October 2021 Development Roundup (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here is what I worked on during October.

PhotoStack

This month, I fixed a long-standing bug in PhotoStack involving exports. I added an option a while back for exported images in PhotoStack to use their original file name, but in some cases, this option would just create images with the name "null". After a bit of digging, I found out if you used certain PhotoStack features that resulted in the image canvas being re-generated (like adding a watermark), the data for the original file name wasn't copied along with the actual image. This bug has now been fixed.

I also added support for importing JPEG XL images in PhotoStack in October. Well, maybe "support," is too strong a word — PhotoStack simply adds JPEG XL to the list of allowed file formats if it detects the browser you're using can recognize JPEG XL. This feature only works on Chromium-based browsers and Firefox right now, and only if you enable a hidden setting in your browser. No browsers have rolled out JPEG XL support to everyone yet.

I've looked into adding more options for file formats to image exports, but the API function that PhotoStack uses to generate the final images (HTMLCanvasElement.toBlob) still only allows PNG or JPEG images (plus WebP on Chromium browsers). Adding more file formats might require writing something in WebAssembly, which is probably too much technical overhead for me.

I also updated PhotoStack to Bootstrap 5.1, which might fix some interface bugs for some people.

Finally, although it's not related to development, I did find out that PhotoStack was highlighted in a list of the best Progressive Web Apps for productivity work. JR Raphael for Computerworld had this to say:

For bulk resizing and adjusting of images — like when you have a stack  of photos you want to bring down to a consistent width and maybe also  add a border or watermark onto prior to uploading to your company's  website — the delightfully simple PhotoStack is exactly the progressive  web app you need.

So that's neat!