Randomland.net - Test Site Discussion

[zourtney]

It's so close to usable, and yet so far.  What should we do? All we really want is a few random pictures and an easy way to reference them. Just like everyone else on the internets.

[Nick]

The easiest way I see it is to use the pupload module and make our own interface for uploading masses of images. Then use views to make galleries. They are easy to style. The old ones were ugly only because I suck. Other then that we get stuck with crappy implementations of galleries that look ok but don't offer much versatility.

The other (drupal) option is to make a cheesy php script that turns images into nodes and moves them into the appropriate folder and calls the things for making thumbnails.

Or go wordpress... and somehow find a gallery system that makes images searchable. That is another option that seems just on the cusp of working.

Dupal gives us all the searching we want... wordpress gives up all the pretty and bulk uploading we want.... Pooot

[Nick]

On the wordpress front:
http://test.randomland.net/wp/media-tags/woods
http://test.randomland.net/wp/media-tags/miniature
http://test.randomland.net/wp/the-sick-light-from-a-fading-sun/

The two last links are showing the same tag.

EDIT:

• 
  I did a quick hack to make the images link to their media pages (a.k.a. nodes) rather then opening a lightbox.
  Here -> http://test.randomland.net/wp/the-sick-light-from-a-fading-sun/
  Now to add this to the lightbox instead. This is still not ideal. If you want to comment on an image you have to go to its page and then hit back. It would be better to have next>> <<back buttons on the media pages... but they are media references not gallery items. Oh drupal.... get your act together. This was all so easy over there. But the tasty, tasty uploads make wordpress look so shiny.

Those are both from the 'media tags' plug in and the 'media tag gallery' plugin and a generic lightbox plugin (there are other options for the boxzez.)
Its supposed to be easy to control things via the templates. It should be possable to make a views-style (?tags=boots,cars,ziggons) search using php in the templates. I think I will try messing with the templates when I have some time. Lunches and evenings are just too short. And I get no sun behind a computer

There is no integration of the media-tags into the site-wide search.

Also on the wordpress front:
Moving all the content over
But that goes for drupal as well... they haven't finished the migration tools yet.
I think 7 might have exited RC a little early.

Again... we could just work on making 6 look nice. Its not like its not a viable platform. It just has ugly admin interfaces.

[zourtney]

Well, we can almost guarantee we'll lose all picture references again, no matter how we play it. But aside from that, Randomland doesn't really have much content. Nevertheless, I'd still rather not port it over by hand. (I did find a how-to a while back, but it still involved writing a few queries)

Migration is never fun, but I do think it's time to move on. Drupal 6...bothers me. Yes, a lot of it is admin menus, you're right. [useless rant removed]

Then there's Wordpress. With its shiny, simple appeal that promises everything we already have. Except [Drupal rant removed]. If I remember right, the primary reason we dropped it was that our hosting server had really horrible query speeds. A point now moot.

I say we should go with whatever gets us the most functionality while being as lazy as possible. I have other projects And we have survived without all the cool image gallery features we keep mentioning...

[Nick]

Ok Just pick one then. They both offer their own headaches. With wordpress we (or I) will have to screw with a few plugins to get them to work how I would like (then we cant upgrade them easily) and with drupal a bulk image node creation page needs created. (I know, I just keep repeating myself here)

I am up for either challenge. I will even have some time in the next few days to work on something.

Personally, my vote goes to drupal. Mostly because I am used to it. And I like its versatility. But shiny simplicity has its own allures.

Anyone up for an rlimg-upload module?

Edit:

• Another lunch messing with the junk and I think the media module might work (for drupal) I will try and make a proof of concept for it. Basically using views to display the media and media *nodes* (Note: The 'media' items seem to be in nodes... but ugly ones that display all dumb.) I will have to give it all a try. But I would still rather have images be their own nodes for the purpose of mass browsing and easy workings with.

