Thread

Seeing an opportunity to both extend his original thought and correct his declining grammar, our hero seizes the quote:

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 dig 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 one 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

Thanks for bringing this back into the conversation, Clive.  Caught some errors in my original suggestion (living here, I’m losing my English it seems!) so it’s a good time to clarify them before moving it into this more-active discussion.

I’d probably only add a little to the very fijn list above from Craig Allen:

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

Perhaps someone on the SuperAdmin account-level would be allowed to ignore the file-size upload limitation. Failing that,

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.

...and I’d add that the interface would be able to generate previews for already-uploaded and FTP’d files. For instance, say you want to build a tracking system for client requests (there’s an EE-produced demo by Sue for that for 1.7x somewhere) and need to have a preview for a 3MB image that’s part of the project. Can’t be done currently - I’d have to build-in another fieldtype to support previews over the 2MB limit. Being able to scan the directory and produce previews should be a SuperAdmin function (to cut down on system load) but also it’s entirely possible.

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.(...)

For which the current SafeCracker situation is a perfect example: it’s useful as core functionality and the purchase of it can save the EE team months of development. No reason EllisLab can’t do what hundreds of other companies have done in the past - buy the asset, reward the developer, and make the EE product stronger in one fell swoop. This way, everyone wins.

It would be nice if files uploaded to a folder via ftp would be imported automatically to the file manager.

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.

AFAIK it’s not possible to use regular file fields in Mobile Safari at all either way..

Regarding the new File Manager, will it be possible to use it the same way as Channel Images, uploading images on a per post basis only?

For a start I’ll just link to my post in the thread about the previous File Manager Beta again:

http://ellislab.com/forums/viewreply/852791/

Most important things (to me) that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread/on the blog post:

- I’d like to be able to rename files manually
- It’d be cool if you could optionally define an ‘automatic’ sub-folder-structure (with year/month, as in /2011/01/, maybe also with the entry or file ID)

Although I basically trust EllisLab on choosing sane and ‘pretty’ defaults for the file structure and file names. And I know this is mainly an aesthetic aspect but I just worked on a project that involved a lot of user-contributed pictures using another CMS and the filenames and URLs to the processed pictures somehow make me cry and feel like a violation of the otherwise rather smart HTML and site/assets structure! 😊

And one more thing: If EllisLab manages to wrap up the code that stores/retrieves files etc. in a nice “FileHandler” class or something the like, developers could easily address the naming convention/storage bits themselves (if needed) and also write their own “Drivers” for external storage services auch as S3. Now wouldn’t that be a-ma-zing?

Thanks Lesly for the heads up on the various issues and requests in this thread. As you can see we’re all very eager to make EE2 the bestest experience of CMS-es on the web. I very much committed myself to EE, and very happy with safecracker, it opened a whole new can of beautiful template-able worms.

... with emphasis on what Noregt mentioned: ... the current interface [of the cp] is often way to user-unfriendly, and to hard to understand for internet-dummies like the people that pay us to make a usable system for them, and they have employees that use the system as well, with [even more lacking] knowledge about html or art-direction.

GO EE 2011

Thanks For The Developments.  This Will Save Me From Some Work Arounds.

Yogi -

SAEF++

@aleksblendwerk

If the file/image manager does everything through queries to the database, then there will be no need for users to directly access files in the site’s folder structure. The files/photos would be findable via searches of metadata, categories and of their relationships to channel entries. This would facilitate the management of permissions, and greatly ease the management of large file libraries.

An addendum to my previous suggestions:

8) It would be handy if the file uploads could be given batch IDs, and users could go back to previous batches and add and delete files from them. This would enable, for example, a group of photos that were taken at a particular time and place to be managed together even if they weren’t originally all uploaded in one operation.

9) During file deletion there needs to be a robust mechanism that warns the user if the file has relationships with channel entries.

There are some great suggestions for a very advanced File Manager here, but…

I would just like to see a working basic user friendly method that does the simple things, like checking if a filename already exists and providing that feedback in a way that a user is clear what has happened and the options.

Channel Images already does a lot of the advanced features that have been asked for, but relies of Flash to achieve them, like bulk upload and sub-directories based on the entry ID.

So can we just get the basics right first and then build on those over time, I want a simple, reliable, easy to use method NOW.

So can we just get the basics right first and then build on those over time.

I agree Paul, first get the basics right, and build from there or it will very quickly become to bulky.

1. SAEF support
2. Batch uploads
3. Admin definable file types and config option. Ie: max size per file, per batch, etc. (plus error checking on the uploads based upon this)
4. Upload progress (per file if batch)

In terms of my own needs for a file handler, I’d like a method for our members to use a SAEF to upload an image(s) with visual feedback on the progress of the upload and basic error checking against what’s been defined in the File Manager config. Ideally, upon successful upload the images would enter a queue assigned to that member (or if configured, enter the moderation queue) So that the images can be tagged and categorized as the second step. This way we can sort presentation based upon tags and categories, as well as use conditionals on whether to display an image based upon whether its been tagged/categorized or approved by moderator.

Would also love…

5. Cloud support (Amazon, Rackspace, Cloudlayer)
6. Ability to maintain and recognize EXIF data!

Thank you.

Oh yeah… Maybe integrated support for checksum so that the uploader can warn about potential duplicate files. User can then bypass the warning or instead select the suggestion as an image to use (link to) instead as to avoid duplicate uploads. This could enable an image to be used in conjunction with file name (or perhaps as a better alternative) for showing all instances of a given file across an EE install.

For example, an image gallery that on the image detail (entry) page could have a link to all instances of that image (used in blog posts, news entries, user comments, forum discussions, etc).

kinda quiet in here…

wondering if anyone at EL has any updates or comments about any of our feedback?

any progress on the new file handler?

any comments from the dev team about some of the suggestions posted?

@superaven - yes there is progress on file handling. The latest 2.1.4 beta already has a lot of changes, and there are various other improvements being done, see http://expressionengine.com/blog/forecast/