One Step Back Two Steps Forward..

From reading the many posts on the topic of images its obvious that drupal needs some work.

I am a newbie to drupal although I have implemented a template on a drupal backend www.klainc.ca

I have a background in custom software development in the Industrial Automation & Integration field. Experience in VB & ASP.NET, MsSQL Server and lately I have been working my way in to Web Design/Development using PHP & MySQL with Drupal.

I also have great love of photography and if could find a way to make money at it I would do it full time.

There are a lot of great ideas being presented on how to handle images and its not that any idea is better than the other or that "Its my way or the highway". Its that we all have technical problem that needed solving yesterday!

NOTE: Please forgive it this is a echo of some post or talk that I haven't seen.

So lets take "One Step Back".

Not to be elementary but:

Purpose: To be able to upload and manage images in posts and galleries as nodes in a simple, efficient and elegant manner.

Persona's:

Blogger: He needs to upload images to support his blog posts and most of the time this will be done one or two at a time. So he needs a site front end for upload individual or a group of images.

Photographer: He needs to do batch uploads of images to galleries. Most likely he's computer savvy and will us a FTP client to do this. He Also needs to create virtual galleries as portfolios of his best images, by picking from images in existing galleries. If he starts a business he is going to sell his images as prints or stock so needs a taxonomy for categorizing his images. EXIF & IPTC Metadata should be extracted and the taxonomy could be built automatically based on rules setup by the photographer.

OK That should set the base line. Of course there could be more detail added if we really took the time.

NOTE: The Gallery2 cms has a lot of features for photographers but it is very cumbersome and not popular.

Two Steps Forward:

The following is how I would like my work flow as a photographer to work if everything was in place and working.

Take the pictures
Import to Aperture/Lightbox etc..
Edit and add Metadata
Export proofs as JPG/PNG
Upload to site folder with FTP client.

DONE!!!

You say What?. Yeh...

Once I upload the images the next visit to my site or cron job found the new folder with images in it. It used the folder structure and name to create the gallery, generated the thumbnail and proof images extracted the exif & iptc metadata and extended the taxonomy with the new information.

After taking the pictures and long hours of adding metadata the last thing he wants to do is retype again on the site. And if I am in a hurry I know that my site will work. Of course there may be some fine tuning later but that is OK. My images are up and my customer can see them.

Check out http://ecosmear.com/relay/

This application sets up folders as filestores...base directories. Once configured, any file dropped in will found and added to the database

Image Module: I thing this is a great base and with a few changes and additions would create a good foundation for others to build on.
Here are some suggestions..needs...wants....

User should have a choice of what image represent the gallery / or random image.
User should setup a base folder which he can build under the way he wants.. images don't move!
Importing is no more than indexing the images into the database and creating thumbnails.
Image aspect ratio portrait, landscape,square and panorama should be detected.
The ability to create virtual galleries from existing image galleries.
Any Thumbnails & Proof created should save in a separate cache folder.

This should be a strong base where others can build on to add the other features.

Of course these are my just my thoughts that are expanding as I learn more about Drupal

PS: I have been without a job for about 5 months. I really like Drupal and like to specialize in it. If anyone in the Vancouver, BC area has any work please contact me .. use the contact form at www.racethewind.ca