Link and File images

[Bloke]

Just like article images, should we have (optional) Link and File images in core?

Requirements:

• New image column in txp_link and txp_file tables.
• (perhaps) New column showing thumbnail in tables on Content > Links and Content > Files panels.
• Ability to search by image id from each panel.
• New input field for a single textbox that takes an (optional) image ID on the Content > Edit Link and Content > Edit File steps. Callback would allow com_article_image (ahem, perhaps renamed com_content_image in future) to hook into these steps too to provide drag/drop and select from DB images.
• New tags <txp:link_image /> and <txp:file_image />, perhaps with accompanying conditionals.
• Internally add the image IDs to 'image' entries in $thislink and $thisfile.

Thoughts on adding these optional features? Plugin territory or core worthy?

[tangentially related: Section image and Category image could follow the same blueprint. Possible outlier is an Author image]

[philwareham]

IMO:

Yes to allowing images in files/links in similar way to article image, and yes to the new tags.

No to showing the image in listings (we don't do that for articles either). Not sure about search, do we do that for articles already? If so, then yes, if not then no.

Regarding the com_article_image plugin (separate topic I guess) - I'd rather pursue the whole grid view UI in the core first before you go too much further with that plugin (or if it eventually goes to core), as I have a fairly clear way I'd like images to be available in the article panel (and indeed any other appropriate panel such as files/links) via a modal with mini grid in it. i.e. not within the main article panel twisties themselves.

[Bloke]

All good. And yeah, you're right - no thumbnails in the list table. That makes sense for optional content like this. We do permit search on image ID on the article panel. Occurred to me that it might be nice to do search on image ID or name/title on that field. The search interface supports that (just needs an additional column to the JOIN) so if we end up adding images to other content types, I might revisit that so all three panels search the same columns.

I'm not progressing com_article_image any further for now. It works well enough as it is. As you say, I'd definitely like to get a grid sorted and refactor the images panel so we can use parts of it on other panels. I'm going to try and get the UI library committed to dev this week.