GIFs are moving to Discourse core!

[Moin]

I don’t think so. This case seems similar to image grids. On that change the warning was shown too, but this was the reply I got back then:

Automatically apply grids to image uploads

This message is displayed on all upcoming changes when they reach Stable status and we recently changed this one and some others to Stable. However per Introducing Upcoming Changes, a system to manage new features and changes to existing functionality in your community, not all upcoming changes are intended to become permanent in a sense that we remove the setting completely at the end and any logic in the code behind it. In this case, Stable means we’ve turned it on for most sites, but they …

[mcwumbly (Dave McClure)]

You should still be able to disable it via the normal site setting afterwards.

@davidb can you confirm?

Agree this wording in upcoming changes is something we should also figure out a way to make less confusing.

One thing we can try to do is make that clear in the title and description of the change itself, when it’s configurable.

[davidb]

The GIFs upcoming change is currently under a hidden site setting but I think going forward we will want to make this visible and can be enabled/disabled within the admin area.

In the meantime just keeping the upcoming change as ‘No one’ and it will be off by default in the future. No need to make any further changes on the admin side.

[one1]

@davidb

The GIFs upcoming change is currently under a hidden site setting

Yes, when I searched for enable_gifs it took me right to the upcoming changes page. It was very confusing.

The concept of the upcoming changes thing is great. Could just use a language tune up.

Thanks all!

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

In this case @davidb @mcwumbly , if the change type was site_setting_default instead of feature for enable_gifs, it wouldn’t have shown the scary permanent message. This is controlled here:

frontend/discourse/admin/components/admin-config-areas/upcoming-change-item.gjs

However I do think generally the feature type is fine for this upcoming change…so maybe we need to make this permanent notice something more explicit for upcoming changes.

Maybe will_become_permanent: true or something as extra Metadata? Not sure…

[Lilly (Lillian)]

why were we herded into using klipy instead of other options? i prefer giphy and would like to continue to use it.

the setting and interaction with the component makes this super confusing to use other options like giphy.

[David_Ghost]

I think it’s because Giphy is no longer a free option

[Lilly (Lillian)]

it’s fine now. i figured it out (thanks Moin!). i had to uninstall the discourse gif component to make the setting appear. then set the setting to no one, then re-install and re-configure the component. giphy is working again for me.

[Moin]

Glad I was able to help you. The fact that the upcoming change is hidden when the GIF theme component is installed makes this a little confusing: To use the component, you need to uninstall it, disable the upcoming change, and then reinstall it.
Were you notified about the change, or were those notifications suppressed because the upcoming change was hidden? I wonder if that results in the problem of them not knowing that they need to run the migration and get an API key.

[Shauny (Shaun Robinson)]

When applying for a KLIPY key they ask that attribution is shown, how do we add that to the popup? And how are people using it without it?

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

Oh we used to have this in the theme component but we don’t have it in core, there was a providerLogo:

The klipy one was added in FEATURE: Add Klipy as GIF API provider by xfalcox · Pull Request #107 · discourse/discourse-gifs · GitHub . @davidb was this intentional to leave this provider logo off in the core version?

[davidb]

It looks like it was missed when porting to core unfortunately, it was conditionally showing in the theme component but now we should always show it.

Added here: UX: add Klipy branding to gifs picker - Pull Request #41501 - discourse/discourse - GitHub

[davidb]

@Moin

Were you notified about the change, or were those notifications suppressed because the upcoming change was hidden? I wonder if that results in the problem of them not knowing that they need to run the migration and get an API key.

A global notice banner was recently added to the theme component so when the component is up to date it will show the banner and a link to this topic to site admins.

Since we moved the upcoming change to stable last week that banner should now appear for any site that was using the theme component so they can take any necessary actions.

@Lilly

then re-install and re-configure the component. giphy is working again for me

Just a heads up that it might be worth forking the repo if you really want to keep using giphy as we are planning to archive it in the near future.

[Eviepayne (vladtheimplier)]

I’m not sure the attribution requirements were actually read even. The mark is only 1 attribution and it’s optional:

https://docs.klipy.com/attribution

It also looks like this doesn’t have a way to turn it off if we don’t feel like setting up the API.

