Drupal for image management, with metadata
I have a large collection of images (11,000 at the moment and growing) that I'm thinking about using Drupal for. I'm wondering if anyone has experience doing this and what modules would be beneficial. Using each image as a node with a decent taxonomy should work great for search and discovery. Views, lightbox, etc.. would work well for display methods. However, three questions I do not know the answer to are: 1) batch upload, even if only one directory 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'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. - 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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Le lundi 04 mai 2009 à 09:20 -0400, John Callahan a écrit :
I have a large collection of images (11,000 at the moment and growing) that I'm thinking about using Drupal for. I'm wondering if anyone has experience doing this and what modules would be beneficial. Using each image as a node with a decent taxonomy should work great for search and discovery. Views, lightbox, etc.. would work well for display methods. However, three questions I do not know the answer to are:
1) batch upload, even if only one directory
For batch upload, you shouldn't experience any problems, image module does it well (as I remember, with a sub module which is packaged with image), you give to it a folder in your PHP upload dir and it imports all your images with taxonomy you gave.
2) reading EXIF/IPTC image metadata and mapping them to taxonomy terms and/or CCK fields.
I did not try any EXIF/IPTC image extraction, I guess there are some modules which handle this.
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 think that, if you want to do a full CCK based site, you can use ImageCache / ImageField, but I have not enough experience with those modules to tell you if they are this good. The problem with those modules is that your images will only be visible as CCK field values. Image module has a great advantages, WYSIWYG great integration with img_assist, well working views integration, and each image is a node (which you can use as a noderef field later with CCK). Doing views taxonomy and/or CCK based should works well with both solutions. I think you should also look at existing gallery modules, there is even a gallery2 integration module which exists, using the gallery2 API to display your gallery2 managed galleries into a Drupal (in this case, Drupal does not handle itself the images).
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 did successfully set a custom gallery using Image/img_assist/views, based on CCK views, and a bit of theming. The only problem I got is for user rights management (as my albums are taxonomy based).
- 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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Pierre.
You may also want to look at http://drupal.org/project/imagefield_import which uses ImageField instead of Image module. Brian On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@udel.edu>wrote:
I have a large collection of images (11,000 at the moment and growing) that I'm thinking about using Drupal for. I'm wondering if anyone has experience doing this and what modules would be beneficial. Using each image as a node with a decent taxonomy should work great for search and discovery. Views, lightbox, etc.. would work well for display methods. However, three questions I do not know the answer to are:
1) batch upload, even if only one directory 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'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.
- 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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Thanks for the link. IMO, ImageField is definitely the way to go and what I currently use in all my sites. Among that module, the MAQUM module (http://drupal.org/project/maqum, D5 only), and the EXIF module (http://drupal.org/project/exif), there's plenty of potential. A related conversation about the roadmap of the EXIF module is here: http://drupal.org/node/226703. Looks great but still a ways off. - 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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu ************************************************** Brian Choc wrote:
You may also want to look at http://drupal.org/project/imagefield_import which uses ImageField instead of Image module.
Brian
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@udel.edu <mailto:john.callahan@udel.edu>> wrote:
I have a large collection of images (11,000 at the moment and growing) that I'm thinking about using Drupal for. I'm wondering if anyone has experience doing this and what modules would be beneficial. Using each image as a node with a decent taxonomy should work great for search and discovery. Views, lightbox, etc.. would work well for display methods. However, three questions I do not know the answer to are:
1) batch upload, even if only one directory 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'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.
- 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@udel.edu <mailto:john.callahan@udel.edu> http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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.
John, If you really want this, and you want to have this work good I can give you one advise: do not use drupal for this. Drupal is not built for image management/manipulation. I'm a professional photographer and gave up about setting up a drupal showcase for photographs a long time ago. Although, there is some hope for the future as there are some pretty smart and highly trained drupal ninjas busy with getting image manipulation and file management right in Drupal. For now, I would go for something else like Gallery, or even Fluxiom (which is absolutely fabulous btw). But Drupal is really too limited to be usable for setups like these. Kind regards, Stefan Nagtegaal
Thanks Stefan. When I looked a year ago, Drupal was not even an option. Now that D6 modules have grown and matured, it's looking much better. However, it's not there yet for image management, particularly with regards to EXIF/IPTC metadata and file/database synchronization. (I'm not worried about image manipulation other than scaling, and potentially cropping and adding a watermark. Imagecache does a lot of what I need here.) I can definitely see myself using Drupal for this in the future. Easier from the system admin/development perspective since I already run multiple Drupal sites. And, more importantly, content integration. I want to use the same taxonomy and CCK fields for my images as I do for my typical web content. When users search my web, I want to have images returned alongside my other content, like new stories, publications, blog posts, etc... I actually don't want to use a separate image management system but will do so for the time being. - 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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu ************************************************** Stefan Nagtegaal wrote:
John,
If you really want this, and you want to have this work good I can give you one advise: do not use drupal for this. Drupal is not built for image management/manipulation.
