Gallery2 CCK-field with Embedded-Media-Field

Hi true-pal!

I almost finished a GalleryField module (it will be available as part of the new GalleryAddon package) that provides a simple implementation of a reference field for G2 items. You can specify an item by itemId or title and it will be displayed as an image block on the node. More advanced options and formatting will follow once GalleryContent, which mirrors G2 into Drupal nodes, is ready.

I also started to play with the emfield module and learned about its API. However, there are some aspects of the module idea and esp. the implementation I dont agree with. But still its working and provides an easy way to reference external media from within nodes. Some thoughts about the module:

1. In times were all the world is looking for unified media handling solutions I really wonder why emfield has separate sub-modules for images, video and audio. A simple option in the main module to select which type of content to support would do (better). This is especially bad for G2 as it forces us to implement the G2 provider 3 times (for emaudio, image_ncck, video_ckk) in an almost identical fashion and (even worse) for G2 you cant even tell from the url or itemId what type of media you are dealing with. What means we have to load the item, check for its type and return a validation error if it doesnt match.
2. emfield is basically a wrapper to bundle multiple providers or media sources for one field. But modules (supporting emfield) must still deal low level with cck field logic and additionally with the emfield infrastructure. So it doesnt really make it easier for developers to write a media reference field for cck, but only unifies the different approaches.
3. emfield is designed to handle external media sources (field label is 'External Image' and widget label is '3rd Party Image' in image_ncck). Not sure it is logical to reference internal images, but thats just a formal problem!? How would we specify a G2 item? Does it make sense to use the embedded url? Or a syntax similar to the G2 filter [G2:itemId] or how? The point is that the module derives the item details purely from the url, so we must be unique and simple enough for users to deal with ...

I would really love to discuss this in more detail and to get an impression on how you think this stuff should work from a user's perspective. Once I have a detailed vision of the matter its an almost trivial task to code an emfield provider for embedded G2.

Cheers, Thilo (Grusz aus Hamburg)

P.S. Sorry for the long delay. I'm very busy atm and I needed to learn emfield first to post a helpful answer.

First, I'm really grateful for this work. It will help so much.

reuse of images in special content types
Yes. I want to be able to integrate my Gallery images into CCK nodes.

separate physical subfolders on server for galleries or users
Another reason I don't use one of Drupal's "native" gallery solutions.

Basically, I want each image to have a hierarchical path and to be on a page with a hierarchical path, as it is in Gallery. My ideal would be a CCK field that let me drop both images and galleries into nodes. Images could be placed in nodes with or without title and description, and in any size that exists in the actual Gallery. Galleries would get dropped in as either a link or a set of thumbnails and would have the description and title imported or not.

My ultimate goal would be to be able to show Gallery thumbnails and display the large version in, say, a Smooth Gallery or Lightbox, but if Javascript were off, the link to the large image would go to the gallery page for that image. That way it degrades nicely, gets crawled effectively and allows users to see images without leaving the node page, but makes titles and descriptions of images available to both users who want them and to search engines.

I'm not sure how that relates to the question you asked, but that would be my dream setup.

Thanks again for the work you're doing on this. Can't wait to test the beta!