Improving TXP Image Management

squaredeye · 2006-05-08 01:39:50

Logoleptic,
Were you reading my mind? I ran across this issue yesterday.
I think its a great one to bring up. Alex, did you catch this one.
Let’s add it to the list. IMHO.

Thanks logoleptic,

M

Logoleptic · 2006-05-08 06:15:49

ma_smith wrote:

Thanks logoleptic

No sweat. :)

igner · 2006-05-08 17:09:00

Just took a few minutes to revisit this thread and saw Nils’ image organizer…

Nils – das ist ja affentittengeil¹!

I could really use improved image handling for a couple projects. Time’s somewhat limited at the moment, but I could make some contributions in migrating Nils’ plugin code to a patch for the core, particularly on the PHP side.
I assume this’d have to go against crockery rather than the 4.x branch, give the scope of the changes (and the fact that this constitutes a feature change, rather than a bug-fix).

¹ It’s been 16 years since I was last in Germany – is that still valid slang?

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 08:17:01

Hye guys (‘n girls)

Ok, i’m so thrilled right now, i’ve just got through most of this thread, and, well, there seems to be quite some enthousiasm around. Let’s get things clear : i’m ready to help (xhtml, css, javascript, ajax and PHP… anything). BUT… you’re probably not going to like after reading what my image-handeling-feature-requests are. Here they are anyway.

to stop using txp tags in articles : how am i supposed to explain this to clients, or rather, how are they to understand this? My suggestion : change textile to recognise this form of syntax : ! img ID[t for thumbed] [s/m/l for eventual thumb size(more on this later)] [caption_if you want a caption_] [linked if you want a link to the original image] [left/center/right _the alignement of course]! . This would for example give !23t l caption linked left! : a large thumbnail of image 23, linked to the original image, with a caption underneath, default style.
multiple sizes for thumbnails : These could be set somewhere in the admin. S could be something like 25% of your article-width, M 50% and L 100%. Seems pretty straight forward. How I think this would work? Would these have to made automaticaly at upload? Obviously not, it would work the other way around: when textile comes across a demand for a thumbnail, he goes to the database, checks if it exists, if not, sends a request to make it. Dead easy. Those thumbnails could either be named 23tS.jpg, 23tM, you get it, or could be stored in different sub-categories.
image upload & gallery on the write page à-la-wordpress : yep. No pop-up or anything. I want it in it, on it, beneath it, wathever. ONE mouse-click. No copy-pasting, I want a straight-forward “send to editor link”. Those clients barely know how to extract an image from powerpoint. Ok, so, what I suggest : you can upload an image from within the article and it gets the article’s id assigned as a category. You can easily browse images assigned to the current article, OR browse all images. Of course, the “image” tab and page remains. And that image organizer would be just grate (though a bit too clumsy, too featured imo).

Now, obviously, I’m aware this is a lot of work, on many levels. This is almost a fork. I’m aware changing the textile syntax would be dared. And I’m aware this is probably a bit too blogy – e-zinish . So, i’d just like some opinions on this. Maybe it should be a major plug-in, or hack rather, or really just a fork. I dunno. Or maybe this could be usefull to more than barely blogs and stuff, and could once make it to the core. Or maybe you think these ideas are just bullsh*t.

I do know I’m tired of being called by clients who really don’t get a heck of it, and me ending up adding all the images to their articles. And having to ask for extra costs. And them complainig I did it on purpose for them to pay more. And I know I’ll never be able to improve all of this on my own.

Last edited by guiguibonbon (2006-05-09 09:11:03)

wet · 2006-05-09 08:22:36

guiguibonbon wrote:

I do know I’m tired of being called by clients who really don’t get a heck of it, and me ending up adding all the images to their articles.

My clients usually get it with the help of upm_img_popper. Choose your clients wisely ;-)

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 08:43:03

Seriously? You never get those “wait, how did I add a link to the big image again”? Or the “When I click on the image, nothing happens”?

Globaly, img popper is the way to go obviously, but it seems way to clumsy, and technical to me. Those people (clients) dont know what a tag is, what a class is, nor a popup, nor even sometimes what a link exactly is. To them, “include width”, might mean that width is actually going to be written somewhere. I love my clients, they have great projects, but I’ve learned not to expect too much of them, when it comes to handeling a cms.

squaredeye · 2006-05-09 12:59:40

guiguibonbon,

I once felt how you do here, though I have shifted. I had a “wet” blanket thrown on me :) like you just did.

I think we as developer/designers need to raise the bar. If you are going to charge $30,000 for a site, then you can get some custom php work done to get a plugin that does what you are asking for or even hack the core. However, most of us aren’t able to go after work that big (atleast I’m not there), so it may be something you can begin to communicate to your clients that they need someone on staff to be trained. You may offer a piece of that training as part of the package, or offer it as an hourly rate? YOu may offer a manual with your installation that spells it out.

Consider blogger. Its as easy as it gets, and still people ask the questions you have stated above. At some level, people need to get geeky.

Multiple thumbs : yep. I agree. Wholeheartedly. I like the idea of being able to create as many as three different percentages, but then what if someone wants one that is horizontal and one that’s vertical instead? Maybe you would be willing to create a mockup image that would help us go through some of the ideas and thoughts around those needs?

Image upload: Sounds great, but what happens if you want to upload 20? 2? etc. If you’ve read the thread, you’ve found that those are questions that have come up. Perhaps you could help us brainstorm here?

Thanks for volunteering.
I add you to the list.

