The discussion revolves around enabling the pasting of GIFs into the Discourse composer by using their source URL instead of a static image. Falco explains that while browsers copy GIFs as both a static image and an HTML img tag, Discourse currently uploads the static image, losing animation. He proposes a solution via a PR (#16204) to paste the GIF URL directly, preserving animation. Danielabc initially asks for clarification on PRs, and JammyDodger clarifies that the change is already live in the latest version. Danielabc confirms the update works well, praising the improved usability and ability to use GIFs from other users. PaulinaMX also supports the change with a GIF example.
If you right click and select “Copy Image” on a GIF you found on the internet with your browser, your clipboard will be populated with two elements:
A static PNG image of the GIF as image/png
An HTML img tag with the GIF source as text/html
For most use cases, it’s a far better user experience to pick the option 1 in the clipboard and upload that image right away in the composer, so that is what we always do. However, for animated GIFs we may want to invert the logic and paste the image source address, so the animation isn’t completely lost.
Example of the contents in the clipboard JS event after copying a random GIF from Google Image Search:
Something like a “change proposal.” When you submit a change to software code so that it includes a new feature or fixes a bug.
In this case, I wrote this functionality and submitted it as a PR, which is reviewed by other colleagues at the company and finally incorporated into the software.
I tested it here and YOU ARE TO BE CONGRATULATED! This change greatly improved the usability of the forum, now members can even use gifs uploaded by other members on the forum itself! It looks SENSATIONAL! (Before it didn’t work, it was a frozen image lol) Thank you very much!
