image embedding

By bullman on 29 Dec 2005 at 08:32 UTC

i have looked thru many (and i mean many) drupal forum topics relating to this,,,and most people seem to be helpful, but i would like to know...how do i let users upload pics from their harddrive, or insert pics into blog posts? I have used image.module, imgassis.module and nothing seems to work. sorry but i am kind of new so any help would be appreciated thanks

Comments

perhaps the inline module?

clo75 commented 29 December 2005 at 12:51

or a flexinode

I like image assist

Heine commented 29 December 2005 at 12:56

In my experience image and image assist work fine. Also for other users, provided that access permissions are correct.

What exactly doesn't work?
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this is another request for

wellsy commented 29 December 2005 at 13:27

the absolute beginners way to upload and display an image in a node here I think?

really....this functionality is crucial to drupal success folks

sorry to the poster but I am not a coder and simply have no idea how this may be achieved

others here may eventually

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

This can be achieved with

Heine commented 29 December 2005 at 13:48

This can be achieved with image.module and image_assist.

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You can also look at

killes@www.drop.org commented 2 January 2006 at 14:08

You can also look at upload_image.module. The current code shoudl work with Drupal 4.6. It accepts images as attachements and converts them to their own nodes. It also shows thumbnails in the attachement list. It does not offer any extra features, but this is intentional to keep it simple and easily usable by inexperienced people.
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Link for upload_image

Heine commented 2 January 2006 at 14:15

Here it is: upload_image.
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IMO, the simplest way to

ixis.dylan commented 29 December 2005 at 13:54

IMO, the simplest way to allow this would be an extra box next to "list" and "delete" in the attachments field to toggle the display of attached files inline.

Using [inline] tags is too complicated for many users, and the img_assist module has always been too broken and buggy to use in my experience. I really dislike the way it works, but appreciate that it's perfect for some people.

If a user wants to relate an image to a node, then attaching seems like the best way. Uploading the file as an image node then linking it into the story through tags or the img_assist popup is overkill, and clutters the node database.

Can modules hook into the attachments? For example, an attached .mp3 or .avi with "display" enabled could insert a small Flash media player in the node. "display"ing an image would insert an img tag with a CSS class.

Yeah, I'm repeating things that have already been discussed to death. My point is that if we can attach files to nodes already, why do we need another (hairy) method to display them inline?

demolicious | leafish

Focus

Heine commented 29 December 2005 at 14:01

Could we please focus on the support request?
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It's an area of Drupal that

ixis.dylan commented 29 December 2005 at 14:10

It's an area of Drupal that annoys the piss out of me, so forgive me for ranting on a tangent. If we can decide on the best way to improve this area I'd be happy to work on the code to implement it, and reduce the endless support requests on this basic functionality.

demolicious | leafish

and in my opinion leafish_dylan

wellsy commented 29 December 2005 at 14:10

is absolutely on the right track here

IMO, the simplest way to allow this would be an extra box next to "list" and "delete" in the attachments field to toggle the display of attached files inline.

it is so obvious...and at first glance why is it not easily achieved by one of the obviously talented coders amongst us?

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

You really should try

killes@www.drop.org commented 2 January 2006 at 14:10

You really should try upload_image. It seems I wrote it just for you. ,)
If enough people find it usefull I will make an official 4.6 release and maybe update it for 4.7 later.
I'd appreciate some help with the CSS for the module, btw.

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Ok I will check it out and let you know

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 14:18

how it goes over the next week or so.

Plenty happening at present with my sites so don't hold your breath waiting for me to get back...I will though (get back).

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

Incidentially, I wrote the

killes@www.drop.org commented 2 January 2006 at 14:31

Incidentially, I wrote the module for my cactus club site. :)
http://freiburger-kakteenfreunde.de/
For some reason I switched it off, though.
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Will Try..

bullman commented 3 January 2006 at 20:51

Thanks I will try it when i get home today. I really appreciate all the help on here and am glad I chose drupal to build my site. Made life a lot easier

PS

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 14:22

I have tried most of the image module recommendations I have seen discussed on these forums....none works for me to the degree of non-techie usability my users require.
See http://drupal.org/node/42644#comment-79820

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

Indeed there is a big problem with image management inside Drupa

clo75 commented 30 December 2005 at 08:49

Hi there,

I agree with the comments here, this is a not so easy to include images in nodes and this a true pain to manage them. Yes it's not only the question to put image inside nodes, but also to manage them regarding the needs (exemple : teaser in front page, node detailled, zoom...).

