Hello,

Can there be a way of filtering the results by:

1. Using a View, selectable on pop-up (like image_assist)
2. Directory tree support (this is hard I know)
3. Taxonomy and/or Vocabulary restriction filter somehow.

Especially for generic images that can be used over and over, some type of filtering can be very useful indeed, for example for a news site that has thousands of images, which you might try to find a logo or a generic image used for a similar context before.

Thank you so much for a very versatile module by the way.

Comments

Sverre’s picture

Sverre commented

+1 for the filtering suggestion.

And +1 on the thank you! This module makes Image Attach much more user friendly for large quantities of images. When released I think this module will merit inclusion with Image Attach in the image module, or at least a mention and link. :-)

aaronbauman’s picture

aaronbauman
he/him
commented

Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm not sure i know what you mean by #1: "using a view, selectable on pop-up".
Would this work like:
1. create a view
2. change image attach browse settings to use that view
3. in image attach browse, show the rendered view
?

In general i like the idea of a search/filter for images.
However, as of now, this module is really really thin.
It's more or less a theme and some javascript.

But I'm definitely open to making it more user-friendly if we can figure out an elegant way to do it.
I like the idea of using Views, but I'd also like to have a fallback for sites which don't use Views.

How would directory tree support work?
You mean like using the files directory?
Further, on most of the sites I've worked on, Image nodes get added and then rarely touched.
In other words, they're mostly in a flat hierarchy and don't have any vocab terms attached...

Thanks again for bringing this up.
Let's figure out the best way to implement this.

chawl’s picture

chawl commented

On a second thought you are right, directory filter will completely be useless.

In fact views integration also can be heavy for most of the users, but at least module can set its own view Style (like HTML List, Table etc.) which can permit only filters, and sorting. Views can be listed on a dropdown, onChange event can also trigger the pop-up. I am not sure dynamic taxonomy support can be added by the help of the views, but a textbox can pass terms to the selected view as arguments perhaps. This may require to set the view's Distinct parameter to Yes, which is known to be problematic unfortunately.

For ones without views, an option to sort the images according to date may be useful also. Sometimes it is easier to remember the upload date. Date tags will be useful in this case, especially if you can approximately remember the date range only.

As Image module makes image nodes and also has gallery support depending on taxonomy, I am rather sure that many people will tag their images, especially after IA Browse's possible taxo support :)

The code is indeed thin and I am sure you do not want to bloat, but as being only solution to a very fundamental problem of IA, I think many people eventually will demand some sort of filtering solution as module spreads.

Thank you for your consideration in advance.

Sverre’s picture

Sverre commented

I would have thought filtering using taxonomy terms was the most logical option.

You could leave all of the administration of terms outside the scope of the module, and look to use a dropdown (or maybe autocomplete textfield) based on a vocabulary for filtering the images.

aaronbauman’s picture

aaronbauman
he/him
commented

@sverre: right, that would definitely be the easiest way to do it.
i'm leaning towards offering admins the choice between views, taxonomy, and maybe a simple keyword search...

any contributors out there?
;-]

Richard Blackborder’s picture

Richard Blackborder commented

I'd also like to add a supporting voice to this discussion. If this module had a good solution to this issue, it would be enormously enhanced.

I'd also like to offer minor developer support. What I mean by that is: I'm not in a position to lead development, but I will help out with defined tasks if others are involved.

joachim’s picture

joachim commented

Taxonomy would be very useful.
Perhaps also filter by user?

I would caution against going overboard with the options here though, as before long you'd basically be rewriting Views... :/

aaronbauman’s picture

aaronbauman
he/him
commented

As i mentioned in the recent issue #809620: Image Search Feature, I don't have time to work on this project at the moment.
If anyone wants to submit a patch I'll be more than happy to review and apply it.