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FREE & OPEN SOURCE Million Dollar Script is a free WordPress plugin for sponsor walls, campaign grids, fundraiser boards, and premium add-on workflows.
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ImageGrid Rendering

Configure hosted large-grid rendering, optional CDN delivery, account checks, and local safeguards.

Access granted Updated Aug 21, 2026

Million Dollar Script includes local grid rendering. The ImageGrid extension adds hosted rendering, larger-grid processing, and optional CDN delivery when the connected ImageGrid account supports those features.

Practical Examples

  • Render a 10,000 by 10,000 pixel grid without relying on a shared host's PHP memory and request-time limits.
  • Process a busy grid after many sponsors update their artwork while keeping the local renderer available as a fallback.
  • Serve completed Deep Zoom tiles directly from ImageGrid CDN when the connected plan includes CDN delivery, avoiding slow WordPress AJAX tile requests.

Example workflow: move a large grid to hosted rendering

  1. Open Million Dollar Script -> ImageGrid -> Connection, connect the site, and test authorization.
  2. Review the verified plan, remaining allowance, and CDN capability under Account; keep local safeguards at or below the plan limits.
  3. Under Grid rendering, select the large grid and submit a test render, then wait for the job to complete.
  4. Open the public grid and confirm fit, pan, zoom, edge tiles, and block alignment. If CDN delivery is entitled and active, the browser loads the signed tile URLs directly from ImageGrid; otherwise it uses the local delivery fallback.

Local Rendering

Local rendering keeps files on the WordPress server. It is suitable for smaller grids and ordinary shared hosting when images are within the configured upload limits.

Very large grids, frequent render requests, or heavy image processing can exceed shared hosting time, memory, or disk limits. Those cases are good candidates for hosted ImageGrid rendering.

Hosted Rendering

When the ImageGrid extension is active and authorized, a grid can be submitted to the ImageGrid service for rendering. The core plugin keeps a local fallback path so public grids remain available when the remote service is unavailable.

Automatic rendering submits eligible jobs without an additional confirmation. Each remote job can consume processing credits and count toward the connected account plan limits. It is the recommended default for a fresh installation and becomes active after the first valid account connection. Leave it disabled when each submission should be reviewed first.

Upgrades preserve the existing automatic-rendering value. Reconnecting an older installation does not silently enable paid usage, and an explicit off choice remains off.

The current remote render operation is grid_render. Million Dollar Script core builds the grid manifest and exposes hooks, while the ImageGrid extension owns API credentials, remote job submission, polling, remote tile metadata, and CDN delivery checks. ImageGrid returns a standard Deep Zoom pyramid whose full-resolution level is derived from the grid dimensions; Million Dollar Script uses the same level geometry for browser zooming and edge-tile requests.

The hosted operation currently supports a background color but not a WordPress background image with fit, position, repeat, and opacity settings. A grid that has a background image therefore remains on local browser rendering, does not use stale remote tiles, and cannot be submitted manually or automatically until the image is cleared. Approved placements and grid controls remain above the locally composed background.

CDN Delivery

Hosted rendering and CDN delivery are separate capabilities. A connected ImageGrid API key can authorize rendering without authorizing CDN delivery. If CDN access is not included, public delivery remains local. When CDN Delivery is active, completed jobs can return a signed, versioned public tile URL template that browsers load directly from ImageGrid instead of routing tile traffic through WordPress.

Setup

  1. Activate Million Dollar Script - ImageGrid Rendering.
  2. Open Million Dollar Script -> ImageGrid.
  3. Connect ImageGrid, or enter the ImageGrid API URL and API key manually for local development.
  4. Test the connection.
  5. Render a grid from the ImageGrid page or from Grids -> Edit Grid -> ImageGrid.

ImageGrid Settings

The ImageGrid admin page is divided into four tabs:

  • Connection stores the server API URL and site-scoped API key, starts hosted connection, tests authorization, and disconnects the site.
  • Account shows verified account identity and CDN status. Plan allowance, usage, remaining amounts, and reset dates appear only when ImageGrid supplies those values to the connected site.
  • Grid rendering controls remote rendering behavior and provides manual job submission and status refresh for a selected grid.
  • Local safeguards limits the estimated size of one remote submission before it leaves WordPress. These values cannot expand the ImageGrid plan.

