[development] image node type

[Jeff Eaton]

> -----Original Message-----
> Ah. see in my vision a "file" has "derivatives" ... image this is 
> thumbnail, alternate sizes, etc. audio - alternate encodings, 
> bitrates, 
> etc. (same for video)... and on.
> 
> Thus the node is the collection... and I'd still recommend we keep 
> {files} for tracking the various file parts. but the node 
> would still be 
> the collection of them. (if that makes sense).
> 
> I.e. the "node" is the main thing with the title that gets uploaded...

> anything generated from that is kept and included, but not it's own
node.
> -- 


I like that a lot. A whole lot. The different kinds of derivatives would
probably differ greatly depending on the type of file. Different
resolutions for images, different bitrates or cropped 'teasers' for
audio, different compression formats for various downloads.

And yes, it does make great sense. I like this option an awful lot.

How would different KINDS of files be handled/displayed differently,
though? Image.module does a lot of really nice funky stuff to deal with
various resolutions. If it became a 'file' node or what not, would there
be a set of hooks exposed for other modules to customize the handling of
various mime types, etc?

One option I've been curious about is a clean way to programmatically
access (and restrict access to) file variations. Registered users get
high-quality MP3s and high-res images, for example.

--Jeff