Old Forum Archive / Old Images.

[Chief]

Hi,
Is the old forum still in existence so that it could be linked to as an archive for threads with old image attachments in?

As an example, this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=63346

had some very useful images in it, none of which now work.

They used to be easily found through google image search, but no longer come up in the search results even when using "site:" searches etc. to limit results.

I know the old forums were getting somewhat unstable, but as a read only archive that's accessible most of the time it may still be of benefit to people.

Thanks

[simmitc]

Technically there is no old forum, everything was migrated to this forum; but I believe that the images are safe, and I will be looking at how to restore them when the weather changes and forces me back indoors.

When the forum was first established 20+ years ago, the images worked in a different way to how they do now. Ab external contractor updated the board at some point, and somehow managed to unlink lots of photos - over 1,000 However, they are in a folder on our server. In the last migration when we moved from the other external contractor, they assured me that some code that accessed some other photos would work, but it has become apparent that there may be some more work to do with that, and it is being investigated. I do have a list of topics with broken photo links, and am trying to match those to the photos that we do have; but realistically this is a slow process that will take some time. However, if there are specific topics that are viewed as a higher priority then I can try to look at those first, just let me know what they are.

[Chief]

I don't know if there is a way to regex update all the php table entries in phpMyAdmin (or equivalent) or whether you would risk trying exporting the database and then use commandline tools to find/replace all references to http://mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php to https://board.mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php and then re-importing, or maybe a simple domain redirect for that specific page, but I discovered the following:

If you use web inspector to edit the source manually, and replace the image links with the above, the images load albeit contained round the word:

[frame] [/frame] (modified with a smiley as there's a 5 link maximum limit in posts )

So while still ugly looking in regards to the frame words still being there, they do at least have working images that way.

The reason I'm suggesting this is because I discovered that the images listed on threads that show as [frame]image[/frame] can actually still be accessed, here is an example of viewing the image from the Alternator Wiring Diagram in the Electrical forums' stickied threads (thread ID: 39514) (removed direct link due to post links limit).

1) Right click the word 'image' - unless as with KeithL's browser you have the broken image icon to the left of the word, in which case right click it:

mmoc1.jpg (25.88 KiB) Viewed 3051 times

2) Choose to either open the image in a new tab or copy image link.

3) Edit the url to add the word board. before mmoc
e.g https://mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php?src=1308336970_2830 -to- https://board.mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php?src=1308336970_2830

4) Then just load the modified url:


A bit of a slow method, but at least it makes them viewable with a small amount of effort.

Alternatively, in most browsers you can inspect the page (as mentioned at the top of the page usually F12 or right click and then 'Inspect' from the menu as shown in KeithL's image below).

Tthen do a find/replace and edit the urls that way, of course these changes aren't saved on closing the page/tab down.

However there's no need to reload the page you're modifying this way as the changes are instantly shown on the page.

[KeithL]

That's interesting. If I right click on the word 'Image' I don't get the options you do. What browser are you using?

[Chief]

I'm using Firefox, latest version.

In your case, you actually have the broken image symbol showing to the left of the word 'image', so you should be able to right click that and get similar right click menu options.

I've updated my previous thread accordingly to take this into account.

[KeithL]

I've just tried it in Firefox and I get the menu you got, but not with Chrome. Chrome obviously behaves differently, or something is configured differently.

[simmitc]

On Chrome, I see something like this:

Chrome1.png (3.65 KiB) Viewed 3003 times

I right click on the little icon between frame and image, and get the menu:

Chrome2.png (10.55 KiB) Viewed 3003 times

which allows me to open the image using the trick suggested by Chief. This is a really good "hack" and I shall investigate further as to whether I can do a bulk replace without breaking anything else in the process - I do have a test database .

[Chief]

CAUTION: This method will break the ability to add attachments to a thread - so you need to disable the extension if wishing to add attachments when posting. - or alternatively, have it disabled until you go on a thread that requires it being enabled

And as an even easier temporary method if you don't mind using browser add-ons/extensions:

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... oxreplace/
Chrome, Chromium & Edge: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... obpnmgklim

Set the extension to apply an automatic rule of replacing all instances of:

http://mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php
-with-
https://board.mmoc.org.uk/mbimage.php
(note: if both the above urls are identical, you know the extension is working ).

And then every thread you go on will automatically load the images.

Here are the settings for Foxreplace to give you an idea of what options would need to be set , also note that it is set to affect HTML inner (input) and outer (output):

FR1.jpg (25.53 KiB) Viewed 2975 times

FR2.jpg (75.46 KiB) Viewed 2975 times

(slightly off topic, but I did notice looking at old threads that links to other posts are broken on older threads - nothing to do with the image replacement, just they don't redirect to the new forums - e.g. viewtopic.php?t=30962 the last post in the thread links to an old url style).

[Chief]

This threads information has been superceded due to extension changes for Chrome etc.

The new thread can be found in Useful Tips here.