HEIF/HEIC support is coming in PHP 8.5

[Adrian London]

From what I've read, the "getimagesize" command will support HEIC files from PHP 8.5 onwards.  This is due for release around November.

Most iPhones take photos in HEIC now, although a simple setting will change this back to jpeg.  HEIC is much more modern and has a better compression algorithm, so I'd prefer to use it.

The getimagesize command is used heavily in Gallery3 for determining the file type before most processing involving photos.  It's also used by the "exif" module for extracting the metadata (IPTC in block APP13).  I title/describe all my photos prior to uploading, so find the exif module very useful.

At the moment, I export all my photos from my phone in jpeg format so that G3 can upload them. 

Another change is that HEIC files don't support IPTC but instead use  XMP for storing metadata.  I've managed to edit the "exif" module to read XMP so I'm ready for the future :). The only downside is that G3 can write IPTC tags but not XMP ones, although that could potentially be coded too.

I doubt many people care about HEIC and XMP support.  However, I do, hence this post!

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Adrian