Which image modules for online magazine ?

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jcisio's picture

Hello,

I'm hesitating to choose image module for my online newspaper. It's rather large one, which tens posts everyday (and I'm sure there'll be about 100 posts from members everyday soon). Each post contains 1-2 images. There should be a few galleries embedded in certain posts.

I have now two solutions to start with:

Any one can point out something please ? Or should I use both ?

Comments

If you are using CCK, you

femrich's picture

If you are using CCK, you can use imagefield and image cache. There's a good article at Lullabot on this: http://www.lullabot.com/articles/image_and_image_exact_sizes_vs_imagefie...

Captions

HallSL's picture

I'm building an online newspaper and have the same questions. Additionally, we have a need for captions and photo credits. I've tried a number of options. Right now I'm using tinyMce with image assist, so I've got captions, but not much control of them, as it builds the captions from the "title" and description. I can't find a graceful way to add a photo credit and style it differently. Suggestions?

Again, the combination of

femrich's picture

Again, the combination of CCK, imagefield, and image cache (along with some other CCK fields) should work for this. Basically this would allow you to create a content type with special fields for photo, photo caption, photo credit, and so on. Your designer would style the content type to control presentation, making it unnecessary for story submitters to do any styling...

Multiple images?

HallSL's picture

One of the specifications that has already been mentioned is the need for more than one image per story. Before I focused on the need for captions and photo credits, I told the client that multiple images per story would not be a problem. If we go the CCK, imagefield, image cache route, we're limited to the number of imagefields (with sets of associated caption/photocredit, etc fields) we define in the beginning, right?

Also, they would like the ability to build galleries of photos from these articles. They're used to doing it manually from the photos of a given issue. Image assist includes the images in galleries, which is a big help. CCK/imagefield/image cache isn't going to do that is it? Is there a way to tag images added that way?

we're limited to the number

Garrett Albright's picture

we're limited to the number of imagefields (with sets of associated caption/photocredit, etc fields) we define in the beginning, right?

No. Simply check the image field's "Multiple" check box, and, like other fields, it'll then accept as many values in the field as your database will fit.

However, the concern about being able to easily use images multiple times is still an issue; CCK/imagefield/imagecache doesn't have any good answers for that problem.

Captions?

HallSL's picture

I thought we were handling captions and photo credits each with separate text fields in the cck set up. How could we have captions and photo credits for each picture if they were all transferred with one imagefield? Am I missing something about how imagefield works?

Well, two possible answers

Garrett Albright's picture

Well, two possible answers for that, though neither of them are pretty…

One, enable the custom title and alt fields for the CCK imagefield, then use those fields to store the captions and photo credits. You'll have to tweak your template so that it gets the contents for the caption and credits areas of the template from the alt and title values associated with the images. Also, if you want either the caption or the credits to be over 255 characters, you're out of luck. This is basically what one client of ours does (a newspaper); the 255-character limit frustrates them sometimes, but otherwise it works well enough.

Two, create new text fields in CCK for the captions and photo credits, and have those also set to multiple values. Tell your editors to make sure that the first photo always corresponds to the first caption field and the first credit field, the second photo corresponds to the second caption and credit fields, etc. The fields won't be next to the images, so it'll be a bit confusing.

…Or you could not go the CCK/imagefield route and try another solution, or even a custom module.

regarding solution two

femrich's picture

regarding solution two above, CCK allows you to group fields together, so that a photo, caption, and credit could all be treated as a unit. Organizing the fields in that way should minimize the confusion a bit...

How to tweak

Sunshiney's picture

Hey ...I'm a bottom-of-the-ladder non-coder who is trying to figure out how to display a link image title in cck as a caption. Two days at it now... sigh. Hate being uneducated on these things; will probably take you folks two minutes. So, I think I'm getting that I need to tweak the content-type I've created. And I get that I do that with a node-content-type.tpl.php But how the heck I can make the changes needed within that tpl.php is still baffling me. I did add

<?php
print_r
($node);
?>
to the bottom of the tpl.php file, saved, and then displayed the page. (the page was created in panels, with the node in question at page top) However, when I view source, I see nothing different, as far as something being generated by the print_r node line.

