longer using but other people are (which is neat). However, because the covers aren't associated with a work in my collections, they aren't showing any work information in the covers gallery. It would be nice to still see what work is using the cover even though it isn't a work that I have in my collection anymore (at least not with that specific cover).

>130 conceptDawg: It's still happening. I think I know what is going on though. When I filtered the covers to only unused it became clear there were many more 0 symbols than there were covers.

I have been hit many times by the covers failing to upload on Android issue. Except it's not quite true to say they fail to upload since they do create an artefact on the system: a 1x1 gif (there is an example in the image gallery on my profile page).

So I have a strong suspicion that this is a bunch of 1x1 images playing merry havoc.

>136 darius52: Ability to delete unused covers Yes. That is my plan. But I didn't want to introduce that quite yet. There are a lot of moving parts to deal with when we consider deleting covers. But it's definitely in the cards.

No work info Ah. That's a bug. I'll check on that one.

>137 tallpaul: Hm. Yeah. That might be what's happening there. I can check on that. Hopefully the delete option I just mentioned will help you clear those up if I can work it out. Until then I'll see what I can do to make those look better.

Cover deletion being further down on the roadmap makes sense, it's not a high priority need compared to the other changes that are being made.

I'm also happy to accidentally report a bug by being OCD about data management!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question?

My request concerns all instances where multiple images are inserted consecutively in the same location.
For example, here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/383661#9177331

If I want to enlarge the images, I have to open and close each one individually, and then repeat the process for the next image.

Would it be possible to add buttons that allow me to navigate to the first, previous, next, and last image?
Thank you

>140 birder4106: yes. I think we can make that happen.

>136 darius52: I've been gone for the last week on vacation but I'll get back to your requests this week.

>142 conceptDawg:

Where did you go?

>142 conceptDawg: Adding to that, is there a way to start using unused covers again? I have some covers I uploaded with 0 uses. When I go the covers page of the works they would apply to, they're (obviously?) not there.

Do I copy their (LT) url to add them again (as new)? Would that result in a copy?

Maybe they could show up on the cover explorer for the original uploader only (as long as they are not definitively deleted)?

>142 conceptDawg: Ah, that's why Tim is rebuilding the entire site, no-one there to stop his merge requests ...

>143 Petroglyph: Nothing too exciting. I have been doing a yearly golf trip with some friends for the last 20 years. This year we went to Pinehurst/Southern Pines in North Carolina. It's a nice tradition.

>144 ianreads: No. We'll see about getting those available again.

>142 conceptDawg: No worries, nothing I asked about is something I consider to be particularly urgent.

>141 conceptDawg: Thank you.

>83 davidgn: I currently use Make Square utility a lot for this. Would be great to have it as inbuilt functionality instead.

>141 conceptDawg:
As I saw in the new Responsive Shelves, my wish has come true.

Thank you so much! It's exactly as I wanted it.

I just tried adding a cover to a work I don't have but it didn't appear after uploading. So I tried again with a different image - and now there are 2 dud covers.

https://www.librarything.com/work/35541533/covers

Can I edit them/ delete them? And how do I upload a cover that works?

Safari 18.6 (18621.3.11.19.1, 18621)
macOS Ventura 13.7.8 (22H730)

ETA: I cropped the first one before uploading it, so I could edit it at that stage; I didn't edit the second one, just in case but I can't see either one.

I don't know if this is the correct place to raise this issue but as of a few hours ago, none of the covers I'm uploading for my books are working. It says they have uploaded successfully but then what appears in both the thumbnail and the image box is a small gif of a broken picture. I've tried different browsers and also tried resaving the book covers but nothing is working. I am using the web-based version of LT. I've been working on my books for a few weeks now, and this error has just started happening.

Any idea what the issue is?

>153 CatMcK: I have the same problem. I uploaded a new cover and it displayed OK in the LibraryThing editor, but after saving I just get an empty box in LibraryThing. I thought maybe it failed to interpret the PNG format, so I uploaded it in JPG, but got the same empty box. I’m using Firefox and Windows 11.

>154 jpalfrey: A URL to the example is more helpful than "uploaded a new cover" :-)

>155 bnielsen: OK, here it is: https://www.librarything.com/work/36234413/covers/312373760

>156 jpalfrey: your example posted is exactly the same issue I have. At least now I know it's not an error on my part. Thank you for providing that example.

They have a problem with the servers that store the images. It will be fixed. It's the same for me when I upload a new cover.

