The PicasaWeb ActiveX Uploader control

Picasa Web Albums offer you a number of choices as to how you might upload images to it:

• using Picasa on Windows
• using the iPhoto uploader or the Mac uploader on the Mac
• using a "browse" button to select the file from the Basic Uploader web page
• if you are on IE, using an ActiveX based control

The ActiveX control provides a reasonable upload experience as follows:

• images can be dragged and dropped to it from an Explorer window
• images can be selected via the "Add Photos" button which brings up a file selection dialog.

In both cases, files of type jpg, gif, and png are accepted.  Any other filetypes (including movies files) are simply ignored.

Once selected, the files show as thumbnails within the uploader control - though many png files display simply as a red square, rather than their true contents.

To the right of the drop area, a drop down allows the selection of the uploading quality, choosing between largest size (original image size), large size (limiting the largest dimension to 1600), or medium size (limiting the largest dimension to 1024).

Below the thumbnail is a remove link, that removes the file from this upload.  Uploads are begun by pressing the upload button.  Once an image has been uploaded, the "remove" link changes to the word "completed".

jpg images are uploaded unchanged (subject to being reduced in size if the quality setting dictates), but gif and png files become jpg files after uploading - though retaining the .gif or .png part of their filename, but also gaining an additional .jpg part - thus example.png.jpg.

The ActiveX control shows up in the Downloader Program Files directory as the rather undescriptive UploadListView class, though if you then check out its properties, it does offer the further description of "PicasaWeb ActiveX Uploader".  As of the time of writing this article, it is at version 1,0,0,22, which dates from June 2006, when PicasaWeb was first made generally available.

Checking the web page source code suggest that the ability to pause and resume the upload may be planned for the the next version of the control:

• "When we get the pause upload in place we'll need to switch..."
• <!-- the following two buttons require changes to the ActiveX component -->
  <!-- STATE: Uploading
  <input type="button" value="Pause Upload" onclick=""/>-->
  <!-- STATE: Upload Paused
  <input type="button" value="Resume Upload" onclick=""/>-->