- image module :
First the fact that you have to create a node image, and then use image assist to include them into other nodes is very cumbersome. I regret that it's not possible to include them directly in nodes. Also there is no simple way to manage the three states of images (Thumbnail, preview and _original). Drupal have a big lack of documentation about the way to call this feature associated with teaser function in homepages.

- image inline...
a good solution to put just one image directly in a node, but you have to remember witch nimber go with witch image... and dont forget to activate the upload module.

- flexinode (with fleximax)
a more powerful solution...you can create a flexinode with several images fields. You can simply upload the images. But saddly there no link with the image module who create the thumbnail, preview and _original files. You have an another system to create and upload the images. But kudos to teh creator of fleximax.You can decide witch part go to the teaser in home and witch part belong to the detailled node.

Drupal 4.7
It's very strange to see beta version without image module. I hope that this version will include a simple a good image management.

I've read many, many posts about image content management in Drupal. Many people complains about the lack of an easy way. But it's seems that nothing happen...It seems that the core team doesn't take care at all of this problem of simple image management in Drupal...
If I resume actually there is several ways to include and manage images into Drupal, but there is not a good one. Please don't tell me that it's depend of situation... I don't see a simple way to include image in a node ; and I don't see a good solution to manage several states of images inside a node. And there is no really communication between the image module (who is the base of image management in Drupal) and the other modules.

I just hope that the developpers will read this tread ans also that there good surprises towards image management in the .incoming version 4.

Focus please?

Heine commented 30 December 2005 at 09:07

I can understand the sentiments surrounding image handling in Drupal. Discussing possible implementation for image handling is very usefull but I don't think this thread is the appropriate place.

This is after all a support request.

how do i let users upload pics from their harddrive, or insert pics into blog posts? I have used image.module, imgassis.module and nothing seems to work. sorry but i am kind of new so any help would be appreciated thanks

@bullman: you've used image.module and image assist. Can you tell us what didn't work? Were there errors, did you find it to unwieldy ...?

EDIT: The original poster opened new thread. Discuss away...

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yes indeed this is a support request...

clo75 commented 30 December 2005 at 10:27

But I've read many many support request about image module without answer, or without a good response.

For exemple :

- I've asked a question about direct a way of dirrect call of image in nodes with image.module ---> no responses
- I've asked the way to manage "Thumbnail, Preview and original images" generated by the image.module ---> no responses

All this kind of thread reveal the fact is there is a big problem to find good image management module for Drupal... and you will see more and more frustated people writing they feeling in thread like this because nothing was done in term of adequate response in the threads about image.... Don't misunderstood me, people here are very kind and helpfull and try to do thier best, but this is just because Drupal actually have a big problem to deal simply with images and there is no good response, if there any

Observation

Heine commented 30 December 2005 at 11:35

1. you state

But I've read many many support request about image module without answer, or without a good response.

2. you predict

and you will see more and more frustated people writing they feeling in thread like this because nothing was done in term of adequate response in the threads about image....

Allow me to observe that behaviour quoted in 2. will only degrade threads mentioned in 1 further. (thread hijacking)

Could you please link to the questions you posted? I can only find one thread started by you.

As I've said before image.module and image_assist work great for me. If you specifically state that you don't want to use image_assist, what more can I post?

That said:

but this is just because Drupal actually have a big problem to deal simply with images and there is no good response, if there any

While I agree that image handling could be done smoother I don't believe there is a big problem here.

The fact that no-one responded to you can have multiple reasons, but doesn't indicate a lack of interest in image handling. The multitude of different modules clearly states the contrary.

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While I agree that image

ixis.dylan commented 1 January 2006 at 17:32

While I agree that image handling could be done smoother I don't believe there is a big problem here.

I do. Drupal does so many things exceptionally well that the weaknesses (attaching media to posts, the search module, etc) stand out strongly. No amount of talk and discussion (or linking to "forum posting tips") will change that.

While there's modules to achieve these things, a lot of people are frustrated by how messy they are. Even if we spend all our time helping people use these modules, in my opinion we're just leading them down a dead end instead of fixing the cause of the problem.

I also agree that this isn't the place to discuss it, but where is? It's difficult to find relevant threads because the search engine doesn't work, and there are so many duplicate topics on each subject that it's impossible to track the discussion or state of development. Maybe we should have a moderated development forum for "serious" discussion? I dislike the idea of the mailing lists and IRC channel, as it excludes people from many important topics.

