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#37 2006-03-06 23:56:19

hakjoon
Member
From: Arlington, VA
Registered: 2004-07-29
Posts: 1,634
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

ma_smith wrote:
For now, I hope to achieve some understanding of where this communities image needs are. Hakjoon, this is still your baby, I hope this is a good direction to take this? Never heard back from you. :)

sorry about that. Been computerless for the past few days.

Polls seem like a decent enough place to start although form looking at the results it seems to re-enforce mostly what we already thought when we started this whole conversation.

hcgtv wrote:
I like the idea of an embedded image gallery, this way we can handle 1000’s of images.

The one issue I have with integrating a photo gallery package is that it solves image galleries but not necessarilly Using images in articles. Plus it’s separate user permissions/groups, templating language, databases. It just seems like so much of what we would get with a gallery package is already in place if it’s just fleshed out.

Last edited by hakjoon (2006-03-07 00:00:14)


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#38 2006-03-07 00:23:43

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

hakjoon wrote:

The one issue I have with integrating a photo gallery package is that it solves image galleries but not necessarilly Using images in articles. Plus it’s separate user permissions/groups, templating language, databases. It just seems like so much of what we would get with a gallery package is already in place if it’s just fleshed out.

I hear you, I’m just not familiar yet with TXP to make that kind of determination. Do we hack up some plugins to add an image gallery or do we take an image gallery and come in from another angle.

I’d like to explore all options, so I’m not against an all TXP solution, as a matter of fact MaryE sent me a script she was working on for me to test. As soon as I get my Linux server in place, I’ll be able to test out her approach.

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#39 2006-03-07 02:08:30

squaredeye
Member
From: Greenville, SC
Registered: 2005-07-31
Posts: 1,495
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Hakjoon,
The polls are sort of a fluffy way of saying “see I told you so”, as Mary had instructed that it might be helpful to know how the community uses images.

HCGTV and Justanother,
I believe the use of a more powerful image tag would enable an extremely diverse way of handling large amount of images. Consider that one could have thousands of articles quite easily. If images are handled in the same way and with forms, think of how many options are available for one to manipulate the layout and display of visual information?

That’s my vote.


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#40 2006-03-07 03:36:18

hakjoon
Member
From: Arlington, VA
Registered: 2004-07-29
Posts: 1,634
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

hcgtv wrote:
I hear you, I’m just not familiar yet with TXP to make that kind of determination. Do we hack up some plugins to add an image gallery or do we take an image gallery and come in from another angle.

Very good point. That’s why I would like to focus on requirements instead of how exactly to do it. Think of what you like about plogger, photostack et al. Think about what you don’t like.

One example of something that I saw come up in the album pattern thread that never got answered. How should sub-categories be represented? Should they show up as an subalbum like in gallery or should the images just be included in the parent category?

So looking at other tools is definitely something to do but look at what the tools offer not the tool itself. If at the end of this we figure out that there is already a tool out there with everything we want we can work on integrating it, but at least we knoe that’s the way to go.

I want to try to flesh out the image tags as article tags thing this week. I think that might give people a better sense of what david had in mind.


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#41 2006-03-07 08:20:06

Skubidu
Archived Plugin Author
Registered: 2004-10-23
Posts: 611
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

hcgtv schrieb:

My idea is to find one that is along the same lines as TXP, light footprint but has enough functionality to get the job done. Gallery2 is very nice but is huge, 4images’ license would be a hindrance to share the code since it’s not GPL.

Please take a closer look to plogger
This gallery is a really good example how to handle imports and how to manage collections and album an easy way. If such system would be combined with a more powerful image tag, it would be a dream :)

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#42 2006-03-07 09:55:57

Jeremie
Member
From: Provence, France
Registered: 2004-08-11
Posts: 1,578
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

I would think that the Gallery thing (integration, feature, plugin, whatever) are best left alone in their respective threads.

