This topic lists Image Uploader™ features. For convenience they are grouped into categories.

• User Interface Features
  • Versatile User Interface
  • Closely Integrated with Target Platform
• Customization Features
  • Configurable Behavior
  • Customizable Appearance
  • International Languages Support
• Upload Features
• Image Processing Features
• Platform Availability
  • Client Side
  • Server Platform

• User Interface Features

Versatile User Interface

All Image Uploader™ features are intended to make uploads convenient and friendly even for inexperienced users.

• Native look-and-feel for Vista
• Easy navigation through the folders on the user's computer.
• High level of accessibility. All operations can be carried out using the keyboard.
• Thumbnails for image files of the following formats are displayed:
  • JPEG (EXIF thumbnail is extracted if possible - extremely fast)
  • TIFF (first page of a multipage TIFF)
  • GIF (first frame of an animated GIF)
  • PNG
  • BMP
  • WBMP
  • PSD
  • PCX
• Standard icons are displayed for non-images.
• Files can be browsed in several view modes:
  • Thumbnails
  • Detailed list
  • Simple list
  • Icons
  • Advanced detailed list (thumbnails + details)
• Files can be re-arranged in the upload list using the drag-and-drop operation or using some criteria such as file name, size, date, etc.
• Both files and folders can be uploaded.
• Automatically track changes in the file system. Image Uploader™ automatically refreshes when:
  • File is added to a folder currently browsed by the user.
  • Removable device (such as USB drive, digital camera, etc) is plugged into the computer.
• Several layouts of Image Uploader™ panes - select one that suits the most. Panes may have custom background images.
• Drag-and-drop operation support. In particular, it is possible to select files for the upload by dragging them from Windows Explorer.
• Both single and multiple selection is supported.
• Image rotating with a single click.
• Large preview of images.
• Built-in description editor for each file.
• Quality meter that indicates which print formats the photo can be printed with.
• You can upload bitmap currently found in the system clipboard (useful when uploading screenshots).

Closely Integrated with Target Platform

Image Uploader™ is designed to be as close to the platform it is running as possible.

• Standard look and feel of Image Uploader™ is native to the target platform. In other words, on Windows it looks like Windows application, on Mac it looks like Mac application, etc. Completely native look-and-feel on Vista.
• Both the ActiveX and the Java versions use XP styles when loaded on Windows XP.
• Image Uploader follows all Windows XP SP2 compatibility guidelines.
• Image Uploader does not suffer from the ActiveX activation problem caused by the Internet Explorer security update 912945.

• Customization Features

Configurable Behavior

Image Uploader™ is designed to be flexible enough for any kinds of applications. Depending on your needs, you can enable or disable some specific features. For example, you can configure whether to:

• Instant Upload.The upload can start immediately after the file is selected for upload.
• Allow users to select a view mode.
• Display specific buttons.
• Enable users to rotate images or edit descriptions.
• Redirect the user to another page after the upload.
• Show quality meter.
• Display specific error messages.
• Delete files after upload.
• Display the progress dialog.
• ...and many more.

Furthermore, you can configure restrictions for files the user uploads:

• Maximum total files size.
• Maximum or minimum number of files to be uploaded.
• Maximum or minimum size of a single file.
• Maximum or minimum image dimensions.
• File mask for allowed and denied file names.
• CMYK images can be disallowed for uploads.

Customizable Appearance

The appearance of Image Uploader™ is essentially customizable. You can adjust it to fit the look and feel of your website. You can do it using the following features:

• Customizable colors of all Image Uploader™ elements.
• Customizable background images for panes.
• Customizable buttons and icons. Each button or color can be replaced by the specified set of images (each image for each button state). Also, each button can be hidden.
• Customizable splitter and border style.
• Customizable thumbnail styles—colors, borders, and so on. Each thumbnail can be customized separately.
• Rich client-side API that enables to bring certain parts of Image Uploader™ to the HTML code. This way you can noticeably modify the layout. For example:
  • Place buttons and progress bar outside of Image Uploader™.
  • Put the pane with files selected for the upload separately from Image Uploader™.
  • Organize your own upload list with custom data for each file, etc.
  • Use separate folder navigation controls to allow users to select a folder to upload files from.

