The dev team has been cranking away on file handling, and while we’re not quite ready for a new release, it’s time for an update on the current state of the code. We’re excited about how things are coming along and want to provide the community with a sneak peak and an opportunity to sound off.
Multiple thumbing looks interesting and a dead easy way of generating galleries, plus being able to categorise images opens up a lot of opporunities and possibilities!
Really looking like positive updates, and it is nice to read and say that. Couple of general information based queries…
How much of this will be available in the output tags on the frontend side? file size, etc. How does this relate for different files types, i.e. images, vs word, vs pdfs, vs mp3s?
For the new file field, will this have access to multiple files (say for example i upload one image and get thumbnails generated at three different sizes) and will this potentially replace functionality of such add-ons such as imgsizer and resizer, etc.
Or will these just be three different folders that can be accessed when selecting the file?
In relation to the above how will this work with different file types? i.e. will folders have to be image only for resizing, or will the system detect and gracefully not process pdfs, mp3s, etc.
ALso - how are URL’s being stored? I have yet to check the beta, but i assume paths are not physically stored, as this would become problematic when moving servers?
And finally - MSM - if resizing functionality does replace things such as imgsizer and resizer will this be graceful across multiple MSM domains? I assume so, but again not tested 2.1.4b on MSM.
interested to also see integration with add-ons and other areas of the site.
Prime example being the ability to use the file manager with categories - which i currently believe is still not the case (since i last checked anyway!).
Yep- I think I personally am more excited by these additions than anything we’ve done in 2.x (aside from building it on CI- heh). This type of functionality was the one thing really missing when I was freelancing, as they tended to be media heavy sites. I’m looking forward to seeing what folks do with it once it’s released!
Definitely good to ‘click for full image’ below the picture, to see how nice and feature-inclusive this is going to be—and what’s seen doing so will explain what bluedreamer found for galleries.
Robin, this is a nice writeup of nice and thoughtful design work, and definitely good on the side of opening the conversations, beginning with questions already asked. Bravo.
With batch and the ability to import existing, you are likely making answers for a lot of persons now on the galleries score. The specifying default directories and handling subdirectories are likely just as responsive to recent needs brought up for customer content-driven sites.
My Tweetdeck notifier keeps flashing up—looks like people are noticing and answering over there on #eecms as well. More sauce for a social graph/integrated forum, isn’t it, as such ephemeral comments are likely to get lost without something like that. As futures
Good on the team for what’s being built, and thank you for what you’re offering from your view, Robin, for letting the community know on the really substantial sides of things—and inviting.
I’d just be happy if I could see more than the first and last few letters of a file name. When you have 20 files that start with the same digits, its hard too know what is what.
33-2-....as.pdf, 33-2-....ts.pdf
oh, and sorting based on upload date, file creation date, and other things beside alphabetically.
Cross posted with you, nevsie. Some of the details aren’t firm yet- but keep in mind, the goal is to be able to seamlessly import the gallery into the new structure- so we’re aiming to support existing variables such as size. We’re also storing mime type, which should make conditionals based on that reasonably doable (and it’s something I personally really want). I don’t want to commit on things until we’re closer to done on that code- so I’ll admit I’m being a bit vague.
As for paths- per image paths are relative. The file upload directory prefs work like they do now- we recommend a full path (and you may run into issues w/Metaweblog and such if you try a relative path).
And yep- it already skips the resizing for anything it can’t resize, so no worries there.
As to MSM, I don’t see any red flags off the bat- I don’t expect we’d physically copy files over (and we don’t now)- but file upload prefs should work the same. It’s a good point, though. MSM will need some thorough testing before we can call it ‘done’.
Oh- and yes, you’ll be able to assign files to multiple categories- just as you do channel entries.
Hey gang, I’m excited to see the interaction here. I’m posting a picture of the feedback on twitter so we can keep everything together. I don’t want to miss anything.
This is to say: We’re listening wherever it is you give us the feedback. I’m making sure we get it to the proper channels and this is one of the ways I can do that. I’ll share more about this soon. (Suspense!)
Hi Robin,
Sorry when i referenced the categories and file manager.
I physically meant within the categories - i.e. when you setup categories you can assign an image to that category (as a kind of icon), or possibly through custom fields within categories. Will filemanager be integrated with that?
Thanks N
Wow, this is very promising. Especially in view of asset-management.
Last few days i jumped into addon development and must say it’s tempting
and interesting new endeavour.
Still i’m curious if ellislab will pickup a better/new/improved control panel
and address some of the things Leevi and Brandon addressed recently,
like: http://brandon-kelly.com/blog/custom-fields
Some questions:
- Is Derek Jones still alive and kicking coding? (derkx3 blog isgone)
- ...
Looks like a good update. As I have seen people posting on Twitter and have to agree with them MultiSelects are not client friendly I think checkboxes would be a better option especially for people that have a large list of categories.
Also would love to see multi-depth folder support. I do not use the native file manager for most clients because when they have 100’s of images it is hard to find already upload images because all of the images are stored by filename and there is no folder support. My clients like to be able to pull images from a specific folder that matches the entry’s title.
1. Category images.
2. No more generated table tags. Just variables that allow us to count, break etc.
3. Checkboxes, not multi selects. Also no vertical checkboxes. Span them into say 3 or 4 columns. Categories bug me if you have a lot as you get a massive vertical column. Perhaps jQuery can do the heavy lifting here?
4. Buy CE Images and roll into EE
Still i’m curious if ellislab will pickup a better/new/improved control panel
and address some of the things Leevi and Brandon addressed recently,
like: http://brandon-kelly.com/blog/custom-fields
In regards to the CP, of course. The approach to doing so though will be small steps, not a complete redo. Redoing the File Manager is an example of that in some ways. We also want to pick a dedicated front-end designer this year as well to help with that process.
And yes, we’ve all read Brandon’s insightful article on Custom Fields. Its part of our resource collection that, along with Feature Requests, will help shape EE.
Some questions:
- Is Derek Jones still alive and kicking coding? (derkx3 blog isgone)
- ...
Absolutely, though his role at EllisLab has changed significantly in the last two months. Internally his title is “Chief Maker” and his primary responsibility is building out and/or implementing the tools EllisLab needs to scale as a company. Just for example, he is neck deep in our store code making that better.
Could you be more specific Hambo? Depending on what you mean, that could be part of this overhaul. And if its not, I’d like to understand what you mean better.
3. Checkboxes, not multi selects. Also no vertical checkboxes. Span them into say 3 or 4 columns. Categories bug me if you have a lot as you get a massive vertical column. Perhaps jQuery can do the heavy lifting here?
I saw a tweet relating to this as well (I think you retweeted it. That’s certainly something we’re willing to review. Are there other web apps that have a similar implementation you like?
4. Buy CE Images and roll into EE
Just generally speaking we’re not going to make a habit of buying add-ons and incorporating them. During 2.x’s lifespan you’ll see a general theme of making EE more useful out of the box by refining/maturing its default feature set. In other words, we want to reduce the need for add-ons that improve what we consider to be the “core feature set” but make add-ons that extend the use case scenario for EE even more powerful. And yes, there is obviously a lot of grey area in that statement.
* Batch uploads: check
* Ability to tie file field to only one upload location if needed > check
* Metadata awareness > check
* Handling of sub directories > seems we will get that to a certain extend
* Regeneration of thumbnails > check
My only requests so far would be to have column sorting active in the modal window (list view) and a solution for uploading large files through the file manager (not the publish screen).
