CCK / ImageField Integration

Image Browser is powered off image.module, when you upload an image in Image Browser it create an image node through image.module automatically.

When you say usable with ImageField do you mean inserting images Image Browser it into the image field or making images uploaded through ImageField selectable within Image Browser for inserting inline?

Cheers

Was thinking about this a bit more. Obviously there are two options like I outlined above:

1) ImageField -> Image Browser -> WYSIWYG Editor
2) ? -> Image Browser -> ImageField

While 1 makes theoretical sense why would you want to insert the image inline if you you already have it available in the node as a CCK field?

2 falls apart a bit since where are the images coming from? Image.module? Previous ImageField uploads?

Would like people's feedback and thoughts :)

Ok thanks. I will have to look into the ImageField module a bit more to see how it handles the files and cataloguing of them. I agree it would be a cool feature. I can see a path forward it just depends on how ImageField handles things and how well I can plug in to it.

Cheers

Is anyone picking this up? otherwise i might take a look into it.

Not looking into it myself as it's not a priority for me. All I imagine you would have to do is modify the CCK form. Then pop-up the browser. Only potential issue would be getting ImageField to take an image URL instead of a file. But have a play and call if you have issues from IB's point of view.

subscribing, it will be really great and usefull thing if we haven't to depend on image module, which is not very well, but only for imagefield which works native with imagecache.

my opinon for way to do is: Wysiwyg editor -> image_browser -> image_field
(imagefield will be inside imagebrowser - it will be the field for upload)

thanks for your great module
Igorik

I'd suggest to rather create an own CCK field for imagebrowser, which creates an image node in the background and references that from the CCK node, instead of working with imagefield. As far as I can tell, there is no interest to make imagefield able to reuse already uploaded images, because it was brought up in the issue queue a couple of times already, even when it first started.

"When you say usable with ImageField do you mean inserting images Image Browser it into the image field or making images uploaded through ImageField selectable within Image Browser for inserting inline?"

What about the second option, would it be feasible to allow Image Browser to browse through image nodes already created through a custom CCK image content type and then insert them inline?

A little background Im (a newbie) setting up essentially a community site. I addition to the sites content there will be a community area where users will have blogs, forums and image galleries etc.

The first task is to figure out how to handle images on the site both for general users and myself: I was thinking of going the CCK-Filefield-ImageAPI-Imagefield-ImageCache-Views-Lightbox2 route rather than use the Image module etc. Beyond having photos in a nice image gallery I actually want to be able to then use those images stored in the gallery in the site, rather than re-uploading them to include them in content. While Im quite happy to break out the img html tags and poke through the galleries to find the url of the image I want to include in some content, I really need something a bit more user friendly for general users. Hence my interest in Image Browser.

e.g. A user wants to post a blog entry with a few photos in it, They first add the photos to the gallery, then begin working away on their blog entry with FCKEditor. The decide they want to insert one of their images inline, thus they click on the image button in the FCKEditor toolbar, up pops the FCKEditor Image Properties box and they then click upon the Browse Server button and up pops the Image Browser window displaying all the images on the site, allowing them to filter by gallery, user etc, they select what they want and insert it into their blog and continue writing.

Is this doable or would I be better off sticking with the Image module etc to act as the backend to Image Browser?

Thanks.

It's doable but you would have to mod IB to look for files as well as nodes, and tweak a few things here and there. It's not a big priority for me however so it won't be added for a long time.

Oh well, thank you anyway for considering it.

I second this... exactly the functionality I'm looking for.

Right now getting image uploads into structured CCK data and inline via a WYSIWYG editor means using two completely different image management approaches... which is confusing to novice site maintainers and discourages image reuse.

There's a CCK field for IMCE that sort of addresses this issue, but development seems stalled and it's missing critical features like ImageCache integration:
http://drupal.org/project/imceimage

EDIT: I've posted a patch that adds ImageCache support to Imce CCK Image.
http://drupal.org/node/359098

Hmm I believe the way imagefield works is that it references a File ID, which wouldn't integrate nicely with Image Nodes.

Maybe it would be best to look into creating a new CCK Filed Type that just references an Image Node.

Unfortunately it's not a priority for me without funding.

If anyone wants to co-maintain this CCK_ImageBrowser module let me know. I personally don't have to time to get up to scratch with the CCK API. But I'll be able to help out on the IB integration side of things.

Whats the status on this area?
Here is a related post from img_assist.
http://drupal.org/node/175812

Wysiwyg editor -> image_browser -> image_field
allows for reuse of resources and compatibility with ubercart.
As far as I know, lack of being able to use imagefields with image assist/imagebrowser is one of the only reasons one might choose image over imagefield.

What funding would be required?

It looks like Image Assist it there from what I've read. Haven't tested anything though.

No guarantees I will work on it but just so I finally get this idea straight:

Mod/Extend ImageField so next to new upload it says 'browse current images'. Then you can select images to insert into the field via ImageBrowser.

When accessing ImageBrowser through FCKeditor you will see both Image Nodes and images uploaded via ImageField to insert.

I suggest anyone to try out the prosepoint profile (http://prosepoint.org), it has an image picker/browser integrated which allow you to browse nodes of one type using the node's image field.

Anyway, I am looking forward to both img_assist and imagebrowser support for image fields.

