Jørn Wildt

Using a photo gallery as an image store is brilliant! I had started (and dropped) writing a generic image store module several times; this fits the bill almost perfectly.

You'll find that as soon as you start to add images to other module content that the sizes aren't correct, simply because you can't see in advance how it's going to fit in an look. What's needed is a way to resize the images in photoshare after they've been uploaded. You caould then upload what you have and size it to fit after you've attached it to your content.

Rob

Please let me add a comment!

I administer a site where Photoshare is one of the modules. I have set a limit on the size of uploaded images. I find that uses are confused when I tell them to compress images to fit within the size limit before uploading. Often they end up not uploading which is very bad for life on the site.

How about a process where users upload what ever they have and the server compresses to fit within the size limit - users accept the result and end of story?

Thanks

I agree completely with you and resizing is scheduled for the next major release.

Jorn;

I've continued thinking about this and would like to propose the the following argument to you.

You should split photoshare in two: an image upload and minipulation utility, and an image gallery that structures and organizes uploaded images. Here's why:

Photshare does image storage the way it should be in PostNuke. Often image uploading is a practical necessity in managing a CMS system, yet providing a world writable folder in the file system to enable this opens a security hole and is often not allowed by hosts. Storing the images in SQL also give the admin the advantages of the permissions system - images can be allowed/denied for particular modules and groups. In theory, any module with hooks properly implemented should be able to make use of the image store. The method fits right in with how PostNuke should work in an ideal world.

The problem is that this solution is packaged as an image gallery. As such, it will never be adopted as a core PostNuke module, even though the functionality it provides needs to be in the core. There are several image galleries available, and everyone has a favorite. Suggesting that photoshare should be a core component would be similar to proposing that phpbb, Xforum, Superbb, etc. should be a core module. Each would have it's proponents, but you'd never come to consensus.

With the image store functions split from the gallery module, it would be an easy argument to have the imag store included as a core component. No one offers an alternative, and if it's designed nicely there would be no need. Any module could make use of it, and many would knowing that it's included with every release of PostNuke. I was thinking last night of adding code to all of hte modules I would want to use this functionality in, and I'd be willing to do so, but I don't want to do it again everytime there's a new PostNuke release. The image store accessibility needs to be in all the core components, and it won't be unless the image store itself is included in PostNuke, and that won't happen if it's included as a "Gallery".

What do you think?

Well, there are some difficulties in this. First of all I cannot see where the split goes between an image gallery and an upload system - I mean - what is an upload system worth if you cannot browse the images afterwards? And if you have image browsing you have a gallery - or?

The next thing is that you not only need images, you need documents in general. Photoshare is not a document archive and will never be. For that I recomend NukeOwl instead, although I do know it has some install problems.

Besides that I agree with you - PN needs a document/image archive for general access in all modules. But it won't be Photoshare (unless somebody else wants to fork the code which they are very welcome to do).

No, as a utility no "browsing" would be needed. It should be able to upload an image, have permissions attached to it (user, group and module), respond to requests for images (i.e, from the Downloads module, give a list of all images with permissions), display a particular image, etc.

A gallery module would then provide an interfaec to most of the features via pnAPI calls to the image utility. Upload an image, receive an image. The gallery would simply be a database that keep track of what images belong to which albums and provides means for organizing them. From a user's point of view, it wouldn't look any different.. Underneath it would be doing exactly the same functions, except some of the functions would be handled by pnAPI calls between modules.

[/quote]
The next thing is that you not only need images, you need documents in general. Photoshare is not a document archive and will never be. For that I recomend NukeOwl instead, although I do know it has some install problems.[/quote]

Images and documents are entirely different things. Documents don't need to be imbedded directly into html pages of other modules. And NukeOwl suffers from the same adoption problem Photoshare does - it does too much to be utilized by every module.[/quote]



That' something to think about. I'll consult with you if I ever decide to do this. You might come around to my way of thinking by then :)

If all you require is a bunch of pnAPI compatible functions then I think you can get that almost for free by removing the presentation logic in Photoshare. I think all the necessary API functions are there - just throw away the rest.

Anybody who wants to try?

I'm very interested in how this develops. I've just installed the very nice hack provided by haimeltj that adds a submit image button to the Submit News module interface integrated with Photoshare and have to say that it works great.

But....it uses the same image sizes as already in the gallery which are mostly too large for front page news items and need resizing. I have set a maximum size convention of 250 pixels width for front page news pics that although imposed by any code is, nevertheless, a good principle to keep the front page looking good. See http://www.stpa…tml/index.php

In an ideal world, I would like two new things to be able to happen;

1. Automatic resizing of image to set maximum dimensions when submitting front page news but in two different ways. Separate image resizing settings for each of the Article text and Extended text boxes. My reason for this is that the former should ideally be restricted to, say, 250 pixels width whereas the latter could be larger because it is not seen until the user hits Read more... This solution would be perfect for me anyway.

2. Standard image positioning options on the Submit image interface with the ability to restrict these as required. For example, Our layout convention for front page news items requires that all images are positioned at the Right in the Article text area but can be anywhere in the Extended text area.

Ignoring the probably insoluble argument as to whether these could or should be included in the standard distributions of either PostNuke itself or, indeed, Photoshop, is it, nevertheless, possible to just write a hack that does all this?

Best wishes to all and thanks to the creators of photoshop for what is, to mind, an absolutely fabulous PostNuke module. Keep up the good work.

Aha, I almost forgot. There is just one other thing I would like on my site. That is that when someone clicks on a front page news image that has been resized by some kind of Photoshop hack or whatever, the user is presented with a pop-up of the original image.

[Edited on 11/11/2003 by spucp]

I would definately be interested in getting image-sizing working on photoshare, both once they're uploaded and especially an auto-resizing for images that don't fit within the admin's size limits. Is there an email list or anything where I could be notified once a new version is released or anything like that?