[TYPO3-ect] flexible DAM-frontend : coding team, ideas, contributions

Mon Nov 20 16:48:34 CET 2006

Hi,

I answered in the topic 'Just another gallery extension' some days ago, but no reply so far. And as the topic is currently important to me, I've got the 'rudeness' to post again. ;)

As the topic says, a general DAM-frontent plugin is necessary - or would be a very attractive extension to have.

The facts I know that far:
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- Volker Graubaum and his company allready have a extension called someting like 'media_db' that is a very feature rich and flexible DAM-gallery (live example at [1])
  Ingmar Schlecht pointet me at that - but Volker didn't answer my mails (wrote 3 or 4 over the last 8 month)
- there are too many DAM-'gallery's (and gallerys in general) in TER, and each of them is not the best (in my eyes) and fullfills only one possible need
- Jan-Philipp Halle needs a flexible DAM gallery for his client and asked in this newsgroup here (Topic: 'just another gallery extension')
- I also need something like [1] for a community I administrate in my sparetime [2]
- I allready started coding a flexible gallery extension - but I'm no professional coder (modified 'standalone' version here [3], in use here [4])

Here is a quote from myself regaring Jan-Philipp Halles post
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> as much as I know, Volker Graubaum allready developed a full-featured DAM-gallery with FE-lightbox, FE-upload and all that stuff. I wrote him a mail, but didn't get any answer from him. This extension is allready in productive use for a stock-photo site - but I've forgotten the name of the site. He mentioned it in a podcast interview of a german magazin.
> 
> I myself also need a highly flexible DAM-based gallery. What I've got so far is a flexible extension using DAM-categories, fe-user relations, adding a BE-DAM selection filter for images by fe_users, common views (single, search, list), a rather flexible sorting-mechanism via flexform and fe-upload with DAM-indexing. FE-uploads are also categorizeable. It's working - but needs further development. I also plan to support stored DAM-selections as "gallerys" (if that works).
> It can be used as gallery or as simple DAM-frontend, as the output of every filetype is configurable through TS (it's at least planned and could allready word - I'm not shure exactly).
> 
> It's currently used in combination with an extended tt_rating extension (for MM related ratings for any databasetable, optional user restrictions, rating-log, TS-rendering) on a live website [1] and I'm going to extend it with most of the features in your wishlist, as I need a highly flexible gallery extension for a hobby project for a digital-art-community. But currently I don't have time to develop it any further.
> 
> If you (or anybode else) are interested in my current aproach I can upload and share it to combine man-poweres and finally get a flexible DAM frontend that can be used for gallerys, downloads or anything else. But I have to say that I'm no professional coder - just to be warned ;)

And here a quote of a function description of my ext (from calendar NG)
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> I can't tell if and how much this will be faster - I'm neither professional coder, nor an expert in this concern, but I can upload one of my extensions so that you can have a look on my wired code ;) in which I try to stay as flexible as possible with (I believe) no hardcoded query and a modified marker-'engine'. If I add a new field (let's say 'category') to my records table in the database (including TCA), I can do the following without having to touch the php:
> - ###FIELD::CATEGORY### => returns a form-field based on TCA-settings (needs improvements though)
> - ###VALUE::CATEGORY### => returns the pure unprocessed database value
> - ###CATEGORY### => returns the processed value where the processing can be define in pure TS
> - ###LABEL::CATEGORY### => label for the field - fechted by locallang and if not available from TCA
> 
> I can also simply add a localizeable text placeholder as marker - let's say 'eventtype' by simply writing ###DESC::EVENTTYPE### (should maybe changed to TEXT::) in the template, which fetches the locallang value 'desc.eventtype' that can be freely defined with TS. No need to create multiple templates for special designs/needs. 

What I did
----------------------------------------
- asked for this some time ago (if I remember this correct)
- posted this :)
- called Volker Graubaums office today and wait for a response from him as mails didn't work

My wishlist for the extension so far (can't think right now - too tired - haven't slept much)
-----------------------------------------
- be flexible
- be modular / extendable (services)
- ?object oriented? (futuresave for t3 5.0)
- extendable 'views'
- every rendering of a element should be able
  to be overwritten with a TS-renderObj
  (got that in my ext [3])
- easy extendable markers (got that in my ext [3])

Wishlist of Jan-Philipp for a gallery
------------------------------------------
> - Different install/configuration modes varying from simple
>   to full featured
> - Upload of images by FTP or web form
> - Easy/automatic (re-)indexing of images/image folders
> - Simple adding of titles and descriptions to galleries
>   and pictures
> * Nested categories/albums
> - Backend maintenance with tree view and light box
> * Basic image operations like rotation
> - Compact db-structure which can easily be extended
> - Generous providing of hooks
> - Flexible configuration of the frontend output
>   via template file and TS (maybe an extendable array
>   of views)
> - Full support of RealUrl
> - Possible extensions: commenting system, shopping cart,
>   zipped download, ...
> - Complies with TYPO3 standards:
>     - Full multi-language support for labels, gallery and
>       picture titles and descriptions
>     - Works with DBAL
>     - Supports versioning (incl. preview) 

Some of them are allready part of DAM backend.

What I need from you
-----------------------------------------
- feedback / suggestions / ideas
- support of the ECT (if it fit's in their plan)
- cooperative development of that (building a team)
- oh, and money is always welcome ;) - but I have to say I'd rather like some contribution

Su much for now. Thank's for reading.

[1] http://www.reisepix.de (german)
[2] http://www.digitalartforum.de (german)
[3] http://www.elements-net.de/projects/T3X_user_gallery-0_0_1-z.t3x (not shure if I added english for the BE as I was in a hurry)
[4] http://www.triff-den-papst.de/community/mein-schoenstes-papstbild.html
-- 
Kind regards,
Franz Koch