[support] What is the best way to handle images (NOT photographs)

[Shai Gluskin]

Hi Robin,

There are lots of different ways to do what you want. From Drupal's
perspective there is no difference between a photo and an image for graphics
purposes. Some of the things that will determine what route you take:

1. Do you need *inline* insertion of images? You've got a lot more choices,
especially if editors are not technical people, if you do* not *need inline
insertion. Probably imagefield, filefield, or asset modules in combination
with imagecache would provide the most flexible results and would be quite
easy for the end user. Placement of the images is done via theming and
provides a really consistent look that editors can't break.

2. If you do need inline insertion -- you've got the image/img_assist
combination. The problem with image module in general is that it creates a
node for each image. Nodes come with a lot of overhead and most people say,
if an image isn't going to benefit from being a node, then don't use image
module. If you are using TinyMCE on your site then asset module in
combination with TinyMCE could be a great solution. A popular lightweight
solution for folks needing inline images is the IMCE module, and it's really
robust in Drupal 6. As you suggested, you can simply upload your images to
your server (or any server actually, doesn't need to be hosting your Drupal
site) and use img tags. Just make sure its in your files directory if you
have them local. You can create a new folder for easier organization though
using the same directory as another image module would probably be okay. But
even if you are going to put the image tag directly in the content, I'd
recommend the image tag in combination with Drupal core's upload module.
After you've uploaded the image, the upload module provides you with the url
which you can put in the img tag. That way the node itself would have a
reference to the image or images you are using in that node. Make sure your
imput format is set to accept the img tag.

Lots of choices... ultimately you'll choose a way -- which, based on your
learning... may not be what you choose next time. That's Drupal for you!

Let us know what you do,

Shai

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 7:30 AM, Clarke Robin <
Robin.Clarke at networkrail.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I have a question around the best way to handle images refereed to by the
> HTML for the body of a page type node. To be more specific, I am not talking
> about general photographs, for which I would use the Image module to handle
> resizing and galleries, but graphic type images.
>
> These images are generally used for diagrams or graphs in newspaper
> articles to break up all the text. A good example is the graph at the top of
> the article on this page - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7764741.stm
>
> How should I add these kinds of images to Drupal? Should I even add them to
> Drupal (e.g. using Upload or Image, etc)?
>
> Or should I just FTP the files to my web server, and then refer to them in
> the <img> tag directly? e.g. <img src="/some_directory/my_image.gif">
>
> If FTP-ing the files, which is the best folder to store the file in? (Would
> storing these files in the 'images' folder cause confusion with the Image
> module, and some with the 'files' and Upload module?)
>
> Is there a 'best practise' for this?
>
>
>
> Many thanks
>
> robin
>
>
>
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