Anyway, I apologise for redirecting this thread. I'd prefer to be working on a solution to the problems, but without a common goal and direction it's difficult to know what that solution is! Modules like img_assist are probably enough for a site run by a single user, but for a community site I can tell you from experience that it (and all of the WYSIWYG editors) invariably fall apart when you throw a wide variety of browsers and users at them.

demolicious | leafish

Forum posting tips

Heine commented 1 January 2006 at 18:56

I linked to the forum posting tips to indicate why some post remain unanswered:

With volunteer support, not everyone gets a response. If your post has gone unanswered, perhaps no one that has read your post has the solution to your problem. [snip cry for help etc].

In fact, I always link to the forum posting tips in my signature because I believe many people looking for support may benefit from reading those points. Although you may find them obvious, many support requests lack sufficient detail, making giving adequate help difficult or impossible. Fortunately it proved possible to solve the problem clo75 had, although perhaps not entirely to his satisfaction.

Drupal.org has three different forum groups: General, Support and Development (posting in categories is not (yet) enforced). Clearly General & Development are much better places to discuss future development or lack thereof than the support forum. I'd recommend General discussion in General.

When I attended the DrupalCon in Amsterdam last year it quickly became clear to me that a lot of work is going into an installer and package manager, handling of media files, including images, and improving the user experience.

Most of this is hidden or unknown to the rest of the Drupal community. In case of image support, allow me to quote the Benevolent Dictator For Live, Dries Buytaert [8 Dec 2005]:

I just wanted to add that better image handling (and inline support) is high on my list for inclusion in Drupal 4.8. In a couple weeks, we might be "shopping" for an image handling module for core. If you or someone else would like to see his or her image/document/inline/ upload module included in core, make sure it conforms Drupal's coding standards, that it is light-weight and cruft-free. I favor small modules with few settings and clean code. If someone wants to take a lead in this, and see his or her module in Drupal 4.8, let me know.

There is a mailinglist for developers and one doesn't need to be subscribed to get an idea of what's going on, because there are archives.

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Simple solution

peaced commented 1 January 2006 at 08:38

Would it not be a simple solution to just have an addition to the inline module so that the inline tag is added automaticly before or after the text? This way it would be very simple to add pictures. Does anyone know how to do this? Even if people can add only one picture that would be great.

For whatever it's worth...

rjung commented 1 January 2006 at 17:04

...I use both the Image.module (with img_assist) and Inline.module myself. I distinguish between the two according to the specific need of the images in question:

* For an image that I simply want displayed on a page, I use inline.module

* For an image that I want to show a thumbnail and allow the user to display at full size, I use image.module

Since I know when I'm creating content how I want the images to be used, I never have a problem with this setup. I don't think this is an unacceptable solution, and I personally don't know why some folks get very upset about it.

--R.J.
http://www.electric-escape.net/

--R.J.

So we will wait for Drupal 4.8... ;-)

clo75 commented 2 January 2006 at 12:14

I like Drupal very much but... some people seems to find the current image's solution good enough... But I desagree with them. Curents implementation has not the power of others Drupal very powerful features. Let's me explain why (and this is not because today for my needs I didn't find any good solution) :

- image insertion is no intuitive for the beginners. In mostly others CMS, you have a button to put an image inside your article in the core installation. With Drupal you have to upload a module and in certain case use two modules to achieve such a basic task. Or use severals depending of your needs.
- image management is not adequate when you have more sophisticated needs. Ok you have the teaser features or the excerpt module... But for exemple managing freely the three states of image like Thumbnails, Preview and _Original. You have to master PHP or Phptemplates in order to do that. You can insert code like [image ::xx....] but this strings appears when you call the text field in other templates... The only solutionn is to use Flexinode with fleximax but you loose the thumnail/preview/_original features. This is another exemple why the different modules doesn't really communicate and in final don't bring a good solution.

Let's go deeper inside each module :

Inline.module : a very basic a simple solution to insert image inside a node.

Image.module : just a way to upload images inside Drupal.You need image_filter or image assist to correctly inserts images inside your nodes. That I call not a easy way to do beacause this is a very strange thing to have a module who have the images manipulation features inside him but can't you bring it to you without another module. Here is I think the biggest confusion for the beginners.

