I'm adding display formatters to the Media module, and could use some feedback.

Basically, I'm taking the work from the Image Styles built into core (which is a port of Imagecache), and building a wrapper around it. A Media Style would be a collection of styles, based on the stream (public://, private://, youtube://, etc) and file mimetype (image/jpeg, image/png, etc.), that would be applied to a specific filefield display (either in the node teaser/page display, or a view field display, or possibly other places, such as inline).

As an example, you might have a 'small-box' Media style that contains a 'medium' image style, a 'preview' youtube style, and an 'inline' pdf style. Thus, if the filefield contained an image, it would display it with the image scaling, a youtube video with a small player, and a pdf would be displayed in an iframe. Undefined streams/mimetypes would fall back to the default file listing.

The module is intended to work stand-alone, with File, Image, and/or Media. Thus, one question I have is if it should be bundled with the Media module, or packaged outside the module. On the one hand, as it can be run w/o Media, it might be useful in other situations. On the other hand, I imagine 98% of Media users would also want this module, so I'm hesitant to create a new external dependency. I've mostly decided to bundle it with the Media module, but am open to new considerations I haven't had yet.

I've included two screen shots. The first screen shot at the top shows current functionality. Clicking on a radio will automatically load a new preview of the selected style (that part's not built yet, but that's the idea).

The second below was the original display for administration. It's now actually using vertical tabs, as with the first, but I'm including it since it gives a large overview (and is what it would look like w/o javascript anyway).

I'm mostly looking for feedback of how the administrative UI could be improved, as well as how to word instructions to the user that won't scare them off. Also, for any other conceptual, architectural, or other comments.

Thanks,
Aaron

(Cross-posted in the Drupal Media Group.)

read more