By Stefan Nagtegaal on

While i'm busy trying to sort some things out for making a new imageapi, i think it would be nice if people tell me what they expect from such an api. What should it do, and not even less important, what shouldn't?

Currently I'm having the following point:

  • it should support image editing, depending of the servers support (GD 1.0, GD 2.0 and Image::Magick);
  • it should be possible to attach an image to every nodetype, which should be configurable in the administration section under content configuration;
  • it should contain an option for making an thumbnail of an image;
  • it shuld determine if the image uploaded is a normal image or a photo;
  • If the uploaded image is a photo it should scale down depending on the width and height of the photo (determining of 'landscape' and 'portrait'-photos)

Any other suggestions for this?

Comments

ccourtne’s picture

ccourtne commented

It should not have anything to do with nodes. Create the API to allow image manipulate just like the file API allows file manipulation. Leave attaching to a node and maximum size, thumbnail and auto scaling up to the implementation of a module that uses images. The API should just have a standardized way to resize, rotate, filter, watermark images that any module who needs that functionality could use.

Ideally this API could then be used by an attachment module which allows attaching files and images to a node. Also this API could be used by any other module (Photo Gallery, etc..). I am currently working on creating a more general attachment module which allows for adding/removing multiple attachment as well as link them as images or download in the node body. I should have a demo of it posted up by the end of the week.

Stefan Nagtegaal’s picture

Stefan Nagtegaal commented

So, features it should have are:

  • resizing;
  • rotating;
  • filtering (of what?);
  • watermarking (why, isn't this module specific?);

Modules I'm currently thinking of, are:

  • photoalbum.module;;
  • watermark.module (probably?);
  • attche.module;
ti’s picture

ti commented

Besides GD 1/2 and Image::Magick, please support NetPBM. Menalto Gallery, one of the most popular gallery/album software prefers NetPBM. NetPBM has just as large, if not larger, installed base as Image::Magick.

nedjo’s picture

nedjo
he/him/his
Primary language English
commented

Is the imageAPI intended for the Drupal core?

In any case, I'd be interested in discussing integration of some of the components I put into node_image.module. These include:

  • An image (thumbnail and full size) for each node and taxonomy term.
    These images can be displayed e.g. accompanying "teasers". I implemented (optional) substitution so that e.g. if a node had no associated images of its own a term image (from a term associated with the node) could be substituted. For examples, see http://www.gworks.ca
  • Popup window for adding images
    This facilitates e.g. adding multiple images to a node body.

Nedjo Rogers, nedjo@gworks.ca.

ccourtne’s picture

ccourtne commented

The imageapi should have nothing to do with direct end user functionality. It should be an abstraction layer on top of GD, ImageMagick, or any other image library we should support. Then many things can be easily built. Image for taxonomies, nodes, photo albums would all use the image api, but they should be separate development tasks/modules.

I am almost finished with the enhancements to the nodeapi which allows multiple attachments to be uploaded to a node with out client side script or popup windows. I'll have a demo site up this weekend. My intention is to enhance this to recognize images so you can put images inline in your body text.

That's at least what my vision for an image_api is. This would allow a much greater base of image based enhancements.

ccourtne’s picture

ccourtne commented

That should really read "my enhancements" instead of "the enhancements" I'm not an official maintainer of anything. I'll be putting a patch set out and seeing what others think of including them or not.