Improving TXP Image Management

guiguibonbon · 2006-07-27 23:56:18

I think he means “from edge”, in the way of “not simply in the middle”. Like : strip the top, leave the bottom. Don’t quote that out of context :)

Edit : ok, so he didn’t and I just made a fool of myself.

Last edited by guiguibonbon (2006-07-27 23:57:50)

rloaderro · 2006-07-27 23:59:30

guiguibonbon wrote:

strip the top, leave the bottom

Actually we’re talking about Textpattern here – I don’t know what you’re on about :)

No, but you’re right. Being able to crop from any side would be functionally equivalent to what I was suggesting (and probably more elegant)…

squaredeye · 2006-07-28 01:47:53

Okay, I haven’t talked functionality for ages, and so I feel like bursting out! :)

Image editing seems to be a good thing to me, but there comes a level when you are trying to do things with images that would be much more easily, and likely much better done on the desktop in an image editing program.

The functionality above takes a back seat to things like multiple thumbnails available per image. Not just multiple sizes of the image, as that can be accomplished with width and height variables, but totally unique images that “point to” or “symbolize” the largest image.

For instance. at artiswork.org I have my thumbnails trapped in a 1pixel white border with a inner shadow. The larger border is created with a surrounding element and background image. I would however, like to have at least two more “thumb” images per image, all image needs are spelled out below.

This is the largest image (perhaps used for downloading the full res image at sizes of 2500-3500px wide)
(currently maintained in the “files” tab, because of the image import (php) size limitations – ftping into files works, and files recognizes the uploaded file and asks to fill the details, whereas the images tab lacks this functionality)
this image that will be displayed in the content column, probably between 300px and 600px wide (in my case more specific).
this image is a literal thumbnail and is the one that I will use for thumbnails on the public side of my site, to help navigate through my images and articles
this image might be very small, and used in the image tab, to illustratrate what the image is so that I can find it easily in the admin side of things, but small enough not to create a long page loading time

There could be a lot of other ways of adding multiple thumbs per image and in many respects I see this as a nice parallel to how articles work.

article to image comparison

article title (permlink) is a small thumb
article title and excerpt is a slightly larger thumb
article title and body is a normal image

There is a certain intuitiveness about that.

For the plugin developers, how difficult would this be to accomplish? or
Would it be difficult functionality for a plugin? Is it a better candidate for
another method of inclusion?

Have a good weekend all.

hakjoon · 2006-07-28 02:29:36

ma_smith wrote:
For the plugin developers, how difficult would this be to accomplish?

Funny, I started thinking how it wouldn’t be hard to move the thumbnail relationship into it’s own table effectively allowing for unlimited thumbnails per image, either auto created or uploaded (sort of how it works now).

Main problem is it would effectively break every single current tool that works with thumbnails, but the data structure could be pretty simple, thumb_id, image_id, label, image_file (or some autogenerated combination of image-ID and something else).

Maybe a tag that could then call the thumb for that image by label like <txp:thumbnail id="image_id" label="permlink" />. Maybe define one of the variants as a fallback thumbnail for tools that don’t utilize this new scheme.

argh I don’t need more projects I still have two more plugins I want to write.

squaredeye · 2006-07-28 03:24:02

Hak, That’s what I’m here for man, frustration!

I would only be concerned with being able to keep it dynamic so that you could do something like this:
<txp:thumbnail type="x" permlink="1" etc />
Where “x” is a value that could be assigned to the thumbnail upon creation, like assigning it a category for instance, only not handled via category, cuz that would be doubling up on something we need elsewhere.

What say you good sir.

hakjoon · 2006-07-28 15:35:43

I think we are thinking the same thing. I think your type is my label. Effectively just an identifier for that variant.

Taking your example we could call the two thumb types title and excerpt.

So to call the title variant for image #35 you would do (I’m using new_thumbnail to represent that this is a new tag):

<txp:new_thumbnail id="35" type="title" /> I’d prefer to keep permlinking to it’s own tag a la <txp:permlink><txp:new_thumbnail id="35" type="title" /></permlink>

Ideally also be able to use name <txp:new_thumbnail name="cool image" type="title" />

In the images tab you would have the option to create a new type and then have TXP create the new thumb size or upload one (like we can now).