I'm a professional photographer and gave up about setting up a drupal showcase for photographs a long time ago. Although, there is some hope for the future as there are some pretty smart and highly trained drupal ninjas busy with getting image manipulation and file management right in Drupal.
For now, I would go for something else like Gallery, or even Fluxiom (which is absolutely fabulous btw). But Drupal is really too limited to be usable for setups like these.
Kind regards,
Stefan Nagtegaal -- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Thanks Justin for this link. I'll look into it. The problem is that Gallery2 is not working for me. It does a lot but missing some key points that could be project killers. I do not like the date (and general) search mechanism. It only makes a few metadata items (IPTC Keywords, Caption, Object Name and GPS Coordinates) searchable by mapping them to image attributes in the database. And there's no way I know of to sync these attributes in the web/database with the image file itself. Ultimately, I want my images to be searched the same time as my other web content. So, I will have to pay for a service (like Fluxiom), pay for a commercial image management product, or get my hands dirty in Drupal and/or Gallery2. Looks like I'll be getting my hands dirty. :-) Now, if I can just fit that in with the other 20 projects I need to get my hands dirty with! - John Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu ************************************************** Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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@garfieldtech.com
Thanks Larry. Had a feeling that was the case. I've seen some Exhibit based sites perform OK with 800 - 1000 items and hoped that would fit here. 4500+ and growing is definitely out of range. I do like the Apache Solr faceted search much better than when d.o was at D5. More metadata about projects would help. Possibly less information returned per project to make it easier to scan. Searching through all of the modules and finding the ones you need is a problem that I hope gets easier, especially for those new to Drupal. I'm looking forward to the new design and trying it out. - John Larry Garfield wrote:
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
I've found Drupalmodules.com very helpful (http://drupalmodules.com/). Perhaps the new d.o. work will make it obsolete, but in the meantime it is certainly an additional tool to look at as far as finding the right module. - Peter On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 00:21 -0400, John Callahan wrote:
Thanks Larry. Had a feeling that was the case. I've seen some Exhibit based sites perform OK with 800 - 1000 items and hoped that would fit here. 4500+ and growing is definitely out of range.
I do like the Apache Solr faceted search much better than when d.o was at D5. More metadata about projects would help. Possibly less information returned per project to make it easier to scan. Searching through all of the modules and finding the ones you need is a problem that I hope gets easier, especially for those new to Drupal. I'm looking forward to the new design and trying it out.
- John
Larry Garfield wrote:
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
Well actually I found the test site you made very usefull at first sight! If there are too many modules to keep it on one page, there's a possibility to make your visitors do a first selection to narrow down the number of results, right? It's not an "all or nothing" case here. I like the fact that you can see in just one line what the main target of the module is. And the "Most popular" and "Most downloaded" tags (which are used in most websites) are a bit obscene since they only make the most popular more popular.. I was actually waiting to find a site which would handle the information more like you did in your testsite. So, don't let them stop ya ;) Regards, Annet John Callahan schreef:
Thanks Larry. Had a feeling that was the case. I've seen some Exhibit based sites perform OK with 800 - 1000 items and hoped that would fit here. 4500+ and growing is definitely out of range. I do like the Apache Solr faceted search much better than when d.o was at D5. More metadata about projects would help. Possibly less information returned per project to make it easier to scan. Searching through all of the modules and finding the ones you need is a problem that I hope gets easier, especially for those new to Drupal. I'm looking forward to the new design and trying it out. - John
Larry Garfield wrote:
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
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I really miss the one page all modules list. An index page of all modules with a link and description would be useful to do a "search in page" for possible modules to use. -- Earnie -- http://r-feed.com/ -- http://for-my-kids.com/ -- http://www.4offer.biz/ -- http://give-me-an-offer.com/
Earnie Boyd wrote:
I really miss the one page all modules list. An index page of all modules with a link and description would be useful to do a "search in page" for possible modules to use.
I second that. Much easier to have one big page and then use the browser's find function.