International Languages Support

Image Uploader™ user interface is easy to translate into other languages. Each piece of text displayed in Image Uploader™ can be modified. What's great about it is that it allows for modifying the language on-the-fly, which is very important for globally-targeted multilingual websites.

There are virtually no limitations when it comes to languages, locales and encondings: even East Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) languages are fully supported.

Moreover, Image Uploader™ already includes translations into several languages. They are

• Chinese (simplified)
• Chinese (traditional)
• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Norwegian
• Russian
• Swedish
• Ukrainian

Of course, you may add any other locale if you wish.

• Upload Features

Main purpose of Image Uploader™ is to transfer files from the client machine to the server in a quick and efficient manner. To this end, Image Uploader™ delivers the following upload-related features:

• Upload of any kind of files without any limitations for their type or size (unless you configure file restrictions).
• ZIP compression of files
• Uploads of entire folders including subfolders. Here, the folder structure can be retained server-side.
• Uploading unlimited number of resized copies of an image (either accompanied by the original file or not).
  IMPORTANT This feature dramatically increases the upload speed when you need to upload a downsized image instead of a large photo.
• Sending additional information along with files in an attached HTML form.
• Automatic upload resuming if the upload has been interrupted. Attempts count and intervals are configurable.
• Progress dialog with customizable statistics is displayed during the upload process.
• Full control of the upload process through JavaScript.
• Ability to send files in several concurrent upload threads.
• Ability to upload files to multiple servers or pages within the same upload session (e.g. if balancing servers are used).
• Estimation of the remaining upload time.
• Uploading hash value for each file which allows for server-side integrity checks.
• Automatic redirection to specified page upon the upload completion.
• File uploads in separate requests. This means, if the upload process interrupts, the user will be able to resume it. They will not have to upload files that have been already uploaded.
• Memory-friendly behavior regardless to the number of files or their size.

• Image Processing Features

Although Image Uploader™ is able to upload any kind of files, it implements a number of features that make it a largely image-oriented solution:

• Support of the following image formats:
  • JPEG (EXIF thumbnail is extracted if possible - extremely fast)
  • TIFF
  • GIF
  • PNG
  • BMP
  • WBMP
  • PSD
  • PCX
• Ability to generate unlimited number of thumbnails per image uploaded to the server on the client side.
• Client-side image rotation. Lossless JPEG rotation is used whenever possible.
• Ability to put a text or image watermark over images uploaded to the server. You can configure size, font, color, opacity, position, background color, and some other settings for the watermark text and\or image.
• Handling EXIF and IPTC fields.
• Photos can be automatically rotated if they have wrong orientation (based on EXIF information stored in the photo).

• Platform Availability

Client Side

Image Uploader™ consists of an ActiveX control and a Java applet. The helper JavaScript automatically detects the browser and loads either the ActiveX or the Java version. This way a variety of modern browsers and operating systems are supported.

Supported operating systems:

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• Mac OS X 10.3 or later
• Linux

• Internet Explorer 5.x or later (Windows)
• Mozilla-based browsers (Windows, Linux, Mac)
• Safari (Mac)
• Konqueror (Linux) Linux)
• Limited support of Opera versions after 9

The following browsers are not supported:

• Internet Explorer for Mac

Server Platform

Aurigma Image Uploader™ Dual is a purely client-side application, and therefore it does not depend on the server platform. It uploads data in the multipart/form-data format (see RFC 1867). It means that any HTTP-compliant server platform is able to process uploaded files.
You can configure POST request format to seamlessly integrate Image Uploader with CMS, blogging systems, etc.

Image Uploader™ is shipped with a number of demo applications written for different server platforms, namely:

• ASP.NET (VB.NET and C#; Mono-compatible)
• ASP
• PHP
• JSP
• ColdFusion
• Perl
• Python
• Ruby

These demo applications are distributed with the source code. They can be used as great starter kits. You will find code examples or even reusable blocks of code for most typical cases. The following applications are available:

• Basic Demo
• User Quota Demo
• Optimized Upload Demo
• Photo Order Demo
• Localization Demo
• Concurrent Upload Demo
• Open File Dialog Demo
• Multiple Descriptions Demo
• Robust Upload Demo
• Watermark Demo
• Server Imaging Demo