Theres another hack I thought about if you only need image nodes for image assist.
Use image import to import directly from imagefield storage location or even more efficient for some people, the imagecache location.
The downsides.
1. Duplicate files
2. Lack of imagefield related information (ie alt and title)

I think my needs are the same so I am just subscribing but also just to see if this falls inline with the above.
For a user to insert content into a page can sometimes be risky cause of style issues.
So using cck is create cause they can attach numerous images and then the
1. sizing can be taken care of
2. the layout can be taken care of via theme

So the only problem is that when the user goes to use this interface all the get is
1. upload new image (which will be added to the image node content type as a new node)
2. or use and existing image (which is a pull down menu with NO image preview) somewhat useless.

imceiamge http://drupal.org/project/imceimage
Though it does not make a node when you upload an image, does create a decent user experience for this flow above.
But It's interface is a bit less nice then yours (to say it nicely since both are great efforts!)

Hope this helps.
I can make this happen if maybe someone just told me
1. what chunk of code do I need to make Click Here to attach image call to the Image Browser
2. what chunk of code to then send it back to that field and make a image node

But overall CCK is something I would like to work on.

THANKS!!!

http://drupal.org/project/img_assist should already do what you are asking for.. It also provides for simple float left right center and creates image nodes on upload.

#22, have you tried Image Browser? Even the first version was very useful, and it supplied me, with previews of the images. Unfortunately it only supports Image nodes, just as image assist and imce (I'm not 100% sure of IMCE, I gave up on it b/c it was pretty unvieldly with large images).

Anyway, even the photo on the module page shows that the user can select an existing image from a list of thumnails, exactly as image assist.

Am I missing something vital in your explanation?

I certainly see the merit in Going down the CCK route, it's something I will definitely look into when I have the time. I know at work for audio we are moving away from the Audio module's 'audio node' idea into a complete FileField solution and my recent mp3 player helps on that front. So CCK integration for IB does interest me.

By all means use whatever works for you. I already have ideas where I want to take v2 of IB, just don't have any spare time at the moment. But we will get there in the end. It may even start to phase out the whole 'image node' idea with what I think is a more practical filefield route with ImageCache to handle the image output.

yurtboy 1 and 2 will both need a mod to ImageField. When we return an image from ImageBrowser we can't pass it through the normal ImageField method as it's not a new file we want to upload. So we will have to rewrite that process to use an existing file ID. I just need time to get my head around CCK and how FileField and ImageField works. TBH there is no reason why we can't write a mod for FileField and ImageField that ties into all image browsers like IMCE, Image Assist and IB.

Thanks for the reply.
I think my explanation needs to be more clear. I attached an few images to show the work flow.
The main goal is to not let people insert images into the text body for numerous style reasons.
So using imce and the module I mention above this cck field gives a gui to insert the image.
But Image Browser has more to offer
1. Better UI
2. Views
3. image = node

My goal is to exactly insert any available imagefield arbitrarily into text just like img_assist. I like to be able to write text, insert an image anywhere and have the text flow either left or right, as opposed to static areas like many many websites. It gives a much more dynamic feel.
Imagefield contains alt title and description whereas filefield does not. What would be the advantage of filefield?
For imagefields check out the imagefield_import module for how they work.

sgriffin: You could easily extend img_assist to support that. Change the view to include imagefield_images and write a javascript function to call when an imagefield image is clicked instead of a normal image node.

Starnox: There are other possibilities to attach images from imagefield. You could e.g. include the callbacks needed to define an own fieldtype, or provide a wrapper and field template for nodereference. I did the latter for img_assist to be able to theme the images instead of embedding them.

scroogie: The thing you describe can also be done with image browser, I believe, or is there a fundamental difference in how each of them use views?

starnox: I understand the different developers need to focus on one project at a time. Tnx for the great work. And I'm aware of the time and effort it takes. I'm looking forward to your future development.

pkej: You are right, the same would probably work for imagebrowser, but I only speak for img_assist because I know its code (and don't know IBs code). I've just recently implemented a CCK field to choose an image node using img_assist and for that i used such a custom javascript function, thats why i know how it would work. I think the problem isn't to implement such specific solutions, the real problem is thinking of a proper architecture to get all these features into a sane module.

could you share the js in img_assist as a feature request or something so that other people (me) could try to glue it into a view?

Thanks a lot! The last site I made img_assist didn't use views. Stuff changes quickly.

Probably the wrong queue, what was your work on img_assist for imagefield?
I was able to view imagefields pretty easily by altering the view and using this in the theme.inc of img_assist.
$vars['thumbnail'] = theme('imagecache', 'img_assist', $node->field_image_cache[0]['filepath']);
where img_assist = your imagecache preset.

Looks like the next step is to gut the img_assist module for the appropriate fields. It seems like this is alot more work than just a js.

sgriffin: I chose a different way, namely to implement a widget for nodereference through which you can choose an image node by browsing the thumbnails with img_assist. I didn't post the patch yet, because i want to polsih some more. See here /node/352554. Sorry for sidetracking the queue.

I'm currently working in a CCK and ImageBrowser integration; if anyone is interested check #507242: Created CCK Image Browser field, need support

Recommend you check it out people. Further CCK discussion can take place in the above thread.