[support] navigating through Drupal modules (was Drupal for image management, with metadata)

[Larry Garfield]

No we can't.  There are over 4500 modules.  A page listing all modules and 
providing anything even resembling useful data would be several megabytes in 
size just to view, to say nothing of the processing costs.  We used to have 
pages like that.  They didn't scale. :-)

The in-progress site redesign includes much more metadata on projects and ways 
to search projects, in addition to the new solr faceted search that was added 
recently.  Searching large data sets is not an easy problem.  But simply 
dumping the entire dataset to the page is not a solution at 4500 modules, and 
it certainly won't be a solution as the number of modules continues to rise.

On Tuesday 05 May 2009 11:13:50 am John Callahan wrote:
> Yet another potentially extremely useful module I didn't even know
> existed!
>
> Can I make suggestion?   Can we have a simple, one-page listing of all
> Drupal modules, with appropriate tags, to allow for easy navigation and
> visualization?  Users can sort the list as they want.  With a few
> additional tags/facets (like core version supported, date, author,
> etc..), imagine how fast you can find what's available and start digging
> further.
>
> Here is a test I quickly put together for a subset of modules:
> http://geo42.com/sites/drupal-modules.html
>
>
> IMO, an automated list like this one is more helpful than any rating
> system (almost always fraught with problems) or the current d.o module
> lists (page-based, too much information, hard to quickly navigate.)
> Ratings systems, blog posts, projects like drupaltoughlove.com, usage
> statistics, etc..., are all great but only should be considered as part
> of the whole.  For me, they simply help direct where to look deeper.  A
> list like the above would make things simpler, faster.
>
>
> We all know that finding modules to use with Drupal is a difficult task,
> one with real consequences. There are no easy answers yet.   It's a task
> that turns some first time users away from Drupal and continues to
> frustrate some current Drupal practitioners. It's especially frustrating
> when trying to convince others in your organization (like the IT
> department) to go with Drupal; they start to delve into it and get lost
> in what can be done practically and securely via Drupal.  It's a great
> development design but difficult in practice.
>
>
> - John
>
> **************************************************
> John Callahan
> Geospatial Application Developer
> Delaware Geological Survey, University of Delaware
> 227 Academy St, Newark DE 19716-7501
> Tel: (302) 831-3584
> Email: john.callahan at udel.edu
> http://www.dgs.udel.edu
> **************************************************
>
> Justin Gruenberg wrote:
> > On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan at udel.edu> 
wrote:
> >> 1) batch upload, even if only one directory
> >
> > http://drupal.org/project/image_fupload
> >
> > That module provides a pretty nice way for you to upload images.
> > Probably not 11k at a time nice, but it does work well and does allow
> > you to fiddle with some attributes per image when you upload.  It
> > works with ImageField (CCK) and image.module.
> >
> > If you go the image.module route, theres some other batch upload
> > modules that can work with a directory on the server.
> >
> >> 2) reading EXIF/IPTC image metadata and mapping them to taxonomy terms
> >> and/or CCK fields. 3) syncing attributes (i.e., edits to raw image
> >> EXIF/IPTC can update/reimport the node fields/tags and edits to node
> >> fields/tags can update the EXIF/IPTC metadata.)
> >
> > I haven't done anything this complex with image galleries, but I can
> > say... expect to do a good amount of fiddling and possibly writing
> > some custom code to get what you want.
> >
> >> I'm using Gallery2 right now (http://gallery.menalto.com/,
> >> http://drupal.org/project/gallery) and it does some (item #1 and
> >> partially #2) of what I need.  It even integrates nicely with Drupal for
> >> users and display of images and albums.   However, I use Drupal for many
> >> other sites (and I'd like to use views, lightbox, tags, etc...) and
> >> wondering if I can bypass Gallery altogether.  Any thoughts or
> >> experiences out there?   Thanks.
> >
> > I'd say if gallery2 works for you, stay with it.  That's a package
> > thats built for hosting images.  If you're not afraid of getting your
> > hands dirty, drupal might meet your needs closer.
> > --
> > [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]

-- 
Larry Garfield
larry at garfieldtech.com