Can someone point me in the right direction on where/who to ask about improving the image manager in the core?

The current image manager is a bit clunky so..

I think there should be an 'My Images' link somewhere in the account/profile which leads to a simple image management page that a member can use to upload, delete and generally manage their own images. These can then be used on the site via an improved image manager pop up screen where the member can only see their own images.

I think there are a few open source forums that have this already so there'll be some code to use. I'm not the greatest PHP developer but am pretty good with user interfaces so would be happy to create some mock ups of how this could work.

Do I need to contact someone on the sourceforge site for this?

Might have been some misunderstanding with my first post above. Wasn't asking someone to do this just who I should ask about doing it. Anyway I've started work on replacing the Image Manager in my own site and thought I'd share my work in the hope some other xoopers can help with some advice and comments.

The aim is to build a drop in replacement for the image manager. I'm building it using PHP5 to use some of the new functions.

Concept is pretty similar to the existing manager but with the addition of

1)Users own images screen so they can manage their own images away from the general site images.
2)Upload options that resize images as they are uploaded in a set number of preconfigured sizes.

To help explain how this will work in practice I've created some concept screenshots. These are purely concept at the moment to help work out how I'm going to implement this.

A user can see their own images on the 'My Images' tab.
User Images Thumbnail Display


Clicking an empty image area will bring up the upload screen (not got this done yet)
Clicking any of the images in the thumbnail display opens the image detail window as below..
User Images Detail


From here the user would click on the appropriate button to insert the image in their post (as the current image manager does). They can also rename the image or remove it from their area.

Alternatively the user can use the Site Images area to upload and access images that are available to anyone on the site...
Site Images Thumbnail Window


Clicking the thumbnail then leads to the screen to add the image to the post
Site Images Detail


The options for delete and rename do not appear on this screen.

The above images are Fireworks PNG so if you want to download and play feel free.

I'm researching image uploaders at the moment.. I've used a Java based one on another site that does a fair job but will be looking at others. It would be good to offer the user a choice of methods

First question I have is ... what's the best way to store the user's images? In directory and prefix each filename with the user id? Or store a reference in the database for each filename for who it 'belongs' to. Or is it better to create a directory for each user and use PHP to read the files from their directory? Can web servers had thousands of directories in one directory?

Will post tomorrow with more on the image upload part.

OK, I've had a little look around and it's pretty much as I remember from last time I looked at this..

The three methods of uploading are..

Old fashioned HTML forms
Java applets
Active-X controls

Ideally this system should resize the images BEFORE they're uploaded to the server as many users don't really understand image file sizes and just want to copy images straight off their digital camera.

If users are happy to install a Java applet this is a fair solution... http://upload.thinfile.com/docs/resize.php The user drags or browses for their image and the applet resizes it to the chosen sizes and uploads to the server. I found the compression is a little heavy and contacting the company is a bit hit and miss - even trying to pay!

There are a few other Java based uploaders but I haven't found one that creates multiple sizes before upload.

There are a few active-x solutions (oftem seen on photo-printing sites) but being IE only I'm not currently looking at them.

The third solution is to upload the image the old fashioned way through an HTML form and use PHP to resize the image to the required sizes on the server. This method could be used as a back up.

I also looked at Flash solutions but it looks like Flash doesn't allow access to the filesystem on a user's PC.

Anyone have any input? Would love to hear it.

I like what you are doing so far. It looks a lot better and easier for users to use. Keep up the good work.

Not sure if this helps, but there's a flash uploader script here.

for anyone who's got notifications set on this thread...

I've created something that people might be able to use..

https://xoops.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&type=&topic_id=64670&forum=14