Importing pictures

idpSteve

Hi All.

I have a lot of pictures that I need to import into business objects. These are profile pictures.

I've set up a rule, and named pictures to the first and last names of the users. I then use a rule, IMPORT DOCUMENT Pic FROM Path.

This all works fine. I'm now concerned that if a picture is named incorrectly or if a particular user doesn't have a picture, the IMPORT DOCUMENT rule will give an error. Is there a way I can handle this in the rule? For example, if the document (picture) isn't there, then use a default picture? Is there a way AwareIM can check if a document with a specific name is in a directory?

I hope I'm missing something super basic and someone can point me in the right direction.

BenHayat

Steve, avoid storing any image into DB. Image stored in DB puts a lot of stress on Aware at runtime.
Any BLOB resource should be stored as File system. With V8.1 Aware provides a complete file system solution.

Managing lots of images on file system is more work, but as data grows, you'll be better off than a quick & dirty method of storing in DB.

idpSteve

Hi Ben.

I am storing these images in the filing system. I have all the images, and I need to link them up to people. The issue is I have more people than images (some images are missing) and I need to figure out which people are missing images to give them a 'NO PICTURE AVAILABLE' image. I use <img> tags in a custom query to show the profile pics, so I guess I could actually do away with the picture attribute all together. I'm using a view path which works fine. I have an attribute that stores the file path too. I'm not sure why exactly I import the pictures, when the picture attribute is set to store in filing system, and the image path is generated using a rule. I guess it's a bit redundant - thinking about it now I'm sure that what happens when I import is that it replaces the image file with itself in the file system..

TL;DR I don't store images in the DB, what I need assistance with is checking if an image with the name of a person exists in a folder. IF John Doe.jpg IN C:/AwareIM/tomcat/AwareIM/images/folder THEN 😃 ELSE Person.ImagePath={path to default no image pic here}

Thanks for your reply. I hope this is a bit more clear now.

BenHayat

When I read your first post and the use "Import", I thought I give you heads up if you were about to "Import" them into DB.

Jaymer

1
You can check to see if the file exists before doing the import, else assign it to the no image

2
The CRM does this as an example that

3
In a custom Q, you can use an if statement to selectively not output the IMG tag when image is undefined

idpSteve

Hi Jaymer

"You can check to see if the file exists before doing the import, else assign it to the no image" ~ This is exactly what I need to do.

"The CRM does this as an example that" ~ Is this what you're talking about? [If Customer.Photo IS UNDEFINED Then
IMPORT DOCUMENT Customer.Photo FROM '../samples/CRM/NoPicture.PNG'] If so, I don't think this will work for me. I'd need to check if '../samples/CRM/NoPicture.PNG' exists, rather than if the photo attribute is defined.

"In a custom Q, you can use an if statement to selectively not output the IMG tag when image is undefined" There might be a way to use this, I did think of it. The issue is in the img tags I use a file path that is defined whether the image exists or not. When I create a person record, I set the file path.

IF Person IS NEW THEN
Person.PhotoPath='C:\AwareIM\Tomcat\webapps\AwareIM\PersonImages\'+Person.Name+' '+Person.LastName+'.jpg'
Person.ViewPath='.../AwareIM/PersonImages/'+Person.Name+' '+Person.LastName+'.jpg'

I then try IMPORT the Person.Photo (stored in the file system with Person.PhotoPath being the attribute that stores the path in the file system) FROM Person.PhotoPath . I think this is redundant, and I can remove this.

Sometimes I have the image of the person, sometimes I don't. The attributes storing the path are defined if the image exists or not. This is my issue.

BobK

idpSteve wrote
Hi Jaymer

"You can check to see if the file exists before doing the import, else assign it to the no image" ~ This is exactly what I need to do.

Check out the Miscellaneous Function FILE_EXISTS in the User Guide

idpSteve

Thanks, all.

FILE_EXISTS will work perfectly.

ACDC

I wanted to comment on this sometime back but it seems that you managed to sort out the problem, so this may not be relevant, however, I would have done this a bit different by leveraging object rules, here’s my solution

A. Create a PHOTO OBJECT for the purpose of the import and future maintenance of un-allocated photos
B. Create a Process that when run, creates the Photo object and then relies on the Object rules to do the heavy lifting.

OBJECT setup:

Create a Photo Object
Add the Picture attribute to the Photo Object and select file option so the image is stored in a folder outside the web folder
Add another attribute to the Photo Object “FileName” and “FileExtension” and add a rule to the object that works out the FileName and FileExtension – Also included in this rule: DELETE the Photo image from the folder based on the filename and filename extension
Add another 2 x attributes FirstName and Last Name
Add a rule to the Object that works out the FirstName and Last Name from the file name using IF Photo IS NEW then….. using WORDS _FROM_LEFT and WORDS_FROM_RIGHT combination
Add a single pier reference attribute Photo.Person referencing the Person Object
Add a Rule to link the Photo Object to the Person object as follows
IF Photo IS NEW then FIND Person where Person. Firstname=Photo.FirstName AND Person.LastName=Photo.LastName (Hopefully you don’t have two Persons with the same name – an ID no in the original photo filename would resolve this event)
Person.Photo=Photo

PROCESS Setup:
CREATE Photo FOR EACH FILE IN C:\PhotoUpload WITH Photo.Photo=File’

And that’s it, start the process when needed and it will find all the files in the given folder and create a Photo for each file. The object rules will do the rest and leave you with an empty photo folder with all photos assigned . Any un-assigned Photos can be maintained in a Photos query listing

Also referencing Photos in the filestore outside the web folder is more secure and more efficient