Image management concerns: Is ProcessWire suitable for me?

[Grays]

Hello all,

I'm currently looking for ExpressionEngine alternatives for a site and stumbled across you guys. I haven't installed or played around with ProcessWire yet, but I did a bit of research and came across a potential issue I'd like to ask for your opinions before I truly dig in, please and thank you.

From what I've read, it seems file/image management is handled quite differently on PW in that there's no file manager per se to pick and choose media files from. I'm open to a different way of doing things, but I feel I must ask about my case because how this particular site uses images is rather unconventional.

Basically, a majority of the images on the site will be reused tons of times and there will be a lot of images (currently nearing a thousand images that may be resused at any given post and the amount of images may continue to grow). Ideally, these images should be grouped to make browsing through the files a little easier.

So, taking this into consideration, can something like this be easily handled with PW, and if so, can someone give me an idea of how to approach it?

To give you an idea, on my current EE setup, I have images uploaded in their respective directories (grouped accordingly). For example,

Directory A: 100 images

Directory B: 60 images

Directory C: 220 images

... and so on. Then I'd just use the file manager to load whichever images that's needed for a post. About 90% of the posts will include/re-use several images from these directories. I realize this sounds quite odd, but it is what it is (and yes, it is necessary).

From what I've seen of PW, I'd really love to be able to try it as I'm looking for options to migrate various sites from EE. However, this lack of a file manager is a real concern for this particular site I'm working on. I'd appreciate any insights or suggestions. Thank you!

[pwired]

http://processwire.com/tutorials/quick-start/images/

http://processwire.com/talk/topic/1153-adding-images-to-a-page-via-the-api/

http://www.castlewebmedia.com/blog/upload-images-using-processwire/

[arjen]

Do you have a live example of how the images are being used? You can pull images from other pages, but if you have hundreds of images that would be unmanageable. There is a module called Site-wide File Manager which might accompany you and your client. I hardly ever need a WordPress like image manager and if I think I need one there is usually a better way to manage the content. That's why I haven't using the previously mentioned module, but you might like it.

[Pete]

This topic has come up a few times and this method of image management is required for some websites (often article sites where you might have one image for a subject and re-use it).

arjen posts a good solution which may or may not be what you're after, as it relies on knowing where the image was last used if you're re-using it. It might suit your needs, but I'll offer up an alternative.

A simple way to achieve this as per your requirements of 3 directories of images is to create a template called "gallery" and simply give it an "images" field. Then, create 3 pages (mark them as hidden) to mimic your 3 EE directories and add your images. In the WYSIWIG editor for any page you can select an image from another page, so this in effect acts like an image gallery for you in the way you're used to

[Pete]

Also, a quick note as to why it's recommended against doing this usually is that all it requires is for someone to delete an image or rename it or whatever and your link is then broken. That is why you will usually see people recommending against it unless you're re-using lots of images all the time - as in your case.

It's not that it's a bad thing to do and in your case if you're reusing the majority of your images it makes sense to do it this way, but there are other benefits to having the images in a field attached to the page, such as per-template image cropping as well as simply not having to let editors insert images into the WYSIWIG at all (i.e. layout is completely controlled in the template file then instead without an editor user having to resize or insert an image - simply upload and away you go). Of course whatever suits your scenario is obviously right for you - just thought I'd explain the benefits of the other way for future sites you might want to use ProcessWire for.

EDIT: In fact I'm pretty sure this was one of my first questions when moving from MODx too

EDIT2: Forgot to say welcome to ProcessWire!

[Grays]

http://processwire.com/tutorials/quick-start/images/

http://processwire.com/talk/topic/1153-adding-images-to-a-page-via-the-api/

http://www.castlewebmedia.com/blog/upload-images-using-processwire/

I apologize if I gave you the impression that I didn't look into how images were being handled on PW. I did. I just felt that my situation was quite different being that, 1.) Almost all the images can be (and will be) reused a bunch of times at any given post/moment, and 2.) There will be at least 1000+ images that needs to be organized accordingly.

That said, my primary concern was that I wasn't sure if dumping the images into a page as storage and pulling images into a post from them would be feasible for this particular case, hence the question. But thank you anyway.

Do you have a live example of how the images are being used? You can pull images from other pages, but if you have hundreds of images that would be unmanageable. There is a module called Site-wide File Manager which might accompany you and your client. I hardly ever need a WordPress like image manager and if I think I need one there is usually a better way to manage the content. That's why I haven't using the previously mentioned module, but you might like it.