I am now stuck.

Can anybody help or point me to some documentation/video online that will take me through this. I'm willing to learn but currently everything I have read is, well, not understandable.

Help?

http://drupal.org/project/ima

Artem Beloglazov's picture

http://drupal.org/project/imagefield_extended
this module is what you need, maybe ...

Depending of customer needs

romand's picture

Depending of customer needs and editors level I'm using three alternatives:

  1. imagefield and image cache
  2. IMCE
  3. node_images (+ thickbox example - http://ukrtime.com/)

I think CCK with imagefield

jcisio's picture

I think CCK with imagefield solution has some drawback. You can't share the same images (logos for ex) between posts. And the editor is not very WYSIWYG. I think I will use FCKeditor + filemanager (of fckeditor) to insert/upload images, then a filter to format them when display. Authors just upload images, click on the align left/right/center, fill the title then filter does the rest.

Is it ok ?

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Asset module

janwari's picture

We too are creating a news site in Drupal and came across the similar issue for giving the flexibility to the editor to be able to insert more than one image with caption for each story. Initially we implemented what Garrett Albright had suggested which was, we created a CCK imagefield and set its "Data settings" to multiple. Initially this seem to be a nice solution to the problem of multiple images per story.
But then we were coming across stories which used the same image and because there wasnt any "Browse Uploaded Images" folder option with imagefield we had to find another solution for adding multiple image capability.
In stepped Asset Module(http://drupal.org/project/asset) to the rescue. We created an Asset field and set its "Data settings" to Multiple. In this way the editor was able to add multiple image and if he wanted to use a image that had already been uploaded for another story all he had to go is open the Asset Wizard window and select that image.

Hope this helps. If you need any more details I would be happy to help out.

MultiMedia Module

konfuzed's picture

You may want to look at the MMedia module (http://drupal.org/project/mmedia).

I was using a heavily modified early developer snapshot on http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/ where you'll see our case studies have none-a lot of images, related media such as pdfs and audio/video (well a few there, updating the module before we add more).

You'll see that the latest versions have had a LOT of basic information for searching, overview lists and precursor to gallery layouts added. The main dev has been very responsive and several of us have been concentrating on getting it really fleshed out, because as many have stated the multiple images per story as well as crossing media types with taxonomy is really one of the big weak points in Drupal right now.

Basically the main dev has abstracted multimedia file handling from the displays, allows you to sort and tag and treat them as a node-type object for taxonomy tagging, and adding your own metadata as well for expanded information on each type, entry etc.

You might save yourself some time with it.


Atlanta, GA USA


Atlanta, GA USA

I'm going with CCK and

hadders's picture

I'm going with CCK and imagefield at the moment.

The main drawbacks are that I can't get my head round:
1. How to have caption and image aligned nicely.
2. How to get the image to link to the article in the teaser.

I had a try of the Asset module, which was pretty good, but not quite what I needed. My problem is that writers (students) were adding oversized images to articles (using TinyMCE) and breaking the layout. Using CCK with imagecache simplifies things giving less options and no chance of breaking things!

2. How to get the image to

yhager's picture

2. How to get the image to link to the article in the teaser.

You can do that with the latest 5.x-2.x version of imagefield.module

asset + imagecache

wmostrey's picture

Asset integrates with the imagecache module, whether you're using it from TinyMCE or as a cck field. You can select an imagecache per file type (jpg, gif, tif, ...) and differentiate between node preview or full node.

Just wanted to chime in here

Garrett Albright's picture

Just wanted to chime in here to say that I'm building a personal-ish site with D6 and I'm trying the Img package as mentioned in the first post, and I'm really liking the way it works. By default it'll just display all of your attached pictures at the beginning of the post, but a little tweaking of the options and you're able to easily insert images anywhere into a post, with captions and even Thickbox support if you want it. It can even work for comments too. It doesn't have a Drupal 5 version, but if you're going to be building a site in D6 and don't need asset handling features, it's definitely an option you should consider.