:)

Matthew

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 14:13:52

haha. Well actually I do usually charge for a little trainig, and sometimes it suffices. But sometimes they just forget after a few days. No, hours. A manual? Never thought about that, not too bad an idea actually. But my point is, such things shouldn’t even have to happen. WordPress shows it can be straight forward, and as you mentioned, Blogger does even more. Why does it have to be so hard with our beloved txp? Why are there 4 ways of inserting images ? Yes four : xhtml – textile – txp:image and usually txp:ump_image. And sometimes even more. I would like textile to manage most of the usual needs concerning images.

The third point i mentionned has been discussed already, and I see some good starting points. Like that small plug-in which adds an ajax-window on top of the textbox. But I’d rather go with something lightboxy. The thing I’d like to add here, is assigning images to articles. Think how much that would improve navigation. So, basically, you’d have a mini-ump_img_popper on the write page -with added simple upload function, and a more complex image-organizer in the image tab. About it, I think the image-organizer submitted above does too many things for the average user. Keep it as a small additional plug-in, I’d say. Being able to choose catA+catB+catD but not catC seems a bit over-the-top, simply allowing only to see images from on particular category would usualy be enough I think. and two columns would be better.

On the multiple uploads, well, I think that is sort of a dream. The gmail sollution is already an enhancement, that could be considered. I can give you a screenshot if you don’t have an account. Uploading zips could be sort of a way. But only for many many images, and that would raise the upload-time too much i guess.

Multiple thumbs : very plainly, a new little list of options, either in the “extensions” tab, or in the “admin>preferences” if it’s a patch, where you get the same options as now to create a thumb (w+h+crop), only you’d have it three times (for three sizes) and it’d be set once and for all.

Last edited by guiguibonbon (2006-05-09 14:14:28)

squaredeye · 2006-05-09 14:35:14

guiguibonbon,
- per user stuff, perhaps you and I could email about that more?
- we’ve talked about trying to have image links like : textile, xhtml, etc controlled by the developer: ie: if staffwriter then show only “textile”, etc. In fact that gets into “rights and permissions” and the workgroup thereof.

- an image mockup will prove much more helpful if you are willing to put one together for these ideas :)

Thanks for your help.

Matthew

mrdale · 2006-05-09 15:52:38

I’ve never had any problems explaining bas_img_select to clients. They understand it right away, and happily add images to articles. I try to reduce the possibilities for most clients so that they just edit articles and add images.

Seems to work.

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 16:25:06

agreed but it doesn’t automaticaly link to the original image – let alone to a popup with the image. + does’nt alow automatic caption. + gives some sort of thing (we would call it a tag) they’ve never seen before.

For the thumbsizes, quickly made this simple thing

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 16:35:59

ma_smith wrote:

guiguibonbon,
we’ve talked about trying to have image links like : textile, xhtml, etc controlled by the developer: ie: if staffwriter then show only “textile”, etc. In fact that gets into “rights and permissions” and the workgroup thereof.

That’s just a way to be sure it will never get done, innit ;) + seems to me like a lot of things to control, for just an esthetical/useability improvement. Ok, now, let’s imagine I do get to developp this textile-add-on. What would you all think about such a feature; ie : a textilish syntax for inserting images (with diff thumbnail sizes, possible link to large img, possible custom alt, possible automatic alt, possible caption, possible styling/positioning).

wet · 2006-05-09 16:51:29

guiguibonbon wrote:

I would like textile to manage most of the usual needs concerning images.

In fact I started a discussion concerning that (and a bit more) a while ago. Would you mind sharing your ideas here?

Last edited by wet (2006-05-09 16:51:55)

squaredeye · 2006-05-09 16:59:04

ggbb,
Great image :)
How would you suggest the image tab would reflect those sizes? In other words, how would a person know that they had three thumbs available to them? How would a user or developer choose them? If you would be willing to think through a bunch of “ifs” that would be helpful for the proposed proposal (lol).

THx,

M

Edit: Go for designing the textile work : check with WET, he’s an encumbant in these things, been here awhile. Also, I disagree with you about the “that’s just the way to not get things done”. Please remember that some of us have been at this (the work of it) awhile now, and we could use your thoughts, ideas, and even help, but there are bigger issues in movement here, and like anything good, it takes time. You may have a specific way of seeing things, but remember that thinking broad and laterally will create an environment that is flexible for many and not just for few. For what its worth.

Last edited by ma_smith (2006-05-09 17:24:05)

guiguibonbon · 2006-05-09 18:03:38

yes, obviously, and I have great respect for developpers, and all the community. It’s only that, as appears form the dev blog, the rights and permissions workgroup is already doing all sorts of complex things, and you know, just telling them “hey guys, do this too”, for something that, too me, isn’t all that important, would just not be be the best thing to do. Especially since here, on the counterpart, many seem available and willing. But maybe I’m wronga about the rights and permissions workgroup, in which case i’m sorry for not having looked at it any further.

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#151 2006-05-08 01:39:50

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#152 2006-05-08 06:15:49

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#153 2006-05-08 17:09:00

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#154 2006-05-09 08:17:01

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#155 2006-05-09 08:22:36

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#156 2006-05-09 08:43:03

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#157 2006-05-09 12:59:40

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#158 2006-05-09 14:13:52

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#159 2006-05-09 14:35:14

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#160 2006-05-09 15:52:38

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#161 2006-05-09 16:25:06

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#162 2006-05-09 16:35:59

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#163 2006-05-09 16:51:29

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#164 2006-05-09 16:59:04

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

#165 2006-05-09 18:03:38

Re: Improving TXP Image Management

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