This is an amazing presentation of modules. Here's a few suggestions if you don't mind. 1) I think one of the right nav boxes should contain the entire list of modules because one feature you offer is (if I could quickly narrow the group to a select list of modules) the dependencies. 2) I think you can tell a great deal about a module based on it's number of downloads, latest revision date, number of issues posted about the module, last date of that issue and whether (or when) the last issue was closed. Your presentation method would take module discovery to a new level. The only other thing I would ask is for someone to offer a place where module users (like myself) could go to, relative to a specific module, and post how the module was used by me. What I achieved and how I did it. It would create be a self documenting project area of sorts. -----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org]On Behalf Of Annet de Boer Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 1:16 AM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] navigating through Drupal modules Well actually I found the test site you made very usefull at first sight! If there are too many modules to keep it on one page, there's a possibility to make your visitors do a first selection to narrow down the number of results, right? It's not an "all or nothing" case here. I like the fact that you can see in just one line what the main target of the module is. And the "Most popular" and "Most downloaded" tags (which are used in most websites) are a bit obscene since they only make the most popular more popular.. I was actually waiting to find a site which would handle the information more like you did in your testsite. So, don't let them stop ya ;) Regards, Annet John Callahan schreef:
Thanks Larry. Had a feeling that was the case. I've seen some Exhibit based sites perform OK with 800 - 1000 items and hoped that would fit here. 4500+ and growing is definitely out of range. I do like the Apache Solr faceted search much better than when d.o was at D5. More metadata about projects would help. Possibly less information returned per project to make it easier to scan. Searching through all of the modules and finding the ones you need is a problem that I hope gets easier, especially for those new to Drupal. I'm looking forward to the new design and trying it out. - John
Larry Garfield wrote:
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@udel.edu http://www.dgs.udel.edu **************************************************
Justin Gruenberg wrote:
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:20 AM, John Callahan <john.callahan@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/ ]
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.325 / Virus Database: 270.12.18/2096 - Release Date: 05/04/09 17:51:00
-- [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
I'll say again, any module presentation mechanism has to be able to scale from 5000 modules (we'll be there soon) to 10,000 modules (so we don't have to redesign it again in 2 months.) There has already been an immense amount of work put into designing a revamped project management system for drupal.org, including the hiring of an internationally acclaimed designer, Mark Boulton. (Who has since become a Drupal fan, because we're just that cool.) An upgrade to the site is in progress. See the group below for more. http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-redesign-plan-drupal-association On Thursday 07 May 2009 8:11:33 am Cosmo wrote:
This is an amazing presentation of modules.
Here's a few suggestions if you don't mind.
1) I think one of the right nav boxes should contain the entire list of modules because one feature you offer is (if I could quickly narrow the group to a select list of modules) the dependencies.
2) I think you can tell a great deal about a module based on it's number of downloads, latest revision date, number of issues posted about the module, last date of that issue and whether (or when) the last issue was closed.
Your presentation method would take module discovery to a new level.
The only other thing I would ask is for someone to offer a place where module users (like myself) could go to, relative to a specific module, and post how the module was used by me. What I achieved and how I did it. It would create be a self documenting project area of sorts.
-----Original Message----- From: support-bounces@drupal.org [mailto:support-bounces@drupal.org]On Behalf Of Annet de Boer Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2009 1:16 AM To: support@drupal.org Subject: Re: [support] navigating through Drupal modules
Well actually I found the test site you made very usefull at first sight! If there are too many modules to keep it on one page, there's a possibility to make your visitors do a first selection to narrow down the number of results, right? It's not an "all or nothing" case here. I like the fact that you can see in just one line what the main target of the module is. And the "Most popular" and "Most downloaded" tags (which are used in most websites) are a bit obscene since they only make the most popular more popular.. I was actually waiting to find a site which would handle the information more like you did in your testsite. So, don't let them stop ya ;)
Regards, Annet
John Callahan schreef:
Thanks Larry. Had a feeling that was the case. I've seen some Exhibit based sites perform OK with 800 - 1000 items and hoped that would fit here. 4500+ and growing is definitely out of range. I do like the Apache Solr faceted search much better than when d.o was at D5. More metadata about projects would help. Possibly less information returned per project to make it easier to scan. Searching through all of the modules and finding the ones you need is a problem that I hope gets easier, especially for those new to Drupal. I'm looking forward to the new design and trying it out. - John
Larry Garfield wrote:
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.
-- Larry Garfield larry@garfieldtech.com
participants (11)
-
Annet de Boer -
Brian Choc -
Cosmo -
Earnie Boyd -
Jamie Holly -
John Callahan -
Justin Gruenberg -
Larry Garfield -
Peter Dowling -
Pierre Rineau -
Stefan Nagtegaal