Right now, to insert an image while writing an article an user has to :

  1. Create the image of the appropriate size, weight, etc. on his computer
  2. Go to the image tab
  3. Upload the image with his browser, set various datas on it
  4. Potentially go to the organize tab, if he is allowed, and create a new image category, then go back to the image tab to assign that category to the new image
  5. In the global image tag, find the newly uploaded image, select the appropriate mode of insertion (like Textile), switch to the popup
  6. Select the code
  7. Copy (as in copy&paste) the code
  8. Go to the article tab
  9. Find his article, reselect the article and go back into writing mode
  10. Find the spot where he was and want the image inserted
  11. Paste the Textile (or whatever) code in the textarea
  12. Optionnaly (but not so unlikely) find the piece of paper or postit or whatever he wrote the CSS class instructions he got from the site’s admin, and apply them to the new image

A good topic would be to find examples and ideas on :

  • How to improve the micro-features (multiple thumbnail, exif metadatas, auto resizing, whatever is needed)
  • How to improve the article’s writer experience. This should be easier, faster, more intuitive.

Gallery and other big things can be built on that, or developped after it, are they not ?

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#43 2006-03-07 10:35:01

Skubidu
Archived Plugin Author
Registered: 2004-10-23
Posts: 611
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Gallery and other big things can be built on that, or developped after it, are they not ?

That’s right.
This discussion about TXP image management has to be about the way how the user inserts an image into an article and about how to organize the images (upload, view by date, view by name, view by category, removing, renaming). That’s where some concepts of gallery scripts might be interesting. Plogger, that I mentioned above, uses similar methods like aba_image_import, that is very useful if you have to handle (and upload) many images.

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#44 2006-03-07 12:53:18

Jeremie
Member
From: Provence, France
Registered: 2004-08-11
Posts: 1,578
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

On this topic, yes, there are two major plugins. upm_img_popper for image insertion into an article, and aba_image_import for a small but how useful when you need it feature.

aba_image_import could stay a plugin. If it breaks, it won’t break a website. Only delay further massive image insertions.

img_image_popper on the other hand, is a “core plugin”. If it break for any reason, your whole website break too. So improving it (I’m not talking about PHP code, I’m talking UA, features, etc.) and making it really core (TXP native) would be a good first step into the right direction.

Since it’s not a small task, I’m guessing the dev team would like to have a full feature detailed. In english, what’s wrong with img_popper, what has to be improved and how, etc. And here we’re going back to the thread’s topic :)

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#45 2006-03-07 14:54:02

hcgtv
Plugin Author
From: Key Largo, Florida
Registered: 2005-11-29
Posts: 2,722
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Jeremie wrote:

I would think that the Gallery thing (integration, feature, plugin, whatever) are best left alone in their respective threads.

Didn’t mean to sidetrack this thread, we should discuss how best to enhance the TXP image handling.

Thanks to Firefox’s tabbed browsing, I usually have article entry in one tab and the image managment section in another.

I agree that this new functionality should be a core feature, so I’ll install the plugins on a test site and play with them so I can give some feedback.

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#46 2006-03-07 16:22:15

squaredeye
Member
From: Greenville, SC
Registered: 2005-07-31
Posts: 1,495
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Jeremie,
what do you think about the functions of glx_admin_image_resize?
edit: I have just uploaded aba_img_import, and had never played with it before, it looks like it does much of the same, so maybe glx_admin_image_resize has only redundant functions?
ie: resizing the image’s longest side?, changing the max-size of the image uploaded?

Hakjoon, I look forward to seeing what you come up with for the txp:image tag. Shall we begin to put together the kind of proposal that Jeremie is talking about?

M

Last edited by ma_smith (2006-03-07 16:28:44)


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#47 2006-03-12 23:50:42

hakjoon
Member
From: Arlington, VA
Registered: 2004-07-29
Posts: 1,634
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

I wrote up some potential syntax for more robust image tags. I tried to get almost everything upm_image has and most of the attributes from article_custom.

Please expand as I’m sure I’m missing something that someone relies on.

Last edited by hakjoon (2006-03-13 00:46:45)


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#48 2006-03-13 00:13:00

squaredeye
Member
From: Greenville, SC
Registered: 2005-07-31
Posts: 1,495
Website

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Oh sweet lord of all that is good and pure. That’s beautiful, I had to avert my eyes it was so pretty. I have to check into and really dig in, but it looks fantastic so far. Have a Satan’s Pony for me!!!


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