GIF Conversion: Reliably add poster image

[swissspidy]

Videos are the better GIFs, at least when it comes to file types. Animated GIFs should really not be used anymore.

This project automatically converts animated GIFs to an actual video file during upload. The image block, upon receiving the updated media item, transforms into a video block. Note: Right now, that last part (block transformation) is achieved by patching Gutenberg, as there is no other way to do it.

To-do

• [x] Remove need to patch Gutenberg

[swissspidy]

Working well, except:

• Poster image is not added (back) after converting from image block to video block (upload still happens though)
• Test failing on webkit

[swissspidy]

• Poster image is not added (back) after converting from image block to video block (upload still happens though)

Some thoughts:

• The poster in the queue does not have any reference to the video attachment ID, so it's difficult to know when the upload finishes
• After converting the image block to a video block (gif variation) the check for poster image needs to happen in the VideoControls component
• Firing and listening to events would be a cheap way to do that, but don't really wanna mix events with the Redux store
• Instead, use useEffect to check whether poster upload for the current attachment has finished
  • What if I select another block in the meantime?
• Alternatively, use subscribe() somewhere to wait for poster upload to finish, then look up all blocks with that video attachment ID and add the poster if it's still missing
• Any race conditions or so possible? Poster only resides in the queue for a few ticks after upload before it gets removed

[swissspidy]

To-do:

add option to generate poster if absent