There's been a bug report made about uploads failing, at: https://www.librarything.com/topic/383925

>152 humouress: Ooh - I don’t know if things have been tweaked or it’s because I’m on a different device but I can see both covers now.

iPadOS 26.2
Safari

>16 conceptDawg: "Yes, and I originally used Amazon covers because I didn't know better and that was the default I ended up with! :-p There were no warnings about Amazon covers back then.... To change them all now would be a major project for me, so I haven't fixed them all -- but I don't use Amazon covers for anything new; if the only available cover for a book is from Amazon, and it's "right," I'll grab a copy and re-upload"

This was exactly my experience too and it's still a sore point.

>43 conceptDawg: It is kind of amazing it took immense user pushback for you to change your mind and fix this, while using lots of passive-aggressive smilies.

I know you're a programmer and not a customer service type, but this was treated the exact same way you did peoples' concerns about Amazon covers -- dismissively.

>162 the_red_shoes: I'm not sure what you're talking about there. It was a major infrastructural change. It wasn't that I didn't WANT to do it, just that it took time and careful consideration. And it wasn't really even POSSIBLE to do until recently when I rolled out an even bigger infrastructure change that allowed us to edit covers at all. It was over a year of work on various levels of hardware, software, cloud systems, and storage mechanisms.

Plus, there was no user pushback that I know of. Somebody asked for it and I said I'd see about adding that. A week or three later it was added...not sure what the issue is.

And the "you're a programmer" comment is a funny insult since if you met me you'd understand. I'm NOT a programmer...I just happen to have that as my job. I'm a very laid back designer that just happens to be fairly good at technical and programming tasks. And I like to use smileys because...well...I'm usually happy. And always sarcastic. :)

I've never been dismissive about Amazon covers either. When I say that I can't duplicate a bug on my end it isn't dismissive. It's me being completely transparent about the situation because it tends to get MORE information out of people.

This is a pretty ridiculous accusation if you've ever had any real interactions with me over the....ummm.....20 years I've been at LT talking to people on Talk. heh.

>163 conceptDawg: I'll second that as a long time user of the site. (Although @the_red_shoes has been here even longer.)

>162 the_red_shoes: I'm going on a limb and say you don't venture much outside LT on the web if you find the developers here objectionable for their communication with the users. Otherwise, the very fact that you have a say would be grand, let alone in direct communication with the developers. Outside the open-source community, I don't know a single one that does that and even there you politely state your request and wait to see if it gets traction. But that's just me. You obviously live in another universe.

>162 the_red_shoes: >165 SandraArdnas: etc.

I'll also back the LT developers here. Do I always agree with their decisions and priorities? No. And sometimes I feel as if my brilliant ideas are undervalued. :-p But they are here, they are generally open about what they are doing, they try to fix problems. And that for a product that is free for the users. This is extraordinarily good service. I can only think of one other product I've ever used that was comparable -- and it is defunct. Big software organizations don't work like this.

I have always been impressed with how responsive and transparent the LT team are, how openly they interact with us end users, and their humor, honesty, and humanity. I can now add how they respond with patience and aplomb to unwarranted rudeness and insult.

>166 waltzmn: Hell, I don't always agree with our decisions either. :)

In all reality, we are a TINY dev team. Most big software companies have thousands of programmers. We have.... 5. And one of those is Tim, who has to split time being the CEO (although he spends most of his time as a developer).

We also have to split our time between many projects that you might not even see, since we have an entire side of the company making data products and software for libraries (which is what keeps the lights on and keeps LT free for all).

But in the end we just try to make decisions that will make more people happy when using LT and more involved with their books.

Sometimes we hit home runs, sometimes we swing and miss. But I feel like we have a pretty good batting average. At least good enough for Major League numbers....but then again, that means we're only getting it right about 30% of the time, so I hope we're doing a lot better than that. hah!

Anyway, we really are only trying our best all of the time. Our goal is NEVER to make members angry or disappointed.

>169 conceptDawg:
>Our goal is NEVER to make members angry or disappointed.

Risky thing to write in a post that includes a baseball analogy :-P

>170 Nevov: Don't you know it. But it's my core identity, even though I'm too old and broken to play anymore. Also, Tim SPALDING is our founder...that name IS actually related to the same baseball Spalding name (his great grandfather or something, I think?).

>171 conceptDawg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooray_for_Captain_Spaulding