Each tab has a stable URL and saves independently. Saving Connection settings does not change rendering behavior or local safeguards.

Render Failure Notifications

When a controlled local-resource, connection, authorization, billing, quota, service, or terminal-job failure prevents ImageGrid rendering, the extension stores a bounded, privacy-safe warning in WordPress. Administrators see a persistent notice with links to the affected grid and the ImageGrid rendering settings. Dismissed notices stay dismissed until that grid recovers and the same type of problem happens again.

The Render failure email setting is disabled by default. Enable it to send one message through WordPress wp_mail() to the Administration Email Address configured under Settings -> General. Repeated reports of the same unresolved failure are deduplicated. A successful submission or recovered job clears the warning so a later recurrence can notify the administrator again.

Notices and emails never include the ImageGrid API key, signed URLs, raw manifests, filesystem paths, stack traces, or full service payloads. Sites that need delivery logs or SMTP retries can use a WordPress mail plugin with the same wp_mail() pipeline.

Local Safeguards and Account Limits

The extension's Local rendering safeguards stop a job before submission when its estimated grid size, source-image size, tile count, storage, or processing credits exceed the configured WordPress-side cap. These values do not change the ImageGrid plan. ImageGrid independently enforces the connected account's plan, quota, and billing status.

Use the ImageGrid account to review the active plan, current usage, remaining credits, and service-enforced limits. Keep local safeguards at or below those limits when predictable submissions are more important than accepting every possible render job.

When ImageGrid supplies authoritative effective limits to the connected site, Reset to plan limits replaces the local safeguards with those values after confirmation. The action is unavailable when plan limits have not been supplied.

Admin Checks

Before using hosted rendering:

  • Confirm the ImageGrid extension is active.
  • Authorize the ImageGrid API key.
  • Check plan usage and account status in ImageGrid.
  • Confirm the local rendering safeguards are appropriate for the site.
  • Render a test grid.
  • Confirm the public page loads without slow admin-ajax tile requests.

If connection results are unclear, open Million Dollar Script -> System Status and run Network diagnostics. ImageGrid contributes separate unauthenticated health and readiness checks. These establish whether the service can be reached from WordPress; use the ImageGrid connection test separately to verify the saved site credential and account state.

For a local service integration check, pass IMAGEGRID_API_URL and IMAGEGRID_API_KEY to WP-CLI and run tests/live-imagegrid-fixture.php. The fixture does not store the credential in WordPress. It creates a small render job, polls it, verifies standard Deep Zoom metadata, and downloads a valid edge tile.

Connection Security

Use an HTTPS ImageGrid service URL on public sites. Loopback URLs such as localhost and host.docker.internal are accepted only when WordPress is configured as a local or development environment. Service URLs cannot contain embedded credentials, query strings, or fragments.

Authenticated API, upload, and tile requests do not follow redirects. If an endpoint has moved, update the configured service URL instead of relying on an HTTP redirect. This prevents ImageGrid credentials from being forwarded to an unintended origin.

Account Access Messages

  • Authorization is required: reconnect ImageGrid or verify the saved API key.
  • Billing needs attention: open ImageGrid billing and resolve the payment state before retrying.
  • An active plan is required: activate an ImageGrid plan for the connected account.
  • Account unavailable: review the account status or connect a different account.
  • Account quota reached: review usage and wait for the applicable reset or adjust the plan before retrying.

Paused and past-due CDN entitlements do not enable public CDN delivery. Public grids continue using local delivery until the entitlement is active again.

Large Grids

Large grids should fit the page when zoomed out and allow zooming in for inspection. ImageGrid and Million Dollar Script use the same full-resolution Deep Zoom level and tile bounds, so the browser does not request tiles beyond the right or bottom edge. If edge blocks cannot be selected or tiles appear blurry, check that both packages are current, then review the grid dimensions, block size, tile source, and renderer mode.