Thumbnails module rewrite of core thumbnails

[Silmarillion]

Hi all

When developing a new gallery module I grew really tired of the core thumbnails handling, so I've taken a stab at doing a module, Thumbnails, providing an API to let other modules handle thumbnails cleanly. Eventhough the previous was a strange sentence, which I'm too lazy to rewrite, and the module is quite early in development, and the API probably is not completely locked, it does work for me in NeoGallery.

For 2.0 the plan (still, I think?) is to extract the ImageManager from the core into a module, and as I'm the one volenteering to do it I thought I might as well take this first step now. Whether or not this Thumbnails module will be the 2.0-way of doings things I do not know, but if other module-developers like it, then why not?

I just released version 0.1.0 of both the gallery and the thumbnail-module (see help for API-docs).
Please feel free to post any suggestions for improvements or stuff I have overlooked.

Regards
Silmarillion / Morten

[NaN]

Nice idea.
I've just released a feature request to the FileManager Module since it doesn't create any events that other modules can subscribe to.
Some days ago we had a discussion about resizing images automatically when uploaded.
So no one needs to worry about imageprocessing and just can upload his (even huge) file and it will be resized to fit perfectly into the content.
By the way i think that users that cannot process images and adapt them for their website should never insert images to a web content.
But that was the point of the discussion: CMS Made Simple.
When providing a FileManager that makes it possible to upload files to a webspace without FTP software or anything else but just a browser and CMSms it would be a nice feature.
But to realize that a module or UDT must be able to subcribe to events that will be generated when a file has been uploaded.
Then it can check what kind of file it is, in wich folder it is uploaded and if it is an image resize it to a predefined image size that could be setup for several folders.
If there is an simple thumbnail module it should be easy to create an UDT or a module that just replaces the uploaded file with the resized one using the thumbnail API.

[Silmarillion]

Hi NaN

I'll have look at your feature request soon. Will not make it for 1.4 though... Actually both MultiUpload (using postlet) and Imageupload has automtic resizing features now as I agree with out it's a problem for non-tech users to upload new files
. But doing integration with UDT's etc is also a really good idea!

I hope evryone will tell me what they are missing in the THumbnails API and I'll be glad to implement it.

sil.

[rab]

Just installed NeoGallery and Thumbnails to a test CMSms site (v1.4.1.) and am THRILLED! This is so much easier and simpler to use than the Album module, and works "right out of the box", too. This module exemplifies the MADE SIMPLE concept of CMSms.

Well done and Thanks!

[Silmarillion]

I'm so glad to hear! Feel free to suggest improvements, or other lightbox-clones which you would like to get integrated in the gallery!

Regards
Silmarillion/Morten

[rab]

Don't know if this is a suggestion for an improvement or a plea for help, but the NeoGallery album (just 4 pics) looks great in FF3, but awful in IE7! See for yourself:

http://omgcparish.net/index.php?page=public_history

Is this a template issue or something else? Any ideas how to fix?

Thanks.

PS - Even with this IE display problem, I meant everything I said about the module - simple, easy, and it works!

[Amendra]

I'm so glad to hear! Feel free to suggest improvements..

Hi Morton,
thank you for putting your effort into this fine module
Regarding suggestions about future features: I tested your module today and was not fond of the fact that the thumbnail size was restricted to some square defaults.

What I would love to have is a combination of two input fields for width and height to enter my own values. My clients don't want to use square thumbnails.

The second suggestion: Whenever a thumbnail is created, it starts building from the coordinates of left and top corner, right? It would be wonderful to add another parameter to have it created from the image's center.

And the third is more of a general question: I would like to use ImageUpload instead of ImageManager, but ImageUpload has no built-in support for thumbnails. How would I implement such a feature? If it is not too much asked

I'd love to hear from you soon
Thank you!
Amendra