Displaying a list of image thumbnails, with click-through

Question

So, a few days ago I asked this question, Drupal 7 Site for Displaying PPT or JPG. Since that time I have been studying up on Drupal 7 and learning more about what I REALLY want.

Here's what I am trying to do:

1. Upload a bunch of images (around 150)
2. Have a number of pages which list images including a thumbnail and comments. (These pages are roughly 'image galleries', I think)
3. Let users browse each of the 'galleries'/lists, and click through on the ones they want to view in detail. Also, users can add comments at this point.
4. If the user saves a comment or clicks a back button, they return to the gallery/list

So, I think I need to create a new content type for the images, including comments. Then a View, which displays as a list. Does this sound right?

Also, what's the best way to create each of the image nodes? Do I need to use the Insert module? And upload the images one by one?

Any pointers much appreciated!

Answer 1

Creating a new Image content type is a good way to approach this. Views can certainly display the content as a list or a gallery-- or some combination of both-- but you may want to think about how you want to display the content in the gallery.

Comments are handled by Drupal out-of-the-box so I don't think you have much to worry about with regard to them.

You do not need to use the Insert module if you're just going to be uploading an image file. If you're only going to be adding 150 images once, I would just create the image nodes one-by-one. If you anticipate having to add lots of images regularly, you should post a separate question asking for a solution to that.

Here are some resources to get you started.

First, there's a screencast about building a gallery in Views. Although this is for Drupal 6, and a fair number of things have changed in Drupal 7, the basic principles are the same.

Second, there are some helper modules which can give you pop-up and gallery-type effects without much work. Two of the more popular, well-supported ones are:

• Lightbox2
• Colorbox

Either can be used on its own or with Views.