How we built a simple but helpful Drupal site in 3 days!

We wondered if there are any free image hotlinking services but didn't find one matching the need. Finally we get an ideas that we may build a site that

As it happens, we have an idle domain name acobox so we choosed it for this project. It came out that we completed the website from concept to beta release in just three days - thanks to the power of Drual and support from the community!

Here are how we did it:

• Installed Drupal 6 with few clicks in less a minute with Fantansico Delux.
• Searched image and gallery modules and we chose Image module - that provides some features that we want. For an example, getting images of different sizes upon uploading.
• Install a couple of common modules such as persistent login, XML site map, Google analytics... I will list them here since most of you must be more familiar with them then me.
• Installed CCK modules for computed filed
• Wrote some lines of codes for the computed field - they are not complex but spent me much time in copying with " ' \" and \'. Now the we can display 5 buttons on the image page, with which use can copy codes for image of chosen size with a single click!. Have a look at this page http://acobox.com/image/79. We once plan to hire a professional developer to do that job but they are all too busy to take this tiny job so I have to do it by myself.
• Then we published and got criticism on the appearance - we used default Garland them but people told us us we should replace a customized theme otherwise visitors will think the site is still in draft -- that's too bad because we really love blue Garland default theme (and we don't have time and budget for designing a be theme). Finally we purchased a stock theme (called Vandelay) at a cost of $29 and changed only home page.
• We added Views module for presenting random images to bloggers who are too lazy to browsing or searching the site. See page Show me any image.

  As a free image hotliking site, the only benefits we can obtain from acobox is a back link - we spent much time in studying how to ensure users may keep the a link to acobox while using the IMG link (hotlink). It's not a easy job since want to new user can sign up and use the service without any delay... Finally we resolved the problem with a smart model - we will not provide many technique details here because it goes beyond Drupal somehow but the outcome is: if any users don't follow the terms of user, the images they steal with hotlink will change to advertising to some point! Certainly we don't that will never happen since the service is free and what the users to do is create an account and register their blogs or websites.

  It's a pity Drupal doesn't allow me to show an image hosted by acobox...

  So try it out by yourself. We will appreciate it greatly if you share any comments or suggestions with us and the community.

  Thank you!