Attach multiple images to a node

This is my favorite gripe about drupal, and just about every site i've built using it (at least a dozen) needed image handling.

for one site, i built a custom module that uses only the upload module. When files are uploaded are images, it creates thumbnails, adds them as additional attachments (like image.module). however, it will do it for every attached image.

This method skips adding images as nodes, and is therefor meant for sites that don't need that added functionality.

This worked on the original site is was written for, but i haven't successfully ported it to another site.

i'll reply here when i've got something working.

It seems every Drupal site I come to do struggles at the stage of sorting out images. Does anyone know what the future plans are for Drupal and image functionality? Surely it's time to consolidate all the fragmented projects out there and come up with one or two modules which are flexible enough to do everything we need, customisable via a settings page.

It's this kind of thing which is hurting Drupal but I'd be willing to contribute as best I can if we can get these image problems sorted once and for all. image_attach.module would do the job for me if only I could attach more than one image per node.

The method I use for this is using the categories module + CCK + image module - might not be the cleanest, but I'm happy with it.

PROS:

• possibility to attach unlimited images to a node
• automatically show these images on the node page (i usually theme node-content-foo.tpl.php and node-image.tpl.php to make it look nice)
• automatically generate thumbnails / previews (the images are created via image module)
• If you are viewing an image, in the taxonomy section it shows which node(s) it belongs to, clicking on the taxonomy will take it to the node details (with all other thumbnails) - so basically you have a link back to the node from the image,

CONS

• I mention this after the step by step.

Below is a step by step how to create a nodetype called Artist which can have many images assigned to it.

Setting up:

1. Create a custom CCK or flexinode node type (e.g. Artist - fields: name, dob, brief bio, etc. . all fields excluding anything to do with images) - you may have already done this.
2. Create a container called Artist Photos which accepts nodetype Image
3. In admin / settings / category under the Content type settings section enable other content types to be Categories
4. In admin / settings / content types I click on the configure link next to my Artist node type
   1. Under the Category behavior: section tick Category
   2. Under the Category - allowed containers: select the containers Artist Photos

So now whenever we create a node of type Artist it will also act as a taxonomy term under the container Artist Photos.

So then we just create images as we normally would using the image module, and from the Categories section we select whichever Artist we want it to belong to and voila!

Only problem is: If you already have created a bunch of 'Artists' which you want to assign images to, those existing ones will not already be categories for images. The steps above only enable new Artists to be categories, so for each existing Artist you need to edit it, and without doing anything, just click Submit. That will force the category module to create a category from that Artist. If you have already created hundreds of Artists then you might wanna think of a way of automating this!!

I don't know if this helps you, but I used the image.module, upload.module, and image_attach (came with the image module in contrib). This displays all the uploaded images in a list after the node. I don't quite like how it displays (not side by side), but it's easy to do.

Anisa.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Kindness builds stronger bonds than necessity.

www.animecards.org - 18,000 card scans and counting!
-----------------------------------------------------------

You might want to have a look at this: http://drupal.org/node/87991, it implements what you ask for. If you have suggestions please add them to the feature request.

you can do that with my cck subform module

create a new "image_holder" content type that contains an image field

then create a relation between your parent node type and this image_holder type

then create a subform field in your parent type, and tell it to operate on the relation you just established

http://subform.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/subform_trunk.zip

You can try the Node Images module.

[4] cck + imagefield
PROS:
+ possibility to attach more images to a node
CONS:
- the number of images available has to be set in advance in the content type
- does not generate thumbnails / previews

How do you set the number of image. I find that I can only set whether or not Multiple Images are allowed, not how many.

Thanks.

Agreed, image handling is poor. I have used Image and Image Assist modules, but there are currently so many problems with them on Drupal 5 that they are currently unusable. I think Drupal should support images embedded (either origional or thumbnail) in nodes as core functionality, or at a least a module that is commonly used and reliable!

Why not extend your content type to include an image gallery. Create your image gallery (with your multiple images) then with an auto complete form field associate that gallery with your node. So you'd have a table in your database with the node Id and the term ID of your gallery.

http://www.rimian.com.au
http://www.freelancewebdeveloper.net.au