[drupal-devel] image_import.module ready for early testing

[Scott Courtney]

On Saturday 02 April 2005 17:17, Tim Altman wrote:
> > I would very much appreciate and respect your opinions, testing reports,
> > suggestions, and constructive criticism of my module so far.

Hi, Tim! Thanks for the test report. Comments below. (By the way, I just
committed a new version with extensive enhancements into CVS.)

> 
> I hope this helps:
> 
> - The menu for settings should be named "image_import" (or something other
> than "image") and should be under admin > settings, not admin.

It is...   admin/settings/image_import is the Drupal path. The original
settings page for walkah's image module is unaffected by my new code, so
perhaps you were in the wrong location.

> - The menu link to the settings is wrong (it function link should be
> "image_import_settings" not "image_import_admin").

Okay, I'll fix that. Thanks for the bug report.

> - It would be nice to be able to create a new gallery from the upload page.

This is possible *if* you set up your vocabularies correctly. The image module
(walkah's version) auto-creates its gallery vocabulary if it doesn't find one
upon first use. That automatically-created gallery does not by default allow
free-tagging. If you manually create the gallery vocabulary before installing
image.module and image_import.module, or if you manually set image.module's
auto-created vocabulary to allow free-tagging (I believe it's just a matter
of toggling one boolean field in the {vocabulary} table, but don't quote me
on that), then you can create new galleries from the upload page. IMO, this
is one of the niftiest uses for Morbus Iff's taxonomy patch! :-)

Is there a way to allow similar functionality for non-free-tagging
vocabularies? I'll check into it. I agree that it would be a useful feature if
it's practical to implement.

> - Some of the text in the settings page is confusing, especially the stuff
> related to paths.  "Ignore %u and %U for system user" doesn't make much
> sense unless you read all the text, too.

Fair enough...I'll revisit the help text. The version I just published has
some improvements, plus an entirely separate standalone page of instructions,
but I'll bet I haven't addressed your concerns yet. If you have a moment,
please email me off-list to describe any other parts of this that you found
confusingly-worded. (I don't want to tie up the list with that much detail.)

> - The username folders under the set path should be created automatically
> upon installation and whenever a new user is added.

Good point, and something I had meant to do but forgot to add. I'll put it
in the TODO list for a future release. Not all users should have these
directories, however -- just those who have permission to mass-import
images using this module.

The idea is a good one, but it's not quite as simple as just creating a
directory. What I probably need to do is to create it only when the
user actually comes into the image_import main page for the first time.
There are also some security problems possible (too tight, not too loose),
because the default permissions on new directories created by the web
server often don't allow ordinary users to read or write within the new
directory. But I'm hesitant to just blithely open 777 permissions on a
directory that is auto-created. That might rankle some sysadmins (I know
it would not please me, for one).

I'll give this some serious thought, though. If you have a patch, please feel
free to send it to me. I would appreciate people contacting me before doing
a CVS code commit of subtantial size during this period of active coding.

Thanks again for the test report. I'd be very interested to hear what you think
of the new version, even though it was committed before I saw your note and
therefore doesn't have some of your bug reports fixed.

By the way, you didn't mention one particular test case: Did the darned thing
actually work in your environment? {GRIN}

Kind regards,

Scott

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