Global Moxie

Question

Can Big Medium add watermarks to my images?

Answer

Yes, with the help of a plugin.

This plugin applies a transparent watermark to image files added to Big Medium’s image library. The watermark will be applied to all new images added to the library after the plugin is installed.

Example of a watermark automatically added to an image.

Requirements

• Big Medium 2.0.1 or higher

• ImageMagick and PerlMagick. If you’re not sure if you have these installed, run Big Medium’s compatibility checker. If it tells you that ImageMagick is installed, then you’re all set.

For best results, your watermark image should be a black-and-white PNG image with a transparent background.

Settings

The plugin adds a new “Watermarks” category to your sites’ HTML preferences (“Settings>HTML Preferences”). Here you can:

• Enable/disable watermarks on new images (enabled by default).

• Specify the watermark image to use (the image must be located in the moxiedata directory). The default is wmark_image.png.

• Specify the position of the watermark on your images (centered by default).

Watermark plugin preferences.

Also, the code for the watermark.pl file includes a section labeled “SETTINGS”; modify these settings to suit your needs. These settings apply to all watermarks in all sites of your Big Medium installation:

• $OPACITY: A number between 0 and 1 indicating how opaque the watermark should be. The higher the number, the more opaque; the lower the number, the more transparent.

• %MARK_SIZE: Set to 1 for each image size to which you want to add the watermark. By default, the plugin adds watermarks to all built-in image sizes except for thumbnail (60x60) and x-small (100x100).

Installation

1. Unzip the plugin download file to get a directory named bm-watermarks. The plugin files are located inside that directory.

2. Set your FTP client to “plain text” or “ascii” mode.

3. Upload watermark.pl and watermark-prefs.pm to the moxiebin/plugins directory on your server:

   moxiebin/plugins/watermark.pl
   moxiebin/plugins/watermark-prefs.pm
   

4. Set your FTP client to “binary” or “automatic” mode.

5. Upload wmark_image.png (or replace with your own watermark image named wmark_image.png) to the server’s moxiedata directory:

   moxiedata/wmark_image.png
   

You’re done! Going forward, all new images added to your image library will have the watermark applied.

Version history

Version 1.2 September 15, 2008: Added graceful error handling when the watermark image is missing.

Version 1.1. June 6, 2008: Added per-site preferences that allow you to enable/disable watermarks, set watermark position and choose image files for individual sites.