Images from an external source in Matrix pages

Squiz Matrix Support
1

G’day all,


I’m working out how best to include images in the pages of our Matrix sites, and would appreciate any advice you might have.



All our images are managed using an image upload application that is completely separate from Matrix. All the images have URLs such as:



http://images.aad.gov.au/img.py/185.jpg?width=640&height=426



All the caption, author and other image metadata is stored in a database.



Does anyone else work with images that come from a source outside of the Matrix system? How do you do it?



I thought of just pasting the image plus caption into the edit screen. Alternatively perhaps trying to put the image id (“185” in the above example) into a metadata field and having the Matrix design template include it in the page automatically. Another alternative might be setting the images database up as an external data source and being able to somehow access the images as shadow assets.



Any suggestions appreciated!



Cheers,



Warwick

2

You can set up link formats in System Config (think it might be the Global Prefs screen in there) that allows you to create a new type of link in the WYSIWYG drop-down. So along side, HTTP, HTTPS, Email etc. you could have "External Image". The user just enters the ID (e.g., 185) and the WYSOWYG inserts the full URL (http://images.aad.gov.au/img.py/185.jpg?width=640&height=426). It can also then manage the URLs for you, so when someone edits the URL, they can use the Link popup and simply change the image ID.


The problem you would have there though is specifying the width/height/caption. You'd still need to do those manually.

3

That's an interesting workaround Greg, pity about the fact alt, height and width cannot be brought in.

4

[quote]
You can set up link formats in System Config (think it might be the Global Prefs screen in there) that allows you to create a new type of link in the WYSIWYG drop-down. So along side, HTTP, HTTPS, Email etc. you could have "External Image". The user just enters the ID (e.g., 185) and the WYSOWYG inserts the full URL (http://images.aad.gov.au/img.py/185.jpg?width=640&height=426). It can also then manage the URLs for you, so when someone edits the URL, they can use the Link popup and simply change the image ID.



The problem you would have there though is specifying the width/height/caption. You'd still need to do those manually.

[/quote]



I might be missing something here - this allows me to create a link to an external image but is there a way to have an image displayed / embedded in a Matrix page without having to manually add the html?



Thanks!