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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
Not to break the party here but I seem to notice that the discussion in this thread has gone to plugin functionalities as opposed to proposals re the improvement of txp.
Quick suggestion. Get back to the subject of image management will ya??:)
Yiannis
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
Bastian, and Patrick,
Perhaps we could open either, a new thread for Bas_image_whatchacaller, or throw it up on the WIKI as a back and forth. I am really looking forward to seeing what you two come up with and how this might play into either a plugin or core.
Colak, good call.
I am really pleased about the responses thus far.
Patrick,
What would you say to a rough draft of a proposal in the next two weeks? I could start on one, and that way, even if it takes months, we’ve got something to start ammending?
Per peoples suggestions: I will be curious what decision will arise, regarding image uploading? The more I think about it, and the larger the system I work with, the more it makes sense to keep your image management separate from your “write” tab. But it would be a handy thing to create a scenario where one could easily upload 1 or 2 images to the appropriate place should there be a “lesser” need for robust image management, for say a small blog? What say you people? Bas/Hak, I am especially interested in how this might look/work with the AJAX plugin, but again, perhaps that is best discussed in new area, per Colak’s prompting.
Matthew
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
The more I think about it, and the larger the system I work with, the more it makes sense to keep your image management separate from your “write” tab.
I think you’re right with that. Perhaps it would be an option to focus on improving the image management on the write tab. For most users, it would help to have a shortcut on the write tab, any other things could be handled via a plugin (see Bastian approach). On one of my sites I’ve got 500+ images. I need the image tab to organize it, it would get very complex to manage these images on the write tab. If everything could be done on the write tab: Why should you have an image tab?!
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
ma_smith wrote:
What would you say to a rough draft of a proposal in the next two weeks? I could start on one, and that way, even if it takes months, we’ve got something to start ammending?
We could probably start on the Image insert functionality and Image tags.I would still like to see more info on or about the images tab and how it is lacking. That seems ot have been kind of forgotten and for me at least no matter how great and whiz bang a new insert image plugin is I still think we need the images tab, simple because it offers more screen real estate then anything in the write tab will ever have.
The write tab integration and the new images tags can both be prototyped and tested as plugins and then be submitted to the core if we want to. The images tab however would have to either be straight core or start out as a hack it would just be too hard to deal with otherwise.
So how should the images tab improve? Submit examples that work well (photostack, plogger, coppermine any of those) and what you like about them. What could be better.
Last edited by hakjoon (2006-03-17 13:52:44)
Shoving is the answer – pusher robot
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
So how should the images tab improve? Submit examples that work well (photostack, plogger, coppermine any of those) and what you like about them. What could be better.
- There should be a possibility to upload more than one image – see aba_image_import or plogger
- It would be nice, if exif statements could be imported (and be accessible with txp tags
<txp:image_exif show="date" />) - It should be possible to narrow the display of images down to certain categories, years, months (“virtual folders”).
- The images list should be sortable (name/category: a-z <> z-a)
- It would be nice to have sidebar with all the image categories so you could easily drop an image in a new category (AJAX, script.aculo.us)
- It would be a real improvement not to be limited to 1 category.
- improvement of the basic image manipulation – see glx_admin_image
Last edited by Skubidu (2006-03-17 14:12:32)
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
I’ve got two photo-based txp sites, so I’m maybe a useful person to consider ;-)
I’m not a coder though, so anything I say is without reference to the implications of building it!
Bulk upload is very important. For one of my sites, if I didn’t have aba_image_import I could not have run it in txp – its as simple as that, and as critical as that. aba-_image is nice, but flawed: for me, it currently uploads not one but two images, so I then have to go round deleting them. Fortunately, I had to upload the majority and now just a few more at a time, every 2/3 weeks, so it’s no big deal. But for bulk image upload/handling, on a large scale, people simply won’t use txp at the moment.
I’m not too concerned about EXIF data. In fact it doesn’t worry me at all. I know its a bit of a ‘tradition’, and it gets used by people, but in fact it adds little if anything to a photo site, except for people who dig all the technical details. I’d say, include it maybe but give that a very low priority in terms of building it.
Categories, date and name navigation should probably be in-built from the beginning.
An integral ‘insert’ page is very important, so you’re not clicking around different parts of txp which is incredibly user-unfriendly, and basically means people won’t use txp for image-centric sites. A navigable drop and drag sidebar sounds great!
Auto resize is also critical. glx_admin_image does the job, but its not easy to adjust the resize paramters – 160 pixel width for thumbs, whatever.
The Wordpress image handling is quite nice and could be used as a model, or for inspiration – but maybe make the txp version even better ;-)
One minor but important factor that should be considered, if relevant: the one column image display in txp is very bad design: lots of unused white space, and you have to scroll far too much. Multiple columns would improve it.
Automatic gallery generation would be nice: or if not auto, then auto-friendly. Don’t know what happened to Marshall/Greenrift’s AlbumPattern, but there might be some useful code and ideas in there……also, check out Gallery and Coppermine for ideas about the inerface and functioning.
Last edited by jameslomax (2006-03-17 15:07:04)
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
Although it’s very easy to install plugins I believe a better image management solution should be part of the core. My list of plugins is getting too long :)
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
maarten wrote:
Although it’s very easy to install plugins I believe a better image management solution should be part of the core. My list of plugins is getting too long :)
My idea has always been to prototype as much as we can as plugins or hacks and then submit relatively feature complete and tested versions as patches to the core. Plugins and hacks means we (community) can develop them and provide the work to the core team. If we start at the core form day one it means more work for Sencer, zem and Kusor.
Unless you all want to test everything using SVN patches. The long term goal is for the results of all this to go into the core hopefully, although at this point I think something of this magnitude would have to wait for Crockery for it to be added.
Shoving is the answer – pusher robot
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
I forgot some things in my last posting:
- It would be nice to have the possibility to view the last added images (if you have many images it can be very annoying having to browse through long list or category menus just to get to the latest image you added
- This would help with another problem, too: If you uploaded an image, and edited it’s properties, you will be sent to the main image tab after hiting “submit”. If you have many images you probably don’t see your image on the main tab, because it is on an other page of the image list. This is annoying, too, if you are looking for the image id or someting to insert it in an article.
- If nothing changes in the way Textpattern handles images (id > 1.jpg, 2.gif, …), it would be helpful to see the image id anywhere.
On the write tab:
- I would like to see a preview of the article image on the write tab.
Last edited by Skubidu (2006-03-17 16:22:03)
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
Skubidu wrote:
I would like to see a preview of the article image on the write tab.
I have been thinking about this too. I think it would make article image a lot more useful.
Shoving is the answer – pusher robot
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
hakjoon wrote:
My idea has always been to prototype as much as we can as plugins or hacks and then submit relatively feature complete and tested versions as patches to the core. Plugins and hacks means we (community) can develop them and provide the work to the core team. If we start at the core form day one it means more work for Sencer, zem and Kusor.
Unless you all want to test everything using SVN patches. The long term goal is for the results of all this to go into the core hopefully, although at this point I think something of this magnitude would have to wait for Crockery for it to be added.bq.
Agreed of course, I realize that this is not something that can be added easily.
Last edited by maarten (2006-03-17 16:53:34)
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Re: Improving TXP Image Management
I opened a wiki page for Img Wizard, to not break the party here.
I will add more informations in next days, but feel free to edit it and include your thought and ideas.
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