Quite a while ago (nearly a year ago now) I worked with a programmer to develop a "dynamic image generator" -- the original job description was as follows:
"The job is to create a C#/.Net web application (for ASP.NET 2.0 / Windows Server 2003) that will dynamically create a .png image by modifying a base image using several parameters input by the user.
I have attached a sample of the image to be used as a base image.
I need to be able to pass four color parameters (in hex format) into the application via a querystring. So, the completed application should be able to receive an URL like this:
And return the attached image. (Parameters may be different for each image.) I can provide a layer-separated photoshop file (.psd) for the attached image if necessary. "
The programmer seemed very competent and was able to complete the job successfully. He actually built an application which would produce dynamic images for four separate images. From what I understand, the application would accept the query string parameters and create the images and then, once a particular configuration had been created for a given image, it would cache that version on the site so that the next time the same image was requested, the cached version would be served by the website instead of generating a new image from scratch each time.
For a number of reasons, I've never implemented the code this programmer created.
So, would you mind taking a look at this code for me and letting me know first, do you understand the gist of what it is trying to do and, second, what do you think of the overall quality of the code?
I've attached four files to this ticket. The following three each contain separate solutions, one for each image (the FW_BK_Buttons file is set up to create two images), for a total of four images:
FW_BK_Buttons.zip
Tabs_Background.zip
View_Details_Button.zip
The final file, Dynamic_Images.zip, contains a combined solution for all four images. Unfortunately, I only have the compiled version of the solution and don't seem to have uncompiled solution, and the programmer is no longer reachable.
Once you've assessed it, can you let me know what your comfort level would be with reproducing something similar for a few more images in the future?
The purpose of this is that currently our search tools have a number of standard images that are used across all sites, but which much be matched by hand to the color scheme of the site in question. So, each time we set up a new site we have to go into Photoshop to generate a new version of each image by hand.
This type of application would circumvent that completely by allowing us to generate the images simply by feeding a few parameters into a query string for each image, and so it would be very helpful in automating our production process.
FYI, you can get a sense of how the current handlers work by viewing the following:
I hate to interrupt your work on the search application, but if you can take some time at least to get a sense of this and let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it.
[EDIT] Once you have gotten a sense of it, I think it would make most sense to continue working on the search application and get that finished, but at that point we might come back to this to work on a few additional images.
Vihar,
This is a bit of a detour, but here goes:
Quite a while ago (nearly a year ago now) I worked with a programmer to develop a "dynamic image generator" -- the original job description was as follows:
"The job is to create a C#/.Net web application (for ASP.NET 2.0 / Windows Server 2003) that will dynamically create a .png image by modifying a base image using several parameters input by the user.
I have attached a sample of the image to be used as a base image.
I need to be able to pass four color parameters (in hex format) into the application via a querystring. So, the completed application should be able to receive an URL like this:
http://www.mytestapp.com/button_view_details.aspx?buttoncolor=000000
And return the attached image. (Parameters may be different for each image.) I can provide a layer-separated photoshop file (.psd) for the attached image if necessary. "
The programmer seemed very competent and was able to complete the job successfully. He actually built an application which would produce dynamic images for four separate images. From what I understand, the application would accept the query string parameters and create the images and then, once a particular configuration had been created for a given image, it would cache that version on the site so that the next time the same image was requested, the cached version would be served by the website instead of generating a new image from scratch each time.
For a number of reasons, I've never implemented the code this programmer created.
So, would you mind taking a look at this code for me and letting me know first, do you understand the gist of what it is trying to do and, second, what do you think of the overall quality of the code?
I've attached four files to this ticket. The following three each contain separate solutions, one for each image (the FW_BK_Buttons file is set up to create two images), for a total of four images:
FW_BK_Buttons.zip
Tabs_Background.zip
View_Details_Button.zip
The final file, Dynamic_Images.zip, contains a combined solution for all four images. Unfortunately, I only have the compiled version of the solution and don't seem to have uncompiled solution, and the programmer is no longer reachable.
Once you've assessed it, can you let me know what your comfort level would be with reproducing something similar for a few more images in the future?
The purpose of this is that currently our search tools have a number of standard images that are used across all sites, but which much be matched by hand to the color scheme of the site in question. So, each time we set up a new site we have to go into Photoshop to generate a new version of each image by hand.
This type of application would circumvent that completely by allowing us to generate the images simply by feeding a few parameters into a query string for each image, and so it would be very helpful in automating our production process.
FYI, you can get a sense of how the current handlers work by viewing the following:
http://images.sierrainteractivemls.com/fw_button.axd?ic=ff0000
http://images.sierrainteractivemls.com/bk_button.axd?ic=ff0000
http://images.sierrainteractivemls.com/view_details_button/view_details_button.axd?ic=333333&tc=ff0000
http://images.sierrainteractivemls.com/tabs_bg.axd?ic=010080
I hate to interrupt your work on the search application, but if you can take some time at least to get a sense of this and let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it.
[EDIT] Once you have gotten a sense of it, I think it would make most sense to continue working on the search application and get that finished, but at that point we might come back to this to work on a few additional images.
Thanks.
Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)