"image" content type

[smack]

Basically, a simplified content type that would enable users to select an image for inclusion on a page.

Display would be handled by the underlyng template.

Obviously you *can* insert images via the WYSIWYG editor, or by editing the raw HTML, but this gives the novice user FAR too much ability to completely screw things up (Believe me, we know). We'd like people to be able to swap images on their pages, or to create new pages with images in them, but we'd like to keep them "within the lines," so to speak.

s.

[calguy1000]

in the next version of cms, v0.12, the {image} plugin is available,

[smack]

Er...

We're looking at this, and I don't get it. So you can put this in a template:

{image name="foo.jpg"}

instead of:



Is that it? I'm unclear as to how useful this is... we had something a little more something more like

{content name="headerImage" type="image"}

in mind, which would allow users to browse the image library for the image they wanted in this place. Just making sure I'm not missing anything here...

s.

[Ted]

Content isn't really abstracted properly for that.  You can't mix two different content types in the same page.  What would need to happen for this is one of two things...

1. We change a lot of stuff around.  However, it's going to make the {content} tag more complicated to account for it.  Not to mention the admin...

2. We modify the "content" content type to be able to do images, complete with interface and such.  Actually, it's not a bad idea, but would be a decent amount of work.

To be honest, the best way to approach this would be to look over the architecture of content again.  It's good now, but could use some improvement.  The idea of mixing content types, or having something more dynamic would be great.  Not to mention that the code for them is just REALLY BAD.

As I'm thinking here, I'm almost seeing the "content" content type as a container for smaller bits of code.  It could handle text like it does now.  Or do images.  Or maybe just be a thing to paste in a flash movie.  Or a dozen other things.

Thanks...  now my mind is wandering in directions it shouldn't be going.    Wow, this is one of the most rambling posts I've done in awhile.  Welcome to my mind, it's a scary place.

[smack]

Hey! I'm not a n00b anymore!

Anyhow -

Okay. Bummer about images. I was thinking that it was more of a display/UI thing:

type="image" would bring up an image browse window instead of the FCK editor on the page editing screen. You browse, select, maybe enter some ALT text, etc. But then all that is stored iin the table is the actual string:



So it's more in the display layer, rather than deep down in the code. 'Course, since I don't have my hands in the actual CMSMS code, what do I know?  I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than I'm making it. Ah well - we'll just keep working the way we have been.

s.

[Ted]

I'm thinking that it might be a good idea.  I'm wondering if there will be a way to do something like this, but with a plugin sort of architecture.  All of the pieces are there, it's just a matter of putting it together properly...

[polyploidal]

It would be great to have this in the Page admin rather than in a plugin, much like the {content} block.

I've been wanting to do this for quite some time, but the only way I could figure doing this without moving massive
amounts of code was to add an image/file upload to the page form in the admin.

While (I think) there are some modules/plugins already available (per section image) I'm not sure a plugin is the best way to handle it.

[LimeJuice]

Hi there

I'd like to add my +1 (or 10, or 100) for this feature request please!

I've been struggling to work out how to define 'slots' like this in a CMSMS template, which would cause an image-chooser or similar to appear for authors. A page's content is rarely just text, after all.

It seems important (to me at least) that there is some way to structure the content that an author writes for a given page.  One way to do that might be via the page's template (instead of defining a separate 'page class' or something like that).  But that means the the template must be able to specify what kind of content goes in each block.

An example I keep coming back to is:  a template that's used for pages which each describe a book.  You might have two textual content blocks: one for the book title and details, and one for a wordy description.  But you might also have a content block for the cover of the book: an image.  Perhaps another for a photo of the author: another image.  In the template, these four content blocks are likely to be very separate things, and the author of an eventual page will think of them that way too.

Is there really no way to do this in CMSMS?  That is, without having authors put the images inline in textual conent blocks, hoping they assign the right style to the images, then using some kind of CSS trickery to pull those images out of normal flow and position them elsewhere.

CMSMS seems such an excellent piece of work - I have found it to be an enormous breath of fresh air, compared to so many of the other 'Web CMS' products I've looked at (which tend towards the bizarre).  It would be a shame if this fundamental shortcoming makes it into a 1.0 release.


SO:  What can I do about it?  I am a professional software developer, but I've never used PHP.  I don't have much spare time, but I may be able to devote some to a solution.  Can you guys point me in the right direction?

An alternative, I guess, would be to ask whether any other 'Web CMS' has this ability.  Perhaps we can look at that and learn from how they've done it...

All advice gratefully received - many thanks

Richard

[Dr.CSS]

I've done something like this by using the news, it has a summary box that i only put the image in and then move it with CSS example page...
http://multiintech.com/debra/
and this is for an author.

[LimeJuice]

Oops - I talk about authors (of content in the CMS) and then I use an example involving authors (of books).  Sorry...