[zourtney]

Well, if you want images as nodes, just try the module I made (RandomCore). I just got distracted and then buried by a heavy pile of apathy...wanting something that worked.

As it is, it does do the basics. And most everything there is functioning, at least at a basic level. Like I said, I just got [a]pathetic.

• Images are nodes (title, teaser, long desc, tags, collection).
• Collections are made by a separate taxonomy, which is dynamically created when the modules is installed.
• Single upload works fine; it uses file field.
• I incorporated PathAuto, so you can a preset SEO-friendly URL. I think I was doing collection tags as gallery/[name] and ignoring single images.
• EXIF data half-way works. Select fields are stored as tags on the current images. (Doing every field is nightmarish overkill)
• And of course the rlimg input filter (slightly broken?)

And that's how I remember it. If we do go that way, go raid your patience stash; there's sure to be misbehaving features. I'll be happy to explain the code and everything I know. True be told, it'd be nice to put it to use, as there a dozens of hours poured into those few little files.

...crap, I just convinced myself to write an image gallery again 

Ok, afterthought #47: I remember now. It was my attempt to dynamically create views for galleries that brought on apathy's full wrath (if that's not oxymoronic). My feeble attempts to create a simple view using the Views UI made me feel like a toddler trying to reassemble a pocket watch. Idiotic analogies aside, if you can master Views...heck, if you can even use Views, we can wrap this this up and use it.

[Nick]

Views are better then they were. They just redid the UI a little. I can make a view it I think (the RL guy.) The only reason I would go with the Media module is its bulk upload capability (the only one I know of for 7) If we just add an upload page to the RLimg module and use the pupload module with that I would be happy. Making views of RLimg nodes will be easy as pie. Not that I know how to make a good pie. But I am sure I could grad a few modules out of the cupboard and plug them into the mixer and come up with something

[zourtney]

Mix away, o' chef of Randomland. 

[Nick]

There is always the wikimedia-type solution.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snaildance764.ogg

[zourtney]

True, that does have everything we need. For unknown reasons, I still like the Drupals better...

[Nick]

Here is with the dupals using the rlImg. With the views you see the grid that it is. Only issue being is never the bulk creation of node.
You see this here? Link! Link!

Although, the module 'feeds' may offer some reprieve for the time being. In regards to the mass creation of node that is. It will create nodes, taxonomy and more from a rss feed or a cms file. This could be used in conjunction with wordpress to create images node (by feeding off the rss feed from a wordpress install to get the image URLs, descriptions and possible taxonomy. Though this would be far from ideal.

Better, our efforts should be on creating a simple system for mass creating image nodes from a pUpload uploader. I will get to work on that... at some point. As it is presented above, it works (based on taxonomy ID. But listing taxonomys with links is easy.) Its just very time consuming to upload images one at a time.

[zourtney]

Whatever you did, I like it. Should I try to automate that in the module code?

[Nick]

Its just a view module 'view.'  It needs some CSS added to make it pretty and perhaps some light/thin/thick-box added.

Now if only you could add more then one at at time.

You can also add collections together
http://test.randomland.net/drupal/collection/35+20

If you put some random numbers in there you will get odd results. Like all the images that have iso 200 or something. Its not filtering very strictly at the moment. But that's easy to change.

This is more or less the same this I set up on drupal last time, before we got frustrated with uploading options.

[zourtney]

Well, we need a new theme anyway...

I am apparently really sucky with using the Views module. So I'm glad you're not. Aside from the mass upload issue, which seems to be a problem with every image module, does this do enough of what we need? Is there a way to combine terms, like the 35+20 example you gave? I mean, we could write our own queries, but then apathy starts sounding appealing again.

I need some woods. 

[Nick]

"You can enter multiple values in the form of 1+2+3 (for OR) or 1,2,3 (for AND)."
Or so says the views module. This only works for node IDs, not their textual names. We would have to set up a template with some PHP in it to do that. Or wait for support for that to be added.