Drupal: Feeds Image Grabber

Feeds Image Grabber (FIG) is the successor project for FeedAPI ImageGrabber to support the Feeds module. FIG parses the Item URL of each feed-item, downloads the appropriate image from the post and maps it to an image field in the node created by Feeds module for that feed-item.

[Google Reader (with thumbnails) can be imitated on a Drupal site by using Feeds, Feeds Image Grabber, FileField, ImageField, ImageCache, ImageAPI and Views module].

How it works
A classic method of mimicking the behavior of Feeds Image Grabber would be to do the same thing manually. Let us go through the procedure if you were to do it manually:

1. Refresh the feed to create nodes for feed items (using FeedsNodeProcessor).
2. For each feed-item, go to their respective webpage and save the image to display.
3. Upload the image to CCK image field for each feed item.

Feeds Image Grabber automates the last 2 steps of the three step process described. Imagecache module can be used to create thumbnail of the image retrieved which can be attached to the node.

What’s in the box
On 3rd March, first version of FIG was released. As of today, FIG supports following features:

1. Automatically downloads and attaches image to the node created by Feeds module.
2. Configurable XPath of the desired image location on the webpage of the feed item on per feed basis (using element’s id or CSS class).
3. Support for FileField Paths module.
4. Configurable maximum image size.
5. Configurable minimum and maximum image resolutions.

Get involved
You can get involved by doing any of the following:

1. write about this module, so that other folks can find it.
2. report bugs in the issue queue.
3. help in the support forums of the module.
4. buy me a Beer

Resources:

• Project Page (Download): http://drupal.org/project/feeds_imagegrabber
• Tutorials: http://publicmind.in/blog/tutorial-for-feeds-image-grabber

Note: Feature and Support requests should be made through the Feeds Image Grabber Forum. I may not be able to answer them here.