There are plenty of image handling, image uploading, image-this and image-that modules. One does this, the other does that. I have not, however, been able to pinpoint the exact module or combination of modules which, I think, many people need – and which I need too.
What I’m looking for, is a module (or module combination) which:
- Allows image uploading from the user’s hard disk
- Allows integration in one of the wysiwyg editors
- Allows INLINE placement of the images, not some silly pile of images below the text
- Allows image presets (OK, Imagecache can do that)
- Allows the use of sensible image annotation (sensible means: lengthy, say 1,000 characters or so in the description; sensible also means: an image description which can be neatly positioned below the image, and which ‘moves’ along with the image itself when the image is moved in the text)
- Allows interaction with a carroussel module like Lightbox 2
I think that’s about it. Maybe it looks like a lot to ask, but this IS the basic requirement of most any article based site, say a news site or something like that.
I know of IMCE, Wysiwyg Image Uploader, CCK Image Field, Bulk Uploader, Imagecache and what not, but there always seems to be something wrong or missing.
So, how can the above list be achieved by not too programming-savvy people in Drupal 6.x ???
Comments
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http://drupal.org/project/insert integrates with editors and you may want to read the project page for a mdoule which allows image cropping of integrates with imagecache.
the problem you are running into is the body field tends to expect text or HTML. hence why imagefields add images in other positions ie: silly mess below the body field. If the image field was moved above the body field those images would be above the body. Though I'm guessing you would still view it as a mess. That said, you have to find some combination of modules to work both with an editor and inside a body field.
of note, for the non tech savvy, some manipulation at the theme layer may be requred to have the abundance of features requested in this post for image handling within a body field.
In theory the fields should be separate and the node themed with CSS so that the data collected in fields is styled nicely after the form is submitted.
Thanks for the reply, VM. In
Thanks for the reply, VM. In the meantime, I have been doing some more module digging myself, and the result is still that I'm still eagerly looking some elusive combination which should do the trick.
I don't think I'm looking for an "abundance of features": inserting, scaling, annotating and (basic) manipulating is what many, many people in the publishing business are doing on a daily basis. So, I am still very surprized that there is no standard solution for this. I trust that in the end it will be solved. Everything always is, in Drupal, which is the nice part. Just not quite yet, which is frustrating.
At this moment, I'm stuck with pictures scaling nicely in the editor, but they are "jammed" into the Imagecache preset size when I'm viewing them after saving. Imagecache is nice for standard situations, but standards are there to overrule them, and that doesn't quite work yet. Oh well, back to the search.