If this we’re to be a plugin, I think the ideal situation would be only enable extra types once a thumbnail has already been established which would keep other plugins and tags from breaking. The first thumb could be a built in type of default and would use the current idt.ext naming scheme. So doing <txp:thumbnail id="35" /> (current thumbnail tag) would effectively be the same things as doing <txp:new_thumbnail id="35" type="default" />

Last edited by hakjoon (2006-07-28 15:36:55)

squaredeye · 2006-07-29 01:21:48

Hak,
I think that sounds exactly right. Good thinking.
I would assume to that the tag could be used like this in a form:
<txp:thumbnail type="title" />
When it would be used in a hak_article_image plugin (or something like it).

How would you expect to have those thumbs displayed? Perhaps they could be text links with their type name,
which would produce a popup if one wanted to see the thumb itself? This would help keep page loading times down.

What do you think?

cnolle · 2006-08-07 19:26:06

Howdy,

There’s a couple of things I have always missed in textpattern’s image management. Maybe these should be plugins I don’t know, but I thought I’d share them, apologies if some have already been covered.

1. The ability to change the order of a given category of images after uploading them. I have tried to implement this into one of my own plugins but with very little success, ala this

2. Multiple delete, change category etc. like with articles.

3. Save the state of the current image listing. I.e if I choose to have a look at image category “human” and I edit one of the images belonging to that category and return to the list, it will still be listing images belonging to “human” and not all my images.

What do you think?

- Christian

rloaderro · 2006-08-07 19:55:17

ma_smith wrote:

Image editing seems to be a good thing to me, but there comes a level when you are trying to do things with images that would be much more easily, and likely much better done on the desktop in an image editing program.

Well, you are absolutely right in that these things could be done easier / better with a desktop image editing program. I am just thinking in terms of the client that does not have one and what they would require in the most basic sense in order to, say, upload photos directly from their digital camera to the website. We work with desktop image editing programs and think nothing of manipulating, sizing, saving etc.. images before upload – but I have come across more than one client that simply did not own or have access to image editing software. Trying to use the tools built into Windows is hopeless. And yes, there probably are shareware / freeware programs you can find on the internet – but I’d like to draw a parallel to the upoading built into TXP: sure if you are going to upload a few score of images to TXP using an external FTP program will make it a lot easier – but for the non-power user just adding an image every couple of weeks, having the upload built into TXP makes the application that much more useful.

Having the simple image resize has proven incredibly useful for me. Like I said, having the ability to crop from a side – maybe even a simple rotation – would just about complete it for me and would cover 95% of what my clients might need from the interface to cover taking a photo and putting it on their website without having to open any other application.

btw- I think your suggestion for multiple thumbnails is brilliant and would also be hugely useful!

squaredeye · 2006-08-07 20:51:28

Aeron,
i see your point. Maybe we could get some people together to bring this up in the plugin ransom. I for one don’t see this being integrated into core anytime soon as so many people value the lightweight nature of TXP, and this would add some weight (as best I can tell).

However, I think the possibilities are quite cool.

thumbnails: yes! Glad we agree :)

Bastian · 2006-08-08 09:11:40

Hey Folks,

some time ago a read this thread. Wow 11 pages. I will do my best to get on track with this.
But perhaps somebody can give me a short overview how far you get improving TXP in images…

squaredeye · 2006-08-08 15:48:52

Bastian,
Howdy man.

Super short synopsis:

There is a strong push to code a patch to enable img tags in TXP’s core to act more like articles. See the WIKI page for examples.

The second piece, which seems more appropriate for plugins, in order to keep TXP’s core slim, is the need for a

revision to upm_img_popper with better customization of links for insertion and style, etc.
better image management in the image tab (sorting, searching, etc) (I think some of this is in SVN for the next release, if not crockery)
better image organization. The need for folders etc when users have sometimes hundreds of images.
possibility for creation of multiple thumbnails per image
better image manipulation/editing
image post at write tab
image upload at write tab
batch upload (with category creation) (I think someone’s working on something like this as we speak) – can’t remember the name of the plugin in my morning haze.

There are other issues people have raised, but these have surfaced as the most important.

Is that helpful?

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#253 2006-07-27 23:56:18

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#254 2006-07-27 23:59:30

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#255 2006-07-28 01:47:53

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#256 2006-07-28 02:29:36

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#257 2006-07-28 03:24:02

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#258 2006-07-28 15:35:43

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#259 2006-07-29 01:21:48

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#260 2006-08-07 19:26:06

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#261 2006-08-07 19:55:17

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#262 2006-08-07 20:51:28

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#263 2006-08-08 09:11:40

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#264 2006-08-08 15:48:52

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

Board footer