Trying to make a Manga Reader--having trouble with image slideshow
Hi all,
I am trying to develop a mangareader for Drupal using existing modules. See http://www.onemanga.com/Amatsuki/31/00-cover/ for something similar. I am just starting with Drupal and would like to ask you all for your suggestions on how to proceed. Thanks!
Here's what I've got so far:
1. CCK and Views are used to create/display two content types called Manga Series and Manga Chapter (for those unfamiliar with manga, manga is similar to comics, or even to TV series if we equate chapter with episode).
2. These content types have relevant fields, such as series descriptions, series translators, etc. set up using CCK. Chapters are linked to Series with CCK Node Reference.
3. The one thing I am having troubles with is the actual manga image/slideshow display part. (Basically, I want to user to be able to read the comic, 1 page at a time)
Here is what I am trying to do:
1. There should be simple multiple image upload and Chapter association functionality for the admin. In other words, the admin should be able to upload 30 images and associate them to a Manga Chapter in one (or a few) steps.
2. The image slideshow should have back/forward buttons. Select list of images is nice, but not necessary.
I have tried these modules, but due to my lack of experience, I could not get them working the way I wanted to (the specifications above): imagefield, imagecache, slideshow, slideshow creator, cck multimage, image w/ multiple image uploader, lightbox2. I won't go into why I couldn't get them to work in detail, but essentially it boiled down to I couldn't get multiple upload/assocation with Chapter to work.
The farthest I got was with image w/ multiple image uploader, but I could not figure out how to rapidly associate a whole batch of images with a manga chapter. Essentially, I added a CCK node reference to Manga Chapter field to the image content type, so I can do it manually, one-by-one; but, I am looking to automate the process. The only things I can think of is using custom PHP with workflow-ng or maybe something with Batch API, but I have zero experience with the APIs and not much coding PHP either.
What do you all think? I don't mind using different modules or methods; Drupal 5 or 6 are both good; anything goes so long as it can fulfill the specs.
Thanks so much! This new user is really grateful for your kindness in advance :)
sphoenixee
I don't have any quick
I don't have any quick answers, but I like where you are going with this.
I've played with similar ideas in the past, but not really got anything off the ground.
I've not yet tried multiple image uploading, but it does sound like a key point.
On top of that, I'd imagine importing into a GALLERY would be what I'd do, then associate the 'chapter' node with the gallery, either with term-node or just by tagging it - which could make that like a 'cover page' for the collection of image nodes.
I'd like to see a way to be working with nodereference or more CCK ways (so you can get slideshows etc) ... but I find 'image' nodes and core taxonomy that much easier to code for :-)
Consider the 'editions architecture described in the NYO article here.
.dan.
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Thanks for the response. I
Thanks for the response.
I did not realize there was image import to gallery...quite useful.
Not sure how editions would help--there's no scheduling needed with this. It's more or less static after things get uploaded (except for comments, ratings, etc. but that's a whole other thing).
I haven't gotten a chance to try this out yet, but I think what I found what I'm looking for: http://drupal.org/project/image_fupload . This allows you to upload multiple images in one click. With this, I can now just have an imagefield within a content type, and the multiple upload/association with chapter gets handled very rapidly. There is no support for imagefield atm, but the developer says that should be out very soon (actually dev notes say that's already implemented, just no GUI to access it yet). I'll wait until then (this is a personal project, no client pressure.).
I like this workflow the best (have the image upload as a field on the content creation page, not in some admin menu option), but alternatively, the importing to gallery/associating gallery with chapter node also works as you mentioned. That requires extra steps though (create gallery, create chapter node, import image) (albeit, one could use workflow and write some custom php, but me not knowing drupal API I like the pretty GUI solutions better, for now at least).