[Koha] Koha Local Cover Images and Webp Image Format

[Owen Leonard]

> I was wondering if there was anything in the works to make Koha
> compatible with Webp images for, say, local image covers?

The  local cover image system uses the GD library to convert any of
the accepted upload formats to PNG. It looks like the GD library also
generates Webp images, so that seems possible.

I haven't looked into Webp very much, but I've noticed that when I
encounter them on a web page they're often included in such a way that
there is a fallback image for browsers which don't support it. There
are still some major gaps in browser support:

https://www.caniuse.com/#feat=webp

Since local cover images are stored in the database rather than the
filesystem it would not be ideal to have to store more than one
format, so if you wanted to support Webp you'd probably have to have a
preference to turn it on and off, and then some process of rebuilding
all the data in biblioimages from one format to the other.

Another option would be the relatively new "CustomCoverImages"
preference which allows you to host cover images yourself and use them
in Koha based on a URL pattern.

  -- Owen

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