[support] Newbee: How should I plan this?

[Larry Garfield]

On Friday 18 May 2007, A-NO-NE Music wrote:
> Larry Garfield / 2007/05/17 / 01:43 AM wrote:
> >Musician node type: has name, website (link CCK field), etc.  Also has a
> >viewfield (CCK field) of a view that lists Show nodes that reference that
> >musician.
>
> While I was doing this, I encountered a problem.  I created a image
> field for the picture next to the name of the musician.  When I go to
> create Musician Content, the image field only let you upload the image
> but it is already in the library because I have used it before somewhere
> else.  Uploading again will duplicate it.  I know I am missing
> something, but I can't figure this out yet.  Any help would be appreciate
> it.

If you don't want to duplicate the actual jpg file, consider image-as-node and 
then using a nodereference field to pick the image.  There is an image.module 
that is very popular but also rather old, and has a few issues.  Another 
option is to create a custom CCK node type, disable the body on it, and add 
just one imagefield to it.  Voila, an image node type. :-)  The downside here 
is that you're then loading more nodes on a page, so your theming could get 
more complex and it could have an adverse impact on performance.  (Loading a 
node is ~4-8 queries or so on most sites.)  

> By the way, do I want to create Categories for Musician, Venue, and
> Show, or Reference Nodes between them will render Categories unnecessary?

Each node type is a type of entity.  A category/taxonomy helps to classify the 
same sort of entity.  So for instance "client" is a node type, while "paid" 
and "pro-bono" would be categories of client.  "Album" is a node type, while 
jazz, rock, and disco are taxonomy terms in the "genre" vocabulary and "indy" 
or "big evil faceless corp" are taxonomy terms in the "contract type" 
vocabulary. :-)

When you want something to be a node type vs. a category depends on your use 
case.  Bear in mind that a node can only ever have one node type, while it 
can have many associated taxonomy terms (tags) in multiple vocabularies 
simultaneously, and vocabularies can apply to multiple node types.

-- 
Larry Garfield			AIM: LOLG42
larry at garfieldtech.com		ICQ: 6817012

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of 
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, 
which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to 
himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession 
of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."  -- Thomas 
Jefferson