Thread

Good to see nice progress being made.

Will video file types also be supported?

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.

1. Category images.

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.

Wow, you gals/guys have been busy !

Pretty much nailed it as far as I am concerned:

* 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).

Again, great work so far

Sounds promising!
Any idea if a cloud files support (S3, Rackspace, etc) would be possible (through addons or natively)?
And will it be SafeCracker compatible?

Just read the blog - subdirectory support!

Happy happy, joy joy!
I can stop pestering now!

Hi everyone,

Glad to see that effort is being done to improve the file manager!

I’m still on EE1 for all my sites, and my main reason is that the new file manager is just to hard to handle for customers. The interface design is very user-unfriendly and hard to understand for internet-dummies (which are the people that pay me to make a usable system for them and often have employees that use the system as well with little knowledge about it).

Based on the latest beta, the things that are a showstopper for my users:
* If you upload a file, there is no progression bar, not even something like a spinning wheel. The tendency for people is to click upload again within a few seconds, if there is no visual feedback.

* If you upload a file that is larger then allowed, the feedback is almost impossible to notice, it’s in the dark background area. You need to have very sharp eyes to notice it and if you don’t, you’re still thinking that the file is uploading, or that you need to click again.

* The file manager is only updated AFTER the entry is submitted. It should update when the upload is complete.

* I don’t see any thumbnails, whether I click List or Thumbnails.

I hope these points will also be taken into consideration. These are points that might not matter too much to developers, but I spend a lot of time making EE usable for average users, and would really appreciate if I would not have to resort to extra modules/plugins/fieldtypes, just to make it accessible. Thanks!

I have been working on a client friendly foolproof way for handling image/file management ever since I started using EE in 2006.
I got pretty close in EE1.6 with help from String, CE Image & Matrix, but it still wasn’t ideal.

EE2 came along with a new ‘improved’ File Manager and things went backwards. I have posted several times and made several bug reports about the failings of the File Manager. I even thought of looking for a new CMS, but only a few days ago I decided that the 2.1.4beta was the best option to start building a new site on, although the File Manager didn’t feature in my plans for file management.

I have been looking at Channel Images for almost a year now, but it’s dependence on Flash was a stumbling block, as I wouldn’t be able to use my iPad to add images to posts. But the significant improvements that DevDemon have made to it over the last few months were starting to override the Flash issue. But then I had some issues getting it to work with 2.1.4beta, so back to the drawing board.
I had started thinking about how I could replicate some of the Channel Images options using Matrix and planned to set to it today. Then I saw this blog post and almost dropped my breakfast bowl!

I like what I am reading, but I’d like to see an updated beta as evidence that the promise is close to being deliverable. But below is my wish list & comments:

I’m not sure about the need/complication of multiple thumbnail sizes being created (like in Channel Images or the old Gallery module), using CE Image to generate sizes on the fly is much more flexible and future proof. But I can see the benefits of having one smaller version (size configureable) that could easily be inserted within the text flow and the option to link to the larger version (like in 1.6, but without all that script code).

The ability to set the max dimensions of images and automatically resize uploads down to that, like Simple S3 Uploader.

Store the entry ID that the image is linked to.

Store a category using checkboxes rather than multi-select, as everyone has mentioned this is not client friendly. I understand the UI problems that a long list would cause, but I’d rather have the long list in the short term rather than delay release.

The ability to search for files on category (or more) to re-use existing files and then keep track of the entry ID’s that link to that image.

Check if filename already exists and give option to rename or overwrite.

Allow non-image files to benefit from these improvements.

Don’t resort to using Flash, if it can’t be done without it, leave it out.

I got pretty close in EE1.6 with help from String, CE Image & Matrix, but it still wasn’t ideal.

Well I’m using about the same solution, and Wygwam, because CKfinder does a better job as image library. Also, Wygwam resizes images to the maximum allowed size. But it won’t reject it, causing PHP memory problems if it’s a > 12Megapixel file. Ideally there should be a resize setting and a max allowed width setting.

Linking the file to entries is of course a major improvement and something that is very useful for sites with a lot of data!