[fearlessfrog]

We are self hosted and use Giphy in the old theme component. We disabled that and now only see Klipy API options. Is there a way for us to enter our old Giphy key and use that as a provider or do we have to use Klipy now?

EDIT: It seems not, so we’re at the mercy of the verification video via Klipy.

[Lilly (Lillian)]

hi @fearlessfrog
i had the same issue - to continue to use giphy, you need to delete the theme component completely (disabling isn’t enough), then set the admin -> upcoming changes → enable gifs setting to “no one”. then re-install a fork of the component again to use it - team is archiving their version soon. i have a fork of the component here you can use.

GitHub - Lillinator/discourse-gifs

uninstall (delete) old component:

disable the setting in admin-upcoming changes

i really don’t know why the team did it this way, but it is horribly confusing and took me a while to figure it out (thanks to Moin’s explanation) - it is very unfriendly to self-hosters. at some point i will probably just re-build the fork as my own component without the other unnecessary fields and files, but i will set up an admin banner message when that happens.

@davidb

Just a heads up that it might be worth forking the repo if you really want to keep using giphy as we are planning to archive it in the near future.

note to team: the Discourse Gifs component is still listed in default component install page:

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

@Lilly

note to team: the Discourse Gifs component is still listed in default component install page:

Thanks, @davidb can you please remove this option?

@Lilly

i really don’t know why the team did it this way, but it is horribly confusing and took me a while to figure it out (thanks to Moin’s explanation) - it is very unfriendly to self-hosters.

We did it this way because it optimises for our hosted customers’ setups, where we are manually going in and uninstalling the old gif component for them. We didn’t anticipate that people would want to keep using Giphy, since their pricing was announced to be so high, which is the reason we added Klipy to the theme component in the first place.

Next time we can add a bit more info to OP for self-hosters who want to keep using the old component, we just assumed here self-hosters would move to Klipy too:

@davidb

Self-hosted customers can run the following rake task to migrate your existing settings across to Klipy: rake themes:discourse_gifs:migrate. Please consult Klipy’s API documentation to get a key.

@one1

The concept of the upcoming changes thing is great. Could just use a language tune up.

We will definitely think of a way to make this less confusing and surprising, I’ve asked David B to open up an internal topic and I will work on it sometime in the near future.

[Lilly (Lillian)]

@martin

We didn’t anticipate that people would want to keep using Giphy, since their pricing was announced to be so high, which is the reason we added Klipy to the theme component in the first place.

what i don’t get is i’m still using my same old free giphy api with no issues? i just logged into the giphy developer dashboard and there it is. what are these charges that i am supposed to be incurring? i have never had to input a credit card or pay anything and i still don’t see where i have to now - it looks like it always has to me. the forum i have it linked to doesn’t seem to get rate limited and we tend to use it a lot

ok, so apparently it works just fine for up to 100 api calls per hour, which is perfectly fine i would think for many self-hosters.

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

@Lilly

ok, so apparently it works just fine for up to 100 api calls per hour, which is perfectly fine i would think for many self-hosters.

Yep for sure, the cost would be prohibitive on our hosting though considering we want gifs to be a core feature.

[davidb]

@Eviepayne

I’m not sure the attribution requirements were actually read even. The mark is only 1 attribution and it’s optional

I think the theme component only had the powered by Klipy (from this list) but we probably should have been more careful with checking against the official website when porting to core — added the main required one in UX: add placeholder text for Klipy gifs search - Pull Request #41651 - discourse/discourse - GitHub

@martin

Thanks, @davidb can you please remove this option?

Done — added in UX: remove gifs from popular theme components - Pull Request #41649 - discourse/discourse - GitHub

@martin

We will definitely think of a way to make this less confusing and surprising, I’ve asked David B to open up an internal topic and I will work on it sometime in the near future.

We’ve updated the logic around how this warning appears. Should now be resolved in DEV: add upcoming change permanent banner metadata - Pull Request #41700 - discourse/discourse - GitHub

These issues should now be resolved for sites running the latest version of Discourse.