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By patchak on
Hi!
I want to build a full blown photo album site, I need help to choose the best option for developpement, please havea look and leave opinions, ideas, etc.... cheers!
requirements:
1) Collaborative editing of public photo albums (Add photo albums to the albums structure, like book module let's say)
For this function I know that acidfree does it, as well as shazam gallery I think... I did an experiment and created a 'photo album' 'category' node with CCK, to which I could attach images to have unlimited galleries in a "book' style collaborative environnement.
For the moment I think this is a good solution, cause I can theme photo album category nodes very easily I think.
2) Must also provide personnal albums that support child albums, etc... With it's own structure for each user. (personal photo categories, is that possible?)
This one is more complicated I think... cause I don't know yes ow to assign categories to a single user. Example:
If i create a cck category node : personnal album photo I could eventually add images to a 'personal photo album' but i'm not sure where to place the category (in which container/vocab)...
To make it clear I would like to give each user is own little taxonomy to create ordered and structured photo albums.
But there again, acidfree can do this out of the box...
The big question is: why doN't you take acidfree?
moving to the third requirement...
3) The photo system must be integrated with the content side of the site.
I want user to create collaborarives book-like "guides" (that are about the same topics as the photo albums) , where they can insert images as well, directly in the content.
The easiest and more practical way for the users at the moment is the image.module and img_assist combo with tinymce and the drupalmage plugin.
That combo is still a little complicated for certain users, but in general it gets the work done for most people quite easily (except maybe for the categorisation bit of the picture...) I'll get to that later...
Another issue about img_assist is that I'm not sure if it allows users to classify the images they post on the site. So for a photo site I would really prefer to let users do some photo organizing AND to have that organisation reflected in IMG_assist!!! What happens in IMG_assist when a person as posted 1000 photos for example?
Isit possible to have a categorisation of pics in IMG_assist??
Again why not use acidfree?? I would really like to use acifree, it's a great gallery interface! But it does not support IMG_assist, or any other image insertion system (that does not realy on a line of code inserted in the content).
My Options
IMCE for tinyMCE, I did not try it, but people seem to say it's fast, and get the insertion of pictures in the content in a really easy way.
The problem is that images that are uploaded with that tool are stored in a separate file structure than the rest of the images.
That would mean that a user would have to upload an image twice to insert it in a content AND in a photo album or vice versa. Does that make sense for a user, I think it does not, but I may be wrong...
To recap I need: public book style albums, personal albums, and also I want that same structure (albums) to be available when a user tries to add PHOTOS to CONTENT from it's ALBUMS.
That's it, I want users to insert content directly from it's albums.
The two more serious options are :
1) cck home made gallery system... It would certainly achieve objectives 1 and 2 if I can create personnal taxonomy for each user (that does look easy to do...), as for integrating my home made gallery STRUCTURE in the img assist structure, I REALLY don't know how to do that lol! So option one seems to go on the more complicated site of things... not so good.
2) Acidfree : choosing acidfree as a photo album backend is still a goop option to achieve objectives 1 and 2, but there no easy way to use the albums as a base to insert images in content.
This raises a few questions in my mind before going further..
IS IT necessary for users to have the same photo album structure when they are in the content side of the site adding pics to blogs, forums, and other nodes...I mean, would users mind having two separate 'sets' of pictures in the site, theyre album ones, and theyre content ones... Keep in mind the content will be the same topic than the albums so there is a chance that users would realy like to add the same picture at two places.
My real options,
I want to start the site maybe before christmas, so I need the best stable solution that is available today even if it means compromising on features.
I guess I will finish my post with yet another question:
Is it better to have a really good photo album (acidfree) that is not integrated with img_assist (thus keeping 'for content' pics separated from the 'album' pics OR to have a less good album system (no personnal albums) but only one place where user images are stored.
So in the light of all this,
--- would you compromise on the quality of the photo album OR would you choose to keep the images for content simply in a separate place that the other photos?
I know that acidfree wants to build on relying on the image.module for it's next release so it could be a good idea to start with acidfree now knowing that the content side would probably be compatible in a coupleof months (the realease of 5.0)...
Well, enoughsaid I guess, I hope it's clear, and if you read this to the end, thanks!, you better post a reply ;)
good nite
patchak
Comments
while the modules you
while the modules you mentioned can be manipulated to work. I highly suggest you take a look at menalto Gallery2 and the module that allows you to sync it with Drupal.
I think that gallery2 module
I think that gallery2 module integration does not permit to use the pictures in Img_assist but i'm not sure about that.
If it did, that would be a great alternative!
Also I'm not sure if I want to rely on an external module (external to drupal that is)... I saw gallery and it's really an awesome gallery module, but I would still prefer at the end having a gallery that's totally integrated in drupal (image.module I guess)...
Sepeck, the suggestion is indeed interesting, and I though about that as well, but ruled it out of my options because of the lack of structure on that way of doing it. I want people to be able to create 'shared' public photo albums so all users can contribute to the site's albums...
The albums are to be organised in a big hierarchy of parents, and child categories... Not all categories are equal in my site, so it causes a problem with the usage of tags and everything like that...
question to all:
Is it really necessary in the sens of user friendlinessto have all photos that a user posted available when he wants to publish a review, articles, blog post and insert images in it??
Is OK for the user in your opinion to separate the images that are in an album from the images that are/will be posted in all other less photo-oriented content types???
It's really on that issue that I'm not sure. If a person wants to put a photo that is her albums into another content type like a blog post, and the photo is not available when she clicks the insert picture button in the texte area, is that bab user experience, or just normal?
Because the ONLY way it seems to make sure that all pics are available for everything, everywhere is to rely on image.module.
Here is what I'll try next
here is another viable option to do it I think
1) Shared albums created in CCK and category module as public category nodes. (so people can assign images to them..and theme it like a normal gallery... (all this to create a book-like really big photo album that could contain hundreds of categories all ordered in hierarchy.)
2) Maybe use shazamgallery so that each user can still have it's own personal gallery
3) Use img_assist to insert pics in text...
Again, I'll finish the post by another question: since img_assist does not permit the organisation of the photos when it displays the available pics in the pop-up window, it WOULD create a huge problem if a user has hundreds of different pictures submitted, in his albums....
??
Please leave comments, impressions and advices about the project...
Thanks for the answers!
you might look
At this approach with image module, image_gallery, and views.
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/how_to_build_flickr_in_drupal
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Any other comments out
Any other comments out there, about the best solution to this problem AND do you think it is an issue to have pictures from albums separated from the pictures that people can use in the content??
Thanks