Fri, July 15, 2005
Mastering the photo tool—11:37 AM
Recently, I've tackled a few of the items that will be new or drastically different in the new onebee (like the link pages), but the looming obstacle was still the administrative back-end for photos. There were many small changes and a few big ones, and every time I thought about it, I'd just freeze up in terror.
This trepidation was really stymying progress, so yesterday I put myself on a deadline to get the page up and working by the end of the day. With seconds to spare, I managed to pull it off! One major change is that now I can upload all the versions of an image at once, and modify the text fields in the same action. Also, the previews are smaller (and designed to look like the previews in the new photo galleries, which will make them easier to work with and change – and also keep them at a constant size, so all the click targets on this page will stay in the same places.
I'm dismayed that there are still up to four sizes for any one image (although very few images will need a jumbo version). However, each size has a specific and necessary use, and I just couldn't see giving them up. Most images will just have two sizes: slide (the preview in the galleries) and display (the main photo on the photo page). If I choose to display an image within an entry (like above), it will use the "slide" size by default. But, in some cases I think it will be necessary to have a separate size to show more detail (like above).
I briefly considered using PHP's image tools to resize one uploaded image into the necessary elements, but I just can't make myself comfortable with that solution. I'd rather have control over the resizing (Photoshop does a much better job of shrinking without losing quality) and in many cases, I crop as well as shrink (like above). I think uploading four versions is an improvement over the current number (five), especially since the default for most images will be two (currently, four). It's not perfect, but it's the best solution available.
