Roundup of image modules for Drupal
The following is extracted from my post on Drupal.org. I've brought it here to begin working on in to make it a more up-to-date Docs page for the current ways to use images in Drupal.
Making sense of the image options in Drupal is complicated, and unfortunately an early issue that Drupal newbies come up against. See my Documentation case study on "How do I add images to my Drupal site?" My goal with this article is to remove as much of this barrier as possible and make selecting an appropriate image handling method (or combination of methods) as easy as possible.
This may fit best into the Beyond the Basics > Comparisons of contributed modules section of the Handbook. However, I might recommend that an additional short page be placed in one or more additional locations as well to forward to it, such as within HowTos and/or Tutorials, since that is most likely to be understood by a complete beginner with Drupal ("contributed modules" is a topic a beginner may not yet understand as they set out looking for how to add images to their site).
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There are a variety methods for working with images in Drupal, and each way has various benefits and drawbacks. Which solution you choose will often depend on the needs of the website you are creating, as well as your preferences regarding user interface, functionality, and whether you prefer images to be treated as nodes or just ordinary files. Another major factor is whether the image handling method is able to include images anywhere within the content of your page, or only in preset locations (some applications of images require images to appear in a constant, known location of every page, while in other cases images need to be able to appear at any desired location within the text/content of the page).
Important: before working with images in Drupal, ensure that your Input Format has been configured to allow image tags, or else images will not show up when you save your content. For more info please see Understanding Input Formats.
The modules listed are those which I'm familiar with, though there could be even more, since new Drupal modules come out all the time. The descriptions of these modules and the lists of benefits and drawbacks are by no means the "final word" nor do they necessarily include every possible feature/benefit/drawback. Drupal modules are constantly changing, so please visit the project pages for each module to assess their current capabilities.
IMCE module
http://drupal.org/project/imce
Current Drupal version compatibility: 5, 6
WYSIWYG Editor compatibility: TinyMCE, FCKEditor, WYMEditor, Whizzywig, BUEditor
Benefits
- If you prefer to work with images as just normal "files" as you would on your own computer's file system and nothing more, then IMCE is a good choice. It treats images as normal "files" and lets you upload and organize them in directories within a user interface similar to Windows explorer, Mac's Finder, etc.
- IMCE is not only an image module - it also allows you to upload and browse non-image file types.
- IMCE can create various thumbnail or other derivative image versions based on the original version of the image you upload. You can pre-define a variety of preset sizes.
- The user interface for IMCE isn't perfect but it's among the more understandable / easy to use ones (particularly for clients or other end-users of the site). The interface is substantially improved in the Drupal 6 version.
- IMCE can show actual previews of the images you insert into the content when using some WYSIWYG editors such as TinyMCE and FCKeditor.
- With IMCE you can insert an unlimited number of images "within" the content of a page, not just attached to the page or next to the content.
- You can upload groups of images easily into your Drupal site's files directory using FTP or other methods and they will be immediately available to use within IMCE.
- Extensible with add-on modules such as:
Drawbacks
- The user interface is improved, but not great. It works best with the Garland theme, while other themes may require some adjustments.
- Depending on your needs this could be either a benefit or drawback, but since IMCE treats images as just "files" rather than embedding them into Drupal nodes, the versatile features available to Drupal nodes are not available to your images.
- IMCE uses its own system for scaling/resizing derivative versions of your images, and is not as versatile in this area as the popular Imagecache image-processing module (which is capable of other advanced features such as cropping images, or applying a variety of advanced image processing presets). You can define presets which scale and crop an image to a specific size, but there is no way to make a preset which only scales an image down without cropping it, retaining its original aspect ratio. The only way to scale and maintain aspect ratio is to do it manually using the Resize menu option (type in the width value and the correct value is automatically entered in for the height). Also IMCE cannot currently "auto generate" any derivative images as you upload them (to generate derivative images, a checkbox/link must be manually clicked in the interface either during the upload process or any time after).
- With IMCE it's not as easy to get an "automatic" Lightbox effect as it is with modules like Imagefield or Image + Image Assist. There has been some progress in this area, but it's too complex for most people to set up quite yet.
Tips and Tricks
- How to use IMCE in combination with BUEditor and Lightbox2 module. Also add the ability to float/align images left or right.
Image module
http://drupal.org/project/image
Current Drupal version compatibility: 5, 6
WYSIWYG Editor compatibility: Image module alone has no WYSIWYG integration
About Image module in general
Several modules can be "added on" to Image module to change or expand on its default functionality (discussed on later pages in this comparison) so these are the general details about Image module overall.
