What I want to do:
- have an "Add image" button show up at the bottom of a node
- load up the image if it's no bigger than xx Kb
- if necessary, resize the image to no wider than x, no taller than y, keep aspect ratio
- fill in the html img code in the node textarea automatically
What I tried:
- upload & inline: worked, but required me to add [inline:xx] for it to work and doesn't resize images
- gallery: has resizing, but have to upload image, get the url, create blog entry, paste url (way too complicated for dummies)
- node_image: whaddya mean I have to change code?! Didn't get past the "Page not found" stage...
- image & img assist: one module to upload, one to include it in my textarea (my users don't have PhDs)
- tinyMCE: didn't get past the linewrap issues, didn't seem to let me upload an image then-and-there, only accessed images already uploaded
I believe the specs above are the simplest thing a user would need when blogging or creating a story. Yet the many threads appearing in the forums are, basically, horror stories. I'd be willing to implement this myself -- it basically would consist of nothing more than a glorified inline module --, but although I have experience with writing modules for other CMS, my knowledge of the innards of Drupal is nil.
What else have Drupal admins out there tried and done? All pointers welcome.
Comments
Have you tried the add images feature of img_assist?
The image & img_assist modules, optionally combined with tinyMCE, have what you want. However, you may not have noticed the "add images" link at the top of the img_assist window. I didn't notice it the first time I tried img_assist. Maybe the interface could be redesigned to be more user friendly, but I can't figure out what I'd do differently.
I agree that things aren't perfect yet though. My opinion is that of few of the options that img assist provides should be turned off for the average user. I also think a better tinyMCE plugin could be written for img assist. Unless someone else gets to it first, I plan to do that next month. I'd like to see the img_assist filtered code get translated to regular img tags for a better preview in tinyMCE, and then translated back to filter tags on save. The Flash plugin for tinyMCE does something similar.
Just to note the obvious you must have the "image" module
You must have the "image" module (image upload) in order for img_assist's "add image" link to appear. The builtin uploader will not cut it.
I know it's obvious, but on my initial read through the docs I thought that the include core upload module would have done it and I didn't know where my missing "add image" link was.
-jb
That's just it
Yes, one doesn't expect to have to install two modules to make this fly.
And that's just the thing, isn't it?
We're all expecting something simple, because we're all used to dragging-and-dropping a picture into a "compose mail" window in our mail clients, hit the Send button and forget about it...
Tried again...
Ok, just tried image and image_assist again (I tried it a couple of months ago, but hadn't looked at it lately).
Took me a good half-hour (wrestled a while with the folder permissions just like last time...), and here I am with an image manager... So, if I'm an end-user, every time I want to post a new picture, I'll be reminded of all the pictures I posted in the past. And I have to supply a title in addition to that of the blog entry. Then the image node may be added to the post node. And, whenever I add an image node, I have an icon showing up at the bottom of the description textarea inviting me to... add an image! Aaaaugh.
Anyhow, I guess I can live with users having their own personal file of images. After all, it makes sorting pictures easier and it does resize images. But I'm hitting a fly with a hammer, and once again living on the far side of quirk.
On the related point you raise, I have my doubts on the TinyMCE extension: just yesterday, on a clean new site, it unexpectedly wrapped lines on me in a new post I typed in; looked like an 80-char wrap, must be TinyMCE's problem. Nothing like a plain textarea...
Wow. Lookit all the gray hair.