How to build a custom block with a image field

Question

I want to build a custom block in Drupal 7 that instead of the standard title/text-format contains a single image field. It will be used on the front-page and allow a non-HTML-speaking editor to easily upload and update the big front image that will be shown there. Since there will be only one block I feel a block is more appropriate than a content type. I've built a bunch of custom blocks for Drupal 6, but they were all textfield-based, and I'm not sure how I should approach the problem now that I need a image-upload-field. Does anyone want to point me in the right direction? How do I build the image field from within hook_block_view?

Answer 1

You could create (anyway) a content type and use the module Node Blocks. Every content you create with this content type are automatically available as block. Maybe a bit overhead if you just need to create one.

Another solution may be the BEAN Module. But just dropping the module name, never worked with it.

Answer 2

If you've made blocks before (in code). Make a block in code that pulls an uploaded image from the site to display within your frontpage block.

Then make an admin menu item / page for your user, with a simple FAPI form that uses the managed_file element type to allow them to upload an image.

Then in the form_submit function save the fid of the uploaded image using like variable_set('mytheme_frontpage_image', $form_values['values']['fid']).

It's not tons of code: hook_block ... you can use image_styles if you want, hook_menu and FAPI for the admin form.

Answer 3

After some research I stumbled upon the Image Block-module which solved the problem for this time though I'm not totally sold on the UX. But it has some advantages over the suggested solutions:

• It provides a single image-field without the possibility to screw it up by accidently enter other text (as would be the case with a regular text-field+wysiwyg solution)
• It gives the editor the ability to reach the edit screen when he/she can change the image via a context-menu attached to the image itself: no need for a settings page somewhere else in the system, and easy to remember.
• It doesn't rely on a content-type, which I feel would be a bit over the top (as suggested) since I would just have needed one node.

Thanks for all the suggestions though!