At Workbox, about 20% of our client support inquiries have to do with editing images for websites. So I came to our lead developer, Artem, and said “Dude, let’s figure out a quick and easy way for our clients to crop and resize images – without having to use Photoshop.”
After some research, Artem came up with the idea of using a jQuery image cropping plugin. jQuery is an open-source Javascript library that simplifies a lot of HTML and animation stuff for developers. Jcrop is the specific plugin. For website visitors, it gives you functionality that usually requires Flash or Silverlight plugins (and it’s just kind of cool).
VIDEO DEMO
Our quick demo shows the simple steps of cropping and resizing an image to fit into a pre-defined spot in your website.
1. Upload image.
2. Select specific area of image that you want to appear on the website.
3. Save it, and your image is automatically cropped and resized to fit into a specific spot in your web page’s design.
ABOUT JCROP
The plugin Artem found, Jcrop, allows users to instantly crop and resize any image that is uploaded to the site server. Its interface is intuitive and will be understandable to any user with any level of web experience. The plugin has been tested to work in all the popular browsers and requires very little time for developer to install it. The resulting image quality is very high, too!
- Upload just about any size image.
- Select the specific part of the image to appear on the website.
- Retains image proportions so images don’t get stretched or look funny.
- Automatically crops and sizes the image so it is consistent with all other images on the site and fits accurately into the page design.
Deep Liquid developed this particular bit of jQuery magic. Here’s the link, for our tech friends: http://deepliquid.com/content/Jcrop.html
All Workbox’s upcoming projects will be enhanced with the new image cropping functionality, and we can add it to existing CUT or WordPress websites on an individual basis.
Workbox thinks this plugin is one of the things our users have been waiting for. Adding images to the site will become more fun rather than a time-consuming routine. We’re sure our customers will love it!
If you have questions or would like this added to your site, please contact us!
Gleb Aksyutchenko