[drupal-devel] node-associated image module--advice wanted

[Nedjo Rogers]

I'm thinking of upgrading my old node_image module and looking for some
advice.

The basic aim: to have node-associated images in two sizes--full and
thumbnail, to display in node lists and full displays.

When I wrote the module, a thumbnail image could be displayed with the node
'teaser' (e.g., on a taxonomy term page) and a full size image with the full
node display.  The module also included inline image uploading and taxonomy
term image association.

I didn't upgrade node_image for 4.5, mainly because new modules had been
produced replicating much of the functionality (image_assist for inline
image uploading, taxonomy_image for term images), and doing a better job.
But, to my knowledge, we don't have another way of associating images with
nodes.

What I'm wanting advice on is, what approach to take?

We've come a long ways in image handling in Drupal, but we still have a
number of somwehat incompatible approaches.  We can now associate images
with users, themes, taxonomy terms, and nodes, but in each case there's
different logic and user interface.

1. The user atavars (images associated with users).  This approach adds a
field to the user create/edit form, uploads an image file, and stores the
file reference in a "picture" field (in the user table).

2. The theme screenshots (images associated with themes).  I haven't looked
closely at the implementation logic.

3. The taxonomy_image module (images associated with taxonomy terms).  This
approach handles images separately from taxonomy term creation/editing and
creates, storing image path information in a dedicated table.

4. The (new and improved) image.module (images as nodes).  This includes
support for multiple sizes (e.g., thumbnails) and handles each image as a
node.

The question: which of these approaches is the best model for
node-associated images?  Which one would be the best to follow in the
interests of moving toward a uniform approach to image association?