MultiImage Module

The MultiImage module provides the capability to display random images and text in a block.

Requirements

Installation

1. Download the MultiImage.zip file into your modules directory and extract everything using the appropriate utility. This should create a 'MultiImage' directory under the Postnuke 'modules' directory.
2. Go to 'Admin->Modules' and click on 'Regenerate'.
3. Find the MultiImage module in the resulting list and click on 'Initialize'.
4. Again find the MultiImage module in the module list and click on 'Activate'.
5. Go to 'Admin->MultiImage' and click on the link. See the administration guide. At least one image will be entered to make the MultiImage block functional.
6. Add a MultiImage block to your PostNuke site.

Administration - Adding/Maintaining Images

Report Access

• 'Report Access Level' This drop down menu select the access level (READ, EDIT, ADMIN, etc.) required to access the MultiImage reports. Additional restrictions may apply on each report.
• 'Change' Update the report access level.

Add New Image

• 'Select Group Name'If you are adding an image to an existing group, select the group name here.
  
• 'Enter New Group Name' - Enter name for your new group.
  This entry is not needed if you selected from the dropdown above. Your site name works good here. Do not use any colons (:), these have special meaning.
• 'Image URL' - Link to image to be displayed.
  If you are going to copy the image to the PN table, a URL or local file name can be entered. Otherwise this has to be a full URL.
• 'Copy Image to DB' - If checked the image will be copied to the PN table.
  
• 'Text' - Text to be displayed with the image in the block. Because this is an Admin functions anything can be entered: text, html, links, etc.
  
• 'Enabled' - If checked image will be displayed.
  
• 'First Date' - First date image is to be displayed.
  
• 'Last Date' - Last date image is to be displayed.
  
• 'Link to URL' - Clicking image will go to this link.
  
• 'Track Link Clicks' - If checked, enables statistics tracking for this link.
• 'Link Opens New Window' - If checked, causes link to open a new browser window.
  
• 'Add'Adds image/text data to the group.
  

Update Existing Image

This section will not be active until there is at least 1 image added to the module. After images have been added, the top entry area will look something like this:

• 'Drop down selection' Here you select the group and language to be edited.
  
• 'Select Group Name'Clicking this button causes all of the images of the selected group to be displayed for editing.
• 'Show Active'When selected, only the active images will be displayed. This is only activated when 'Select Group name' is clicked.
• 'Language'Enter a new language to be added in the text box. If your site doesn't support multiple languages always leave this entry blank.

At the bottom of each edit block there are 2 buttons:

• 'Update' - Causes any changes to this image to be updated.
• 'Delete This Image' - Delete this image and all of it's multi-languages elements.
  Warning, this action is immediate, you are NOT asked to verify.

Multiple Languages

To enter text for another language, enter the language ('eng', 'swe', etc.) in the Language text box. All of the images for the selected group will be displayed. In addition, the site language text will be displayed and a text entry area for the alternate language. This is the only change that can be made here.

The language is not edited and can be used in other ways.

Adding MultiImage Blocks

Go to 'Admin->Blocks->New Block'

• 'Block' - MultiImage should be in the drop down (towards the end).
• 'Commit Changes' - Creates the MultiImage block.

• 'Language' - Be sure to select 'ALL' if this is a multi-language site.
• 'Group Name' - If you have entered some images under admin, this drop down should contain 1 or more selections.
• 'Language Override' - Forces block to use this language. This doesn't have to be a valid language as long as it matches a language set up for this group.
• 'Block Border Width' - Set the block border from 0 to 10. This setting is theme dependent, you may need to experiment, the default is 0.
• 'Click Text' - If the image is clickable, this text appears just below the image. The default is '[ Click Me ]' and can be set to blanks.
• 'Commit Changes' - Updates these changes - don't forget!

Using the MultiImage module

Reports/Admin

The common form fields available to all reports are:

• Report Name
  This drop down menu is used to select the report you want.
• Group Selection
  This drop down menu allows you select the image group (or ALL) you are reporting on
• Start Date
  Specifies the low date range.
• End Date
  Specifies the high date range date range.
• Active Only
  This will limit some reports to include only entries associated with currently active images.
• GO
  This submit button initiates all of the report actions.
• New Report
  This control clears all of the common inputs and any additional form fields added by the reports.

Built in Reports (* reports are seen by admins only)

• IP_Link_Recap
  Report click counts by IP address.
• Group_Image_Link_Recap
  Report click counts by group name, image id.
• Report_Template
  This is a programming example of how to write a report. It shows how the report application uses the common fields and how to add additional form fields.
• URL_Link_Recap
  Report click counts by click URL's. By selecting the 'Show Detail' clicking 'GO' details about the slected URL will be displayed.
• * Image_List
  Displays images and data for the selected group.
• * Purge_Click_History
  Allows purging click history records entered on or before 'End Date'.
• * Site_Icons
  Use this to associate a MultiImage group to a Topic or Section image. Table/Section entries must be set up prior to making this association.
  It is best to set up a test topic/section to verify this feature works the way it's intended.
  Warning[1]: This is a non-core application that modifies core tables. In both case only the image fields are changed and can be reset with:
  admin->(Topics or Sections).
  Warning[2]: Do all topic/section maintenance prior to setting this link. The admin forms only allow about 15-20 characters for the image file names while the database permits 255 characters. If you do any administation on topics/sections linked to multiImage, the link may be wiped out or garbled (browser dependent).
  Note[1]: Only images that are copied to the database will be displayed.
  Note[2]: Images are NOT resized. Image heights of 75-100px works good.

To Do

• Expand this document.

Developer Information

• [NUKE]_multiimage - image and text table.
• [NUKE]_multiimage_history - Link usage statistics table.
• [NUKE]_multiimage_language - Multi-language support table.

#
# Table structure for table `nuke_multiimage`
#

CREATE TABLE nuke_multiimage (
  pn_group_name varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
  pn_image_id int(10) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  pn_enabled int(11) NOT NULL default '1',
  pn_first_date date NOT NULL default '1000-01-01',
  pn_last_date date NOT NULL default '9999-12-31',
  pn_image_data mediumblob NOT NULL,
  pn_image_type varchar(10) NOT NULL default '',
  pn_link text NOT NULL,
  pn_link_hist_flag int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  pn_new_window_flag int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  pn_text text NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (pn_group_name,pn_image_id)
) TYPE=MyISAM;
# --------------------------------------------------------

#
# Table structure for table `nuke_multiimage_history`
#

CREATE TABLE nuke_multiimage_history (
  pn_group_name varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
  pn_image_id int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  pn_entry_date datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  pn_history_id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  pn_link text NOT NULL,
  pn_remote_ip varchar(30) NOT NULL default '',
  PRIMARY KEY  (pn_group_name,pn_image_id,pn_entry_date,pn_history_id)
) TYPE=MyISAM;
# --------------------------------------------------------

#
# Table structure for table `nuke_multiimage_language`
#

CREATE TABLE nuke_multiimage_language (
  pn_group_name varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
  pn_image_id int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  pn_language varchar(40) NOT NULL default '',
  pn_text text NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (pn_group_name,pn_image_id,pn_language)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

Image access from other applications

Credits and Links