Social media sharing

theomolenaar · 2016-01-15 00:18:42

I saw an older post, but there seemed to be no conclusion.

If I want to share an album set on Facebook there is no picture.

http://test.theomolenaar.nl/destinations/asia/china/

I added the thumbnail to the root. Did not help. I googled and fout that there should be some coding in the heading of the page. But I cannot figure out where in the coding this should be set....

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1138 … ing-my-url

Sometimes (not every time) when i do a facebook share and then a pinterest share and then again a facebook share my header -identityplate.png- is in the facebook pop up.

theomolenaar · 2016-01-15 00:23:47

I could write a similar post for the gallery forum, but I'll hold that for now. The sometimes (if pinterest selects it first) the first image is shown in the facebook pop-up. Otherwise a random image is selected (but always after clicking on the pinterst share button).

rod barbee · 2016-01-15 00:28:10

have you enabled Facebook OGP in Site Info?
http://ce4.theturninggate.net/docs/doku … ia_sharing
I don't know if you need to include an image on the album set page itself though.

theomolenaar · 2016-01-15 01:10:23

Yes the facebook OGP is activated. It works also. But no image. Also not on album sets where I put an image thumbnail.jpg in the root.

rod barbee · 2016-01-15 01:20:32

but have you tried putting an image on the page itself, in the page copy perhaps? (I don't really know where facebook pulls the images from, so this is just a guess)

theomolenaar · 2016-01-15 01:38:50

Does not help

http://test.theomolenaar.nl/destinations/asia/china/

Still shows the header

Matthew · 2016-01-15 17:10:48

Facebook caches information for shared pages. A smart thing to do when you consider how much bandwidth it would consume otherwise, having to fetch an image from its original source every time that thing is shared; if an item gets shared by 1,000,000 people -- as viral things frequently are -- it would get very expensive, very quickly. You can't just paste the link into Facebook over and over again when you make changes; that doesn't work.

So when you want to update the image showing, you need to head here and fetch new scrape information for that page:
https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object/

When I do this with your link above, it now shows a woman's face.

Matthew · 2016-01-15 17:11:57

Something also looks to be amiss with your OGP information. These items are not referencing a specific image:

    <link rel="image_src" href="http://test.theomolenaar.nl/destinations/asia/china/photos/" />

    <meta property="og:image" content="http://test.theomolenaar.nl/destinations/asia/china/photos/" />

theomolenaar · 2016-01-16 01:02:06

The items are not referring to a specific image because I do not want to place a link to a single image on facebook but a link to a complete album set. Or a complete album.

I have not written the OGP information. It is generated by the CE4 script. Is there a way to influence it. ? In publisher, cause that is where the albums come from.

The OCP information points to a directory /photos/ That directory is not generated by Publisher for album sets. CE4 autoindex creates a directory photos if you export when photo's are selected. But none if you do not select photos (as I do when using it as a template) so there is a bit of an inconsistency. A direcory thumbnails is generatedby publisher for thumbnails needed for the autoindex.

However if I make a directory photos, place a picture in that and fetch new scrape information (I tried that with the /asia/india/ album set) the image is not found. So I guess pointing to the thumbnails directory would not work.

The womans face is a picture I put in the description after Rod's suggestion. It did not help then but with the new scrape Facebook gets it I guess. But I do prefer not to place images in my album sets. So it would be nice if the OCP for album sets would point to thumbnail.jpg or FB.jpg in the thumbnails directory.

rod barbee · 2016-01-16 01:33:04

The OCP information points to a directory /photos/ That directory is not generated by Publisher for album sets

Correct. Lightroom does not export photos for Album Sets, therefore, no photos/ or thumbnails/ folders are generated.

I just tried sharing one of my own album sets. I saw only the title and no image.

I then went to that link that Matt mentioned above and put the url of one of my album sets into it. I clicked the Fetch New Scape Information button. It still showed only the title.
Just for the heck of it I clicked on the other button: Show Existing Scape Information. And an image appeared!
Now, if I try sharing that album set, I get an image. Not the one I'd like to share for that page, but still.

I did try creating a photos/ folder and placing an image in that. But the image I put there is not the image appearing on the page. The image appearing on the page is somehow being taken from one of the albums within the set, because it's certainly not in the album set's thumbnails/ folder (which I created and populated so that the album set can show some random thumbnails).

Well, regardless, all my album sets now seem to be pulling images to share on Facebook.
I have no clue how Facebook works

theomolenaar · 2016-01-16 01:50:45

I tried the same. But with me FB filled the png that is the identity plate.

I dis the same with a published album. It had the same coding. And a random image from that album is taken (not what I would like).

I think itrt wouk be better if the generateed OGP information would point to a specific image. Now it points to a directory and even ik you fill an image in that direrctory nothing happens...

Matthew · 2016-01-16 12:16:19

theomolenaar wrote:

The items are not referring to a specific image because I do not want to place a link to a single image on facebook but a link to a complete album set. Or a complete album.

Every album, album set, etc. needs a representative image. That's just how it works. You can assign a representative thumbnail to your album sets via the Custom Thumbnail setting when creating an album.

theomolenaar · 2016-01-16 21:01:09

I meant that I did not want to put an image in the page copy as I had done in the China album set as an experiment.

I have used the setting 'Custom' on all album sets and then put an image in the thumbnails folder (custom thumbnails folder on albums). I liked the option of putting more than one image in there so they would change. But that leads to the incomplete OGP you mentioned.