Thank you very much, arjen! I'll look into this and see if it might be a solution to what I need. Unfortunately, there is no live example of the site at the moment because the site is pulled offline as it's moving servers and also going through an overhaul of sorts. But it is pretty much what I described in my original post. The whole point of the site is hinged on the ability to post and re-post these images an unlimited amount of times. Anyhow, really appreciate your help - I'll give it a whirl. It could be that in the end, PW and the module just isn't suitable for this particular site... it happens. Not every CMS will always be a perfect match with every site after all!

(Oh and it seems another reply popped in while I was typing this up, so I hope no one minds if I end up double-posting replies because I'm not quite sure how to reply to those without losing these ones!)

[MichaMichaMicha]

Hello all,

I'm currently looking for ExpressionEngine alternatives for a site and stumbled across you guys.

The minute I read this I thought: "You are gonne love ProcessWire" I've spent a horrible year using ExpressionEngine and my life brightened up when I gave ProcessWire a try. Enjoy.

[Grays]

arjen posts a good solution which may or may not be what you're after, as it relies on knowing where the image was last used if you're re-using it. It might suit your needs, but I'll offer up an alternative.

A simple way to achieve this as per your requirements of 3 directories of images is to create a template called "gallery" and simply give it an "images" field. Then, create 3 pages (mark them as hidden) to mimic your 3 EE directories and add your images. In the WYSIWIG editor for any page you can select an image from another page, so this in effect acts like an image gallery for you in the way you're used to

Oh, thanks for explaining some more on how the module works. That might indeed be an issue because knowledge of where the image was last used would be a problem. The images may be reused at any given time and may go long periods without being reused too so it'd be very difficult to know where/when it was last used unless one does a lot of digging.

This other method you've mentioned - would you say it can work "gracefully" if a lot of hidden pages are needed (I'd be needing much more than 3 "directories" here) and also if there are about 100-150 pictures in each of these gallery pages? I'm definitely more than happy to try it whichever way PW handles it best... just wasn't sure if this is a case of "Meh, it's a workaround but probably gonna be clunky." type of thing!

It's not that it's a bad thing to do and in your case if you're reusing the majority of your images it makes sense to do it this way, but there are other benefits to having the images in a field attached to the page, such as per-template image cropping as well as simply not having to let editors insert images into the WYSIWIG at all (i.e. layout is completely controlled in the template file then instead without an editor user having to resize or insert an image - simply upload and away you go). Of course whatever suits your scenario is obviously right for you - just thought I'd explain the benefits of the other way for future sites you might want to use ProcessWire for.

EDIT: In fact I'm pretty sure this was one of my first questions when moving from MODx too

EDIT2: Forgot to say welcome to ProcessWire!

I think you may have lost me there regarding the benefits of having images in a field attached to the page - did you mean images that aren't being pulled in from another page but loaded directly on the post? If so, I assume image cropping and such is not available for when pulling in the picture from a "gallery page" right?

Anyhow, thank you very much for your help! This might be the way I'll go about doing things if it turns out that it'll handle the amount of images and "gallery pages" just fine.

And thank you too, for the welcome. I get the feeling I'll be doing a lot of digging here in the forums, especially since I don't quite speak PHP and I'm more a designer than a developer really...

EDIT: Thank you MichaMichaMicha - I certainly do look forward to loving ProcessWire. I do really like EE though... I've been with them since the PMachine days but alas, I think it may be best to move on in some cases!

[Soma]

If you let me know a little more about how these images are gonna used on the pages I could help provide a image system thats gonna work.

I.e. Do you need to insert images in the body text inline. Or will they have a predefined place. Will they be just single images or galleries?

[Grays]

Soma,

Yes, the images will mainly need to be inserted into the body text area. They will also be treated mostly as "single images"... well, in some cases, several of these single images lined together, but no, they won't function like a lightbox gallery or anything like that. You can think of them as images that go in blog posts, except there's a lot of reusing going on and sometimes several of the images may be needed throughout the blog post, etc.

Some images would go in predefined areas, for galleries type of displaying images, but those aren't the images that will typically be reused over and over again so I think it should be okay here.

Thanks!

[Soma]

@Grays sorry it took so long, but I was up to something that might solve some problems with sharing images. I create ImagesManager for these cases where you have lots of images shared on different pages.

If you're still into the boat this might be interesting. http://processwire.com/talk/topic/3219-images-manager-alpha/