Image.assist : just crash my website when I tried to install it online. I supspect a conflict, so I will reinstall all the mess. It's works on my local test site. Another annoying thing is that image_assist change the css of my menu (I use the leaf theme)

image_filter
A good addition to image.module and a better solution than inline.module if u want to do still a simple image insertion with the thumbnail/preview/_original features sizes.

Flexinodes :
Good point, with Flexinodes you can create a node with one or several buttons for image insertion. The annoying fact is Flexinodes images doesn't communicate with image modules. They have their own logic, that is very strange given the fact that there was the image.module witch seems the base of all in Drupal. And you have to manage templates in order to have a good final layout, even for the simpliest design...

Conclusion :

Image solutions in Drupal are good for basics needs, but you have to know that there is not image solution in the core installation and you have to use one or several modules.. The really big problem is that they don't really communicate well together (ecept image.module with image assist and image filter).
If you want to develop a professionnal site image solution in Drupal are not currently adequate solutions. It's really a pain to manae the differents states of images if you aren't a PHP programmer. As I said I didn't found for now adequate solution for myself.

So I take note that the Drupal Developpers are aware of that and there is works in progress for the future 4.8 version. I know i'ts very hard for the programmers to heard about complains when you give freely programs like Drupal ans spend time on image module. However I'm glad too see that in case of ilmage management, developpers recognize that there are still works to do in Drupal. So I will wait the 4.8 version.

So i'm not an ingrat. For myself as I said in other tread I will start an online magazine about Drupal and design for beginners. We will explain in details the differents ways to design and manage image inside Drupal, and also point the currents limitations. And also Phptemplate will be discuted. Why to do that in an external site ? As other said, there is no really good places to really discuss about images features/solution/limitation in this forum. If you discuss on a graphics thread of that, poeople said you "this is not the right place" and others "there is no problem, currents solution are good enough. For myself I will stop to talk about Image in Drupal in forums, as i didn'y found any right place.

This will be my modest contribution to the community, as I find Drupal as the best solution for blogging/CMS purposes with a professionnal point of view.

this post sums it all up

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 12:27

I/we should all probably do likewise and just accept the situation as it is.

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

General discussion

Heine commented 2 January 2006 at 12:58

The only reason this thread wasn't the most suitable place to complain about image management or propose a different approach is that this thread was started as a support request in the support forum. BTW Please note that 'no problem' is different from 'no big problem'.

When such a thread is hijacked support suffers. The original poster even opened a new thread. Fortunately there is a place to propose or discuss drupal features: the general forum!

Though I suggest you break the matter there with some caution too. For instance the way image.module works wasn't designed by some drunk three year old, but by a consious developer. For example reuse of uploaded images is made possible by the way image works. There's always tension between the different functions drupal can have.

I hope things will become clearer and more intuitive for 4.8 (discussion). In the mean time we have to do it with what's around and make the best of it. I do not believe one has to be a php programmer to make most of images!

Once again I ask you to focus on the problem. Please post questions/problems you have with image_assist (preferably in seperate threads to keep things clear) and I hope the community can give you help with these issues.

Let's kick off with one answer: image filter can display differt sizes as well by giving width= and height= + arguments. image filter will fetch the closest matching picture and let the browser resize it for you.

Full syntax:

image:node_id align=alignment hspace=n vspace=n border=n size=label width=n height=n nolink=(0|1) class=name s tyle=style-data

(the space in style is there for display purposes)

That said; documentation of image handling can be improved significantly. That is; a page where one could read on how to get images in posts could improve the user experience in the mean time. Would you mind writing such a handbookpage together with me?

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I am here to help in any way I can

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 13:12

however.....this image usability stuff is a huge problem and way beyond my skills.

All I know is that my users are most often not sure how to get to my website and login effectively.

But they can use a digital camera very well and they can add them to their hardrive....Thankfully cameras Windows XP and USB work well.

So they then want to display the image on my website....well thats where the fairy tale ends I'm afraid.

PS: I did initially apologize to the original poster about not being able to offer a solution. Sure thats really no excuse....but neither is the lack of simple image insertion support for such a professional tool (Drupal)

Again I'm here to help if I can....point me in a useful direction!

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

Certainly

Heine commented 2 January 2006 at 14:28

Before starting to write about solutions I think we should first identify in what ways people (want to) use images; e.g. simply attached to nodes, integrated in nodes with pretty text flow, just photoalbums etc.