Sounds promising!
Any idea if a cloud files support (S3, Rackspace, etc) would be possible (through addons or natively)?
And will it be SafeCracker compatible?

The initial release won’t support “the cloud” but its certainly a feature request that we get more & more. The changes will certainly allow cloud addons to get better and its also something we’re considering doing first party as well.

As to SafeCracker, the new File Manager won’t break it. This is a condition of us considering the File Manager to be releasable.

Still on the agenda- batch uploading, improvements to the File field (including the ability to specify the directory in the settings)

Thank you!

Being able to specify a default directory per field is going to very helpful. I’m really looking forward to this release!

Sounds promising!
Any idea if a cloud files support (S3, Rackspace, etc) would be possible (through addons or natively)?
And will it be SafeCracker compatible?

The initial release won’t support “the cloud” but its certainly a feature request that we get more & more. The changes will certainly allow cloud addons to get better and its also something we’re considering doing first party as well.

I hope you will add it later down the road, as it’s really helpful in scaling bigger media sites, among other things. If you don’t add it first hand, I atleast hope you make the API available so that third party addons can use it.

About the meta data: Is there any plans to add custom field support to files?

Is the meta data going to be searchable? Will we be able to show a file list with titles instead of filenames, so users doesn’t have to scroll through endless lists of DSC5235232.jpg etc.

The last two points are really important when handling more than a small number of files. Could you shed some more light on how the meta-data is going to be used?

Just want to bring over some specifics from HilversumJim’s comments this morning in another thread, so that they can go with the rest of the suggestions in detail here about directory and subdirectory handling.

this should be something tuned to the member access level, based on their member access level (extending the channel posting privs we have now) - what I’d ideally like would be:

• Admins and Senior Editors: have full access; add, delete scale and edit, on files. They’d be able to through subdirectories in the Images directory. Should be able to make new directories from the UI (eg: 2011 dir, with Jan, Feb, Mar subdirs, and so on). Batching would be bitchen…

• Editors could just see into the system, add to any directory and place images into articles

• Users could see only 1 directory and place images.

This makes everyone happy.

Feels that these are sensible, and could be well handled by extension to the usual member group permissioning, so that each site has a choice of patterns that would work best for them.

Regards,
Clive

Oh happy happy joy joy!!  As far as I’m concerned, for most of my projects this was the one part of EE that was really lacking, and almost embarrassing to show my clients - can’t wait to see the new file manager.

My dream file and image manager:

1) Be able to select and upload multiple files (including all file types).

2) Categories yes, but I would also like to be able to use a channel’s entries as the categories. Or alternatively be able select channel entries that the files will be related to on upload.

3) When uploading be able to specify default values for the meta fields being uploaded.

4) The interface on the publish form that enables the users to upload and link images and other files should include the ability to search for files that have already been uploaded. They should be searchable via the metadata and/or the categories and/or related channel entries.

5) Independent of the weblog publish form there should be a file management interface that allows the user to search all the files that have been uploaded, and to be able to do AJAX edits of meta data, categories and relationships to channel entries. It should be possible to do bulk updates on multiple files.

6) With images it would be great to have a slideshow capability that included with each displayed image the ability to do AJAX edits to metatdata, categories and weblog entry associations.

7) Enable all this to be done via SAEF!

Although I’m eager for all this and other functionality to be incorporated into the core of EE, I’m concerned about the impact on third party developers who build commercial addons that are then superseded by core features. For example, in this case I’m thinking of DevDemon and their excellent Channel Images and Channel Files addons. They’ve created top notch products and continue to devote enormous effort to developing them. But are now faced with irrelevance if you are able to achieve equivalent functionality. This scenario could potentially bankrupt a developer. It may also impact on their willingness to maintain and develop their products in the interim because people may stop purchasing their addons in anticipation of yours. How are you handling this? It seems to me that the fairest solution would be for you to enter into negotiations to buy out products from impacted developers or at least compensate them for ongoing product maintenance in the interim period. (Note: I have no connection with DevDemon or any other developer.)

Thanks