I'm interested to see or read about the improvements being made to the image.module, particularly And James Walker is also working on improving the current image.module to provide common services for image handling. This will allow a bunch of separate methods for using images (in a gallery, in a post, ...) to be implemented without duplicate code. these changes sound...

I'm interested to see or read about the improvements being made to the image.module, particularly And James Walker is also working on improving the current image.module to provide common services for image handling. This will allow a bunch of separate methods for using images (in a gallery, in a post, ...) to be implemented without duplicate code. these changes sound exciting. I just wrote some ideas up about how people who don't know any html and don't want to see any either might find adding images easier. I've been training some folks on adding images to pages using image.module and img_assist. Here are some thoughts:

I've been thinking about the best way for a Drupal-based website to handle images. A lot of this depends on for who the Drupal site is handling the images. The key needs I've seen are the ability to add photos in bulk, pull images that are already in the gallery and put then in a page you are editing, or upload an image while you are creating a new page or an existing page, without having to go to 'create content' and create the new image node that way. To say this another way, a user should be able to either add an image into the gallery by creating a new image node through the create content > image step, but also should be able to add a new image on the fly through a pop-up window or section on a 'create new page' or 'new story', etc. page itself.

Many of our smaller clients simply want to put images in content pages, and easily change images on pages at later dates. This could be done easily with something like inline module, or the htmlarea image insert. But then what? The image link is added onto the page, but the actual file for the image falls into the abyss of the files directory which an administrator may not ever see again. The image gallery offers a good way to know what images are uploaded onto the site and any administrator can see and edit photos without much expertise.

Setting a default thumbnail size for images which are added to the gallery is helpful so that when an administrator is adding a photo to a page, they do not need to resize it, and insead just use the thumbnail. When you have HTMLarea turned on, and you insert an image from the gallery with the image_assist module, you can see the photo immediately in the page. You can also click and drag the photo to move it around, but this tends to make HTMLarea create extra tags, break up paragraph text, and ruin the layout of text. If HTMLarea is turned off, the user will see the code that image_assist creates. I've watched people try and copy and paste this code. Even though it is simple, just select everything between the div tags, it's not simple for someone who doesn't know html and what happens when you don't select the entire code snippet.

All this makes me think about an ideal way to do images on a site with many static pages and then news pages on which the admins will want to insert pictures. Not sure how possible it is.

The idea would be to use the image module (built into the core) and the image assist module or something like it, and something that could create variables for inserting images into pages.

1) The ability to add images (which are nodes) into a new or existing node (like a page) while editing or creating that page for the first time...this could be done in a pop-up window or a frame?

2) Then, open up image_assist (all while still creating or editing the page) and select what image you want to put in the page. This tool will let you determine how to align the image. Border, Vert and Horz space could all be predefined to simplify things.

3) Here's the part I dont know if is even possible - The image_assist create a variable for that particular image and the code that says how it should be aligned, and maps this in the database, saying all the image html between the div tags is equal to variable $image0001, and a filter is used to insert the image, which is a variable like [image:image0001] and this is the "code" that the administrator sees when inserting an image into their page. A lot less to copy and paste, a lot harder to miss part of the code when cutting and pasting. But is this even possible, or would it really be easier?

You'd then have an overview where you could see all image to filter relations on the website. And all your images would be stored in a graphical gallery for easy viewing and editing if need be.

What do people think? Is there some way to accomplish #3 and would it be worth it?