As far as I can see on the

andrus_k's picture

As far as I can see on the Img package project page, this module has been abandoned by the original maintainer. Alas, I wouldn't consider it until it is properly maintained.

I would advice to stick to Imagefield+imagecache. These two can do miracles. Yes, imagefield lacks some features, but the module is consistently maintained and developed. Kudos to dopry! I have a sense that sooner or later it will make it into Drupal core, together with CCK. Ok, maybe it's wishful thinking :-).

I also tried Asset, but I find it a bit overloaded. In fact, I use IMCE for image reuse, but in majority of cases Imagefield does the job.

=============
http://www.westki.info

About IMCE with url schema

jcisio's picture

Anyone knows how to rename url schema in IMCE ? For example, when IMCE is called, the default folder is /sites/all/files/images/yy/mm/dd where yy/mm/dd is the current date.

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Another option with CCK

amaltemara's picture

An expensive solution, but may be good for a site that uses page caching...

You could create a content type, 'image_with_kitchen_sink', and add all the custom fields you want, 'credits', 'photographer', 'extras', 'date of picture', 'location', 'ALT', 'alignment', etc... go crazy...
Modify the template for this content type to be exactly how you want it to show up in it's destination.

Then, add a node-reference field to the content type that is to have the image, say 'article'.

Now, modify the template for the 'article' to use the 'node_load' function to pull in the entire 'image_with_kitchen_sink' node. Then include the styled 'image_with_kitchen_sink' with the 'article'.

Voila....

Anyone have any comments on this idea? I'm using it on a totally anonymous cached site, so it won't drag the server down with all of the SQL queries from node_load.

If anyone wants the code, let me know, and I'll post it...

Cheers,

-Anthony

Could you post the code ? It would be lovely

JBI's picture

The node reference and the node load is the way I need to go for my article with multi-asset's http://groups.drupal.org/node/12929

Hello, may I ask U for the code too?

konrad1811's picture

And some more instructions - how/where to use/paste this?
I'm using D6.14
I was looking a lot how to handle pictures the right way... And be able to reuse them...
Thanks

CCK + ImageField + Insert +ImageCache

Geijutsuka's picture

This is the setup I'm currently using: CCK + ImageField + ImageCache + Insert. It's very nice for placing inline images but there isn't an easy way to add captions to the images and if you want to use an image again, you must re-upload it. This works fine if you want to give users an easy way to upload unique pictures inline without captions... but it's been hell trying to figure out how to add captions and Lightbox2 functionality without going into the code after a user is done and adding all this by hand... which defeats the purpose of having good content makers who are technological novices do what they do best: make content.

[Exit, pursued by a bear.]

Artwork Studio
Web Studio

After reading this, it sounds

Adam S's picture

After reading this, it sounds like these (http://drupal.org/node/614014) guys are going to add lots of modules to Drupal that will solve all your problems. They said before the end of the year.

You can -- there is a module that will do this also -- add a caption field to you content type called caption. Then theme a node.tpl.php file to display the picture and caption. If you want to embed the photo with a caption...... well..... does anybody have any solutions? I would like to do that too.

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Uberimage

ndeschildre's picture

Uberimage (http://drupal.org/project/aef_image) is part of this on-going open-sourcing.
You should check it!

oops

Geijutsuka's picture

Ops, accidentally posted twice and can't delete this post... :|

[Exit, pursued by a bear.]

Artwork Studio
Web Studio

Getting pics to embed in a text story

timinpublicradio's picture

Hi folks.

I'm having trouble getting images to embed in the top left corner of a text story. Any suggestions? BTW- I'm Drupal newbie.

Thanks in advance!

Wrong place...

DeeZone's picture

timinpublicradio, create a new thread if you'd like a reply to your request. It's poor form to jump into another conversation looking for support. In the mean time, you'll want to take a look at creating a template (tpl) file for your "text story" node type where you can control where the image is placed in the layout. I'll provide details when when we can exchange messages in a more appropriate location.

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