ImageMagick pm as a Custom Tag?

Hiya,

I would like to harness ImageMagick's perl module for use as a custom tag. I'd like to make text images on the fly for various buttons and headers. Has anyone done this before?

Here's the link to the module, I'm just starting to research it, and would like some feedback.

http://www.ImageMagick.org/www/perl.html

Cheers,
Aimee :-)

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james1

Hi Aimee :-)

I've not used the IM Perl module before, but I am sort of familiar with IM and what it can do. I don't see what you couldn't wrap a PT tag around the IM Perl module. Sounds pretty nifty.

In case you hadn't already realized it: since PT compilation is typically done during web site development, rather than at content delivery time, if you dynamically generate an image, you'd have to both (a) write the image to disk somewhere, and (b) refer to it in the HTML generated by the PT. (And obviously (c) make sure you deploy the image along with the HTML.)

I think it's do-able. Sorry I can't be more help.

-- James

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James H Koh
Interwoven Engineering

cuteaimeeh

Thanks James! :-)

The pages need to know image info?!? The images have to be deployed ?!?! Yikes! ;-)

I'm wrapping my head around that issue in scoping the practical use for IM as a tag. I'll post my findings/solutions to the list as they evolve.

WooHoo!
Aimee :-)

Migrateduser

I have not used image magic before, but I have used gd in the past to create images:
http://stein.cshl.org/WWW/software/GD/

As James also mentioned, the file will have to be writtten to the filesystem and deployed w/ the generated content. If the image file name can be programatically generated, this would not be too tough. As an alternative approach, would a callout work?

--
Jed Michnowicz
Interwoven Technical Consultant

cuteaimeeh

Thanks Jed,

I'll take a look at the GD.pm info. Thanks for the link!

A callout may be a good idea for this case. Are DCR items exposed to a callout? From a cursory check with the TST dev manual, it didn't look like it. I need to make the images based off some text input from the user.

Also, we are using workflow and I'm not too sure if I need to tell the workflow that an associated image has magically been created upon page generation. You may know, though... < :-)

If wf is not omnipotent in this case, an inline callout that can associate the new image to the job may need to happen.

I haven't played with wf too much, so sorry for anything that might make you cringe.

a-)

Migrateduser

>>>A callout may be a good idea for this case. Are DCR items exposed to a callout? From a cursory check with the TST dev manual, it didn't look like it. I need to make the images based off some text input from the user.<<<

Not exactly sure what you are asking. Can you access other fields within the DCT? I'm pretty sure this is a yes. (It's been awhile since I created a callout.) So, if there is text in a textarea called 'overview', a callout should be able to access the 'overview' text.

One example of what can be done is the following:
1. user enters text into "overview" field
2. User clicks the "generate title" callout
3. Callout grabs the overview text and gerates a title using gd/ImageMagic/whatever and shows a preview to the user
4. User accepts the image, the callout saves the image to the workarea and saves the image path location to a hidden field within the DCT.

(Upon edit of an existing DCR, the callout would open the existing image instead of generating a new one.)

>>>Also, we are using workflow and I'm not too sure if I need to tell the workflow that an associated image has magically been created upon page generation.<<<

Depending on what the workflow is doing, it may or may not need the generated image info. But, if the wft does need to know about it, there are a few different ways to attach the image to the workflow.

-After you generate the image, you can set metadata on the generated file or the DCR with the path to the image. Within the workflow, an external task could query for the image metadata and attach the image to the workflow. This could probably also be done in the perl section of the .wft file.

-If the image is created through a callout, you could save the path of the image as a field within the DCR. When the workflow starts (using the perl section of the wft), or as an external task, you can parse the DCR and grab the image location.

--
Jed Michnowicz
Interwoven Technical Consultant