I do not want to use any of the pictures from the albums because there rarely is a representative image that is square as needed for the layout in the index. Also facebook then applies another (16:9?) crop for the picture that is shared, what could result in odd looking cropping. I have experimented with that.

On existing album sets I can choose thumbnail.jpg in the settings (the one I uploaded). If I do this the OGP goes to....photos/thumbnail.jpg. Only the photo directory is not created. So I'd have to upload that directory separately. A bit of extra work but for album sets no problem.

That leaves the albums.

Last edited by theomolenaar (2016-01-16 22:58:10)

alfred · 2016-01-17 15:03:20

Hi there, I pull this thread up agin, because I deal witht the same problem and I do not really get the point whether there was a solution to the problem or not.
When I have one of my albums shared on Facebook that sits in an album set, then there is no thumbnail shown. I believe this is the problem that was discussed in this thread before?
When I threw the link to the album into Facebook's debugger no photo was shown. When I checked, there was nothing shown in the og:image field. But when I clicked into this field, the browser attempted to open a photo - which was correctly labeled (I mean it showed the name of the thumbnail I had selected in Publisher for this album) but it was epecting it to be in the "photos" directory of the album. I am managing my thumbnails in a seperate thumbnail album (hidden from autoindex), which works fine in publisher and on the website itself.
Now, having said all of that I have - just for curiosity - copied this thumnail into the /photos directory of the album, and now the Facebook debugger shows an image.
Am I right that there is no other way to secure a thumbnail on a Facebbok shared album other than copying the thumbnail into the photos directory?

Last edited by alfred (2016-01-17 15:19:05)

theomolenaar · 2016-02-03 18:51:28

So this problem is not solved. It is solved for the album sets. But not for the albums.

If you have iconic layouts the nicest way to make thumbnails for the index is to make custom square thumbnails and put them in the custom thumbnails directory. I got that from the documentation and it works very nicely. However that leads to the incorrect OGP information Matt mentioned.

If you select a specific image as Matt says it is used for both Facebook and as thumbnail. However I am under the impression that the thumbnail is a blow up of the thumbnail-file. Also the ratio of th FB image is not square. So selecting a square image leads to a rather bad FB layout... And otherwise a crop from a landscape image does not always looks good as iconic thumbnail.

Matthew · 2016-02-03 22:19:36

theomolenaar wrote:

... However I am under the impression that the thumbnail is a blow up of the thumbnail-file. Also the ratio of th FB image is not square. So selecting a square image leads to a rather bad FB layout... And otherwise a crop from a landscape image does not always looks good as iconic thumbnail.

I use larger thumbnails, usually 2x size, so they look nice on Retina displays. The size of the image should then also be sufficient for such purposes.

Matthew · 2016-02-04 13:13:48

Alternatively, you may need to compromise your design a bit. Facebook and Twitter both use landscape-orientation images; if social media is important to you, then you should too. Design your auto index using a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio for images.

theomolenaar · 2016-02-04 21:52:53

In my opinion these are workarounds. My thumbnails are already 368 times 552 since I use masonry layout. So I wonder if twice as big won't impact performance. And the iconic layout for the indices is very nice on mobile I must say.

Nicest would be if you could appoint a social media image separately. But that is not the case, So I guess I have to stretch the thumbnails until the smaller dimension equals the index layout. And find (or crop) a landscape image that has a usefull square crop in the center.

ps Most wordpress theme have sort of the same thing with the featured image so I have seen the problem before,

Matthew · 2016-02-04 22:07:03

1.5x makes a nice middle ground between Retina resolution and image size, I find. And if you're exporting at a Quality setting larger than 69, pull it back to 69 to save on file size.

theomolenaar · 2016-02-04 22:53:29

Ok

1.5 should sort of fit the index thumbnails to, so i'll try that.

I may have found another workaround. Because I rename files in the export put the title field in it, then changed the title field if there were illegal characters in it I noticed that the old files remain on the server and appear in the list. Maybe that is sort of an error in publisher, but I could export a high res version of the thumbnail (Square) and image (LS) in thumbnail and Photo directory. Does not have to be the same picture even I guess Just the same name. Or am I wrong/doing something illegal/taking chances. ??

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2016-01-15 00:18:42

Social media sharing

#2 2016-01-15 00:23:47

Re: Social media sharing

#3 2016-01-15 00:28:10

Re: Social media sharing

#4 2016-01-15 01:10:23

Re: Social media sharing

#5 2016-01-15 01:20:32

Re: Social media sharing

#6 2016-01-15 01:38:50

Re: Social media sharing

#7 2016-01-15 17:10:48

Re: Social media sharing

#8 2016-01-15 17:11:57

Re: Social media sharing

#9 2016-01-16 01:02:06

Re: Social media sharing

#10 2016-01-16 01:33:04

Re: Social media sharing

#11 2016-01-16 01:50:45

Re: Social media sharing

#12 2016-01-16 12:16:19

Re: Social media sharing

#13 2016-01-16 21:01:09

Re: Social media sharing

#14 2016-01-17 15:03:20

Re: Social media sharing

#15 2016-02-03 18:51:28

Re: Social media sharing

#16 2016-02-03 22:19:36

Re: Social media sharing

#17 2016-02-04 13:13:48

Re: Social media sharing

#18 2016-02-04 21:52:53

Re: Social media sharing

#19 2016-02-04 22:07:03

Re: Social media sharing

#20 2016-02-04 22:53:29

Re: Social media sharing

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