Uploading Images to Drupal from the iPad

Since I now replaced the use of a conventional computer with an iPad for my development and content creation, I needed an easy and quick way to post images from my iPad to my blog on Drupal 6. I use PhotoForge2 as my image editing app on my iPad (very nice app, and I even bought the extra filter package). It works great, but getting the images to Drupal was a major pain involving emailing myself files, which is a sure sign of a not-so-good process. Therefore, a more efficient solution was desperately needed to get image content directly from the iPad to Drupal.

Note: As this article was being written and I was doing research (Googling), I noticed a very similar article had already been written. Please also check out this article by Jeff Geerling. His site is full of great Drupal goodness. He gave me permission to swipe some of this for my article, which was very nice of him.

Originally I tried to find some way for Drupal to get images from my iPad. I searched for WYSIWYG editors I could install in Drupal that had file management components, and discovered none of them work on the iPad. Then I tried to find a specific module that might contain some magical javascript to allow me to upload images from an iOS device. No dice.

So, eventually I considered a web-to-web transfer -- some way I would get Drupal to download a file that was posted where Drupal would get to it. A search on drupal.org came up with FileField Sources. This allows you to use a URL to designate content for a CCK file field, and then have Drupal download and store that file as if it were a regular upload.

You will need to download, install and activate CCK, FileFIeld and the FileField Sources modules for this to work. Once you create your CCK field to use to store the images, assign the Remote URL as one of the sources when you are creating the field.

The next step was how to get images into a location publicly available over the web without a massive hassle. After just a moment of consideration, the Dropbox Public folder came to mind.

Problem: unfortunately for me, I had deleted my Public folder in a fit of paranoia. Solution: fortunately for me, if you create a folder in your Dropbox root and name it "Public" it automatically takes on the characteristics of the original Public folder.

Here's how I post images to my Drupal site from my iPad:

1. Put the image you want in your Dropbox Public folder. I used the Dropbox integration from PhotoForge2 to put it there directly after cropping and editing in the PhotoForge2 app. You can also use the Dropbox app to upoad images to the Public folder.
2. Open up Dropbox on your iPad, and navigate to the "Public" folder.
3. Tap the photo you just uploaded, then tap the link icon, and select "Copy Link to Clipboard."
4. Now switch over to Safari, visit your Drupal site's content type with the FileField Sources set up already (you just have to set that up this once per field per content type, not every time you create content).
5. Tap on "Remote URL," and tap in the URL field. Tap once again to paste the URL you copied from Dropbox, then click "Transfer" to put the file on your Drupal site.

You can then click the "Transfer" button and get the file transfered from Dropbox to your Drupal site. A copy is made on your Drupal site, so feel free to clean out your Dropbox public folder occasionally.

So until there is a smoother way of doing this, this is the least pain-in-the-ass way to get images from an iOS device onto Drupal 6.