Image module has long been the most "common" way of using images in Drupal (not that it's perfect or ideal, but because it was first and it's all there was for a long time). Image module treats images as "nodes" that can be searched, commented on, etc, and it can automatically generate additional image sizes based on the original (such as thumbnail, preview, etc). Saving an image as a node can be beneficial, since nodes in Drupal are quite powerful and full-featured. On the other hand images as nodes can be "overkill" for some needs, such as when you want to just deal with images as standard "files" and nothing more (in which case IMCE module is most likely a better choice). Image module can be paired with a number of other modules to expand or alter its functionality, but it comes pre-packaged with a few things by default: "Image Attach" which lets you attach Image nodes onto other pages, "Image Gallery" for making a basic image/photo gallery, and "Image Import" for uploading images manually through FTP and converting them.
Benefits
- If Image module and its included sub-modules (Image Attach, Image Gallery, and Image Import) suit your needs, then there is nothing else to install, as everything is included.
- Image module comes with a basic "Image Gallery" sub-module. Nothing too fancy, but gives you a simple gallery, with categories, right out of the box. When you upload an image, you are able to include it in a category of your gallery, so that the image will appear automatically in the gallery.
- Image module has a mass-upload sub-module called "Image Import", which allows you to upload images into a specific directory on your server using FTP or other means, and then have Image Import turn those files into Image nodes all at once.
- Lightbox2 module works easily with Image module [add instructions]
Drawbacks
- The price of having everything "pre-made" and all inclusive in Image module is that it's substantially less flexible and cannot easily be changed. Image module is slowly being phased out, to be replaced by a similar (but much better, and fully flexible) solution based on more current Drupal technologies such as CCK, Imagefield, Imagecache, etc. There is expected to be an upgrade path, so feel free to use Image module for now if you need to.
- Though Image nodes get all of the basic benefits of being nodes, the Image Content type is set in stone, and cannot be expanded at all with CCK. You cannot add custom fields / field-types to expand the functionality of your Image nodes. If you add custom fields, they won't work.
- For adding images into other pages, the included Image Attach module is not likely to suit most people's needs since it: 1) only allows you to attach one image per page, 2) does not allow you to control where the image appears within content, 3) only allows you to float your image the right (default) or left of your content, and you cannot adjust it on a per-page basis (to change it to left instead of right, see the tip below).
- Image module uses its own method for creating scaled derivative versions of images (versus the popular and versatile Imagecache module), and is limited in what it can do and how many derivative image versions it can produce.
- Image Attach generates harmless but somewhat confusing messages after uploading an image.
Tips and Tricks
- By default, Image module places all new images on the front page of your site. Unless this is what you want, you should disable this first of all before uploading any images. Go to Administer > Content management > Content types (admin/content/types), and click on the "Edit" link next to Image. Expand the "Workflow settings" fieldset and uncheck Promoted to front page. If you want you can also disable Attachments and Comments on images here if you don't prefer those features.
- Enable "Image Attach" functionality on any Content Type you want to use it on ahead of time. Go to Administer > Content management > Content types (admin/content/types), and click on the "Edit" link next to the type you want to edit. Expand the "Image Attach settings" fieldset and change the Attach Images option to
Enabled. Adjust any other settings you'd like as well and press "Save content type". Now when you make a node of that Content Type, you will see a "Attached Images" fieldset available, where you can upload an image or select an already-uploaded image from a list. - Since Image Attach sets images to the right of the page by default, the way to change this to the left is to add the following into your own CSS file (you can only have one or the other):
.image-attach-teaser, .image-attach-body {
float: left;
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 1em;
}
Screenshots
Image Attach: upload or attach one image to the page you're writing
Image Attach: image added to a page
Image Gallery: top view
Image Gallery: showing one category
More image options
This page contains additional image handing options, which I haven't yet had enough time to describe as thoroughly. Stay tuned for more details.
- Image Assist module (Image module comes pre-packaged with the "Image Attach" module , however it only allows you to use a single image per page and thus is too basic for most people - instead you can add on the Image Assist module -instead of Image Attach- to handle inserting the images "within" the content of a page, and as many images per page as you want... its user interface is not ideal, though it does allow you to browse images by tags if you've tagged/categorized the images which is useful... it integrates with TinyMCE, FCKeditor, and maybe other editors as well... Image module also has a built-in basic image gallery feature... although Image Assist can place images within content on the page, it shows only "placeholder" shapes where the images will appear until you save the page).
- Asset module (handles images as well as other media files and has a versatile number of options as well as one of the better user interfaces... it can create alternate image sizes using the popular ImageCache module... it integrates with TinyMCE editor, though I don't believe any others yet... it shows image examples directly within the editor... it's also not Drupal 6 compatible yet).
- Inline module (uploads images as "file attachments" to a certain page, and uses special tags to place them within the content of the page... it is not as easy to use, and does not create alternate image sizes automatically for you).
- Image Picker module (I have never tested this one yet, so cannot say if it works).
- If you don't need images "within" content (but rather before, after, adjacent to, etc the text of the page) then the best solution is CCK and Imagefield module paired with ImageCache module.