All these vastly different uses require a different approach and different modules.

How do you use images?
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my site is all about building a group resource

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 14:51

the active section of the group are from all walks of life but share an interest in orchids essentially and photographing orchids in particular. They also have internet access obviously.

So they click a few photos today....in the evening they get in front of the pc..edit their images (advanced users do anyway - I would like to be able to resize images seemlessly to my choice of largest size on upload for total novices - set by user acces level maybe?) and click to my site.

They create a blog and attach their images. Thats where it ends for most people at this stage.

I then come along and add the html to include the image in the node at present in 90% of cases.

What I would dearly like is to allow them to come along and simply click another checkbox when uploading and have the image/images appear in the node. Even better would be forget the upload scenario and they should be just dealing with the option to "add an image" to the blog>>>Browse>>>Choose file>>>Open>>>>Thats it done.

Possibly some formatting choices would be good...say "add an image">>>>Left>>>>Right>>>>Centred>>>Browse>>>Choose file>>>Open>>>>Thats it done.

Visit my website at the url below and see for yourself what people have been submitting.

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

upload_image works as

killes@www.drop.org commented 2 January 2006 at 15:41

upload_image works as follows:

1) attach image as an attachment
2) select "list"
3) do the same for more images if you want to
4) submit

Each attached image will be made an image node. The thumbnail of that node is shown in the attachment list and links to the node. The author of the blog can then edit the image nodes and add more info about the picture.

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your description of the workflow

wellsy commented 2 January 2006 at 23:32

makes me suspect this module is not for my site.

My workflow wishlist

First requirement is that the user will have saved a node with some sort of textual content..then to add an image.

1) choose the image (Browse your computer for images)
2) set formatting options (left, right, centre)
3) insert the image into the node (resizing on upload automatically if the image exceeds the maximum set by admin)
4) Repeat if required to put extra images in the same node

Maybe 1 and 2 can swap around
I do not want thumbnails at all-especially not to link to other pages
Original images only required-all in the original node

wellsy

orchidsonline.com.au

Well, I guess then

killes@www.drop.org commented 3 January 2006 at 17:30

Well, I guess then upload_image is not for you. However, I'd reconsider the workflow, it seems a bit complicated.
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thanks

moshe weitzman commented 3 January 2006 at 18:50

thanks for this simple description. this looks like a good module for my needs, and many other simple people.

hope you get around to updating to 4.7. you might make use of the new node hook after validate and before insert. not sure. avoids recursion in nodeapi

I've added the description

killes@www.drop.org commented 3 January 2006 at 19:26

I've added the description to the project page and released the module for 4.6. I will probably update it for 4.7, but it isn't really on top of my TODO. I hope somebody sends me an improved CSS file, that is badly needed.
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easy image embedding

vthirteen commented 9 March 2006 at 16:10

is it so hard to program?

let me quote wellsy's msg, i agree 100%:

when you are editing a new node (for the first time or not)

"1) choose the image (Browse your computer for images)
2) set formatting options (left, right, centre)
3) insert the image into the node (resizing on upload automatically if the image exceeds the maximum set by admin)
4) Repeat if required to put extra images in the same node

Maybe 1 and 2 can swap around
I do not want thumbnails at all-especially not to link to other pages
Original images only required-all in the original node"

i'd need something that does not require any other operation on the user side, no code copy&pasting etc.
i'm sure there's a vast amount of people interested in something as basic as that (forget img_assist, for some users it's way too complicate and full of useless functions)

why is embedding images so much easier in other CMS?

btw, is this topic discussed somewhere else?

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same here

lissa commented 2 January 2006 at 16:54

i would appreciate to if somebody really knows how to go about this...

i too have problems with image embedding for i'm no expert when it comes to programming or other stuff.. i dont even know how to make my website understand that the imagemagick toolkit is installed (or so my hosting provider told me).. Anyhoot, i'm being very optimistic to make the things happen for me so i've tried lots of stuff.. since image.module is not in 4.7 release, i tried acidfree and it somehow had a lot of errors .. so i've tried image.module, it worked for my previous site in 4.6 version, but now i'm working on 4.7 beta, and i installed it, it says that there is error at line 730 in image.module.. thus i can't try it with image-assist.. so how now brown cow?.. i don't know.. i don't wanna give up yet, but i'm getting tired of looking for solutions..

-lissa-