Splitting off from #371374-49: Add ImageCache UI Core:
The word "preset" is a weird Drupalism and isn't at all descriptive of what it is: a group of image manipulations such as "rotate", "crop", etc. that are weighted and applied to a single image. This shows up in several user-facing places. For example:
- In the administrative interface, there's a UI for "Create image ____."
- In the user admin settings, there's a setting to "Choose the image ____ for user pictures."
- In the theme, there's a function called theme_image_XXXX() (in contrast theme_image())
- The transformed image file paths will have a files/______/name/xxx.png
Comments
Comment #1
keith.smith CreditAttribution: keith.smith commentedIn Photoshop, isn't the individual components (like rotate or crop) called a "step" and multiple steps are recorded into "actions" that are replayed to process an image?
Unfortunately, actions are already taken.
What about script or image script? Surely that wouldn't confused with PHP script, etc?
Comment #2
dman CreditAttribution: dman commentedSo far, the suggestion from eojthebrave for operation has been the most accurate.
I'm comfortable with an "operation" being the name for a sequence of individual actions.
Depending on the way you use language, it's also grammatical to say "an action is a sequence of individual operations"... so I don't think there is any automatic English definition for what we want to say.
The former, with operations being larger than actions, sounds logical to me. After all, it's got extra syllables - must be more complex.
Hm. Looking at a thesaurus - "sequence"? Nah, too esoteric, and implies timed duration. If I sequenced an image I'd expect an animation or a slideshow.
... I never knew that preset wasn't a word :-}. Should be!
Comment #3
webchickWell preset is a word, it just doesn't mean anything remotely like what is being described here.
If you ask an average person (and please do!!) to label a select box with the following values:
- 100x100 Thumbnail
- Greyscale
- Album Cover
I sincerely doubt that "preset" would be the first (or even 50th) word that would come to mind. ;)
I asked Twitter what they thought and so far "Image Transformation" seems to be the winner. It's still a bit heavy, but at least it's not cryptic.
Comment #4
Damien Tournoud CreditAttribution: Damien Tournoud commentedI suggest "image derivative".
Comment #5
dman CreditAttribution: dman commentedNot remotely like?
define:preset
Sorta fits OK with me. None of the 20 other alternatives contratict those 3 either - only in the difference between verb (more common) and noun (as used here)
To knock it right down to laymans/average terms, I'd use the word 'version'. You can choose the big version, the thumbnail version, the framed version, the black&white version.
However, that's overloaded also, and can't work alongside code :-/
Comment #6
catch'Image derivative' sounds good to me - describes the result of the preset, not what it is, but still works when adding a collection of actions. You'd also be flushing derivatives instead of flushing presets (or transformations) - which is much more accurate.
Would also be acceptable in file paths files/imagecache/derivative/thumb/some-pic.png
Comment #7
eojthebraveFor what it's worth I posed this question to some friends last night. I wrote a list similar to webchick's list above and framed the question by explaining that they were working with a tool that allowed them to post content to their website, including text, images, etc and were now trying to configure the way that the content was displayed. They where being presented with a form that allowed them to choose things like what to display, where, and when and that the display options for the image content included a select list with the following items.
I then asked them what an informative label for that list would be. The responses I got where.
Along with a few much wordier responses.
The group consisted of people with a varying level of experience with computers and web technologies, though no one that I would consider an expert. At most a few of them had experience using Wordpress.
Comment #8
egfrith CreditAttribution: egfrith commented"derivative" sounds accurate to me too, and it fits in with existing terminology. My only criticism is that it's perhaps a bit technical-sounding.
The most natural-sounding thing I can think of is "style":
- administrative interface UI: "Create image style."
- user admin settings: "Choose the image style for user pictures."
- Theme function: theme_image_style() (in contrast theme_image())
- Transformed image file paths: files/image-style/name/xxx.png
- "Flush styled images"
But of course this is overloaded with CSS styles...
Comment #9
webchickWow, I really like "style." It's overloaded but only for technical people.
Comment #10
drewish CreditAttribution: drewish commentedi like image transformation as the user facing label but transformations as the internal type/variable names.
Comment #11
drewish CreditAttribution: drewish commentedi like image transformation as the user facing label but transformations as the internal type/variable names.
Comment #12
quicksketchAfter further discussions in IRC (mostly a bunch of opinions), style it is: #491456-47: ImageCache preset API.