photos into forms

[kabaam]

I need help... Don't we all

I want to insert digital images into a form. I need an easy way for the users to link a photo to record via a form. I know there is an easy way but I can't find it. Any help would be great.

[StePhan]

Just keep the picture name in the database

then just us the Form_Current()

and then use the

Me.Image1.Picture = LoadPicture(Path & "/" & Me.img)

don't foreget to put the
size mode to Stretch

hope this helps

[xordevoreaux]

I agree with StePhan. Don't try to put the pictures in the database. You have a two gigabyte limit two the size of the database and thus everything in it, so why limit yourself to 2GB of data when you're sitting there with a 40, 80, 120GB hard drive?

If the goal is to encapsulate the images so that the entire image library is in one giant BLOB (Binary Loaded OBject), then MS Access is not the way to go. You'll want a professional image archive package.

You can build a quite servicable driver's license database, library membership repository, whatever, without attempting to stuff images into a database.

One thing to note -- when drawing upon data outside of the confines of any database engine, you're at the mercy of whatever overhead processing that the o/s file system of your computer must perform at any given moment, so, if the images are on, say, a network share, rather than your own hard drive, the resulting number of system events queued for processing are substantially greater in number than if the data was in the database, but that's the trade-off. Huge/numerous packets of information going across the network pipe between you and the binary data isn't really good either, so if you can keep everything local, all the better --don't want ya hauled off in chains by your IT administrator.

If you're using SQL7 or such as the data provider rather that the native Jet provider, you still have the contention of network traffic, but at least your remotely located data is pumped to you a bit faster (less-to-none system-level file management occurs).

If you can keep the entire experience on one box, you'll have the fastest possible response time, but StePhan's right -- try to keep the images out of the database and just refer to them by name. The user will still see the images when the form's OnCurrent event kicks.

[Baroulette]

4 yrs. later and I hope you can help.. I wonder if this "one giant BLOB (Binary Loaded OBject)," that you mentioned is what one would use to create a site similar to this: http://www.bobknightphoto.com/ that houses 1000s of photos for users to view after login.

Trying to determine the best backend scripting platform/db for accomplishing something like this.

Thanks.

[GolferGuy]

I would assume that the site you referenced does not put the photos into a database. I would think that all the photos are each their own file on a hard drive somewhere, neatly packaged into understandable folders. What would be in the database then would be the description of each photo, keywords for each photo, and then the disk address of the photo. Then, after the photo is selected via a thumbnail, the database record for that photo will have the photo's disk address and can use the address to reference the photo. Then you are only limited to addressable disk space, and with multiple servers, that is virtually endless.

By the way, I wrote this answer before going back to read what was left by others. Looks like we agree.

Good luck.

[Baroulette]

Thanks for your reply. So is it best to do this with XML on an ASP.net platform or PHP with MySQL?

[GolferGuy]

"BEST" is usually pretty hard to give an answer to. There are way too many things to look at. I know of no reason why either path you mentioned should be avoided. In other words, either way should be just fine. Which would be easier for you would be a better question to look at.