Very large gifs should be shown as previews

[lidel (Marcin Rataj)]

@Maestra_Powers

gfycat have API and it’s possible to send all gifs from post to their service and change them into video-links automatically

My thoughts on gfycat from the other thread:

Should Discourse convert GIFs to mp4 video files?

Some communities would benefit from such functionality. Especially ones with download remote images to local setting enabled , but faster page loads alone is a good reason to think about it. Quick hack would be to just use gfycat.com API. Assuming one does not mirror remote images, I think it is achievable even with pure Javascript which you can add via /admin/customize/css_html. Lets say JS iterates over posts and if it finds .gif image. HTTP GET is performed: http://upl…

IMVHO on-the-fly conversion that requires interaction with third party service (gfycat) should be an external plugin or a custom JS.

But I think that default Discourse install could easily ship with automatic onebox for already existing Gfycat links, just like it already does for GIFV from Imgur.

So this:

http://gfycat.com/AggressiveClosedEstuarinecrocodile

could be easily oneboxed into a looped <video> tag with mp4/webm sources:

<video autoplay="autoplay" muted="muted" preload="auto" loop="loop"  poster="//thumbs.gfycat.com/AggressiveClosedEstuarinecrocodile-poster.jpg">
    <source src="//fat.gfycat.com/AggressiveClosedEstuarinecrocodile.webm" type="video/webm">
    <source src="//fat.gfycat.com/AggressiveClosedEstuarinecrocodile.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>