[meta] How to help get Media to 1.0 release and beyond

Thanks for opening this issue, and for your many months of participation in the issue queue.

The short story is that we would like to release a 1.0 version within the next day or so, despite all the shortcomings you mention. After all, we're already over a week behind fulfilling our #D7CX pledge.

Here's what's needed for us to do that:

• Resolve all critical issues. At the time I write this, there's two that are "postponed (maintainer needs more info)". You can help by seeing if you can reproduce what is described in them. If you can't, and if the original reporters don't respond, I will close them as outdated.
• Ensure there aren't critical issues masquerading as non-critical ones. You can help by checking this queue of open, non-fixed bugs and bumping priority up to critical for ones that you think are really, really bad, and should therefore, hold up a release.
• Ensure there aren't critical issues that haven't even been discovered yet. This is actually impossible to achieve completely, but any extra testing of what's in HEAD would be most helpful.

Additionally, when we release 1.0, it would be great to update the project page with useful information about the current state of the module. If you have thoughts about that, please share them on #972060: Update the project page to cover important information about the 1.0 state of the module.

As you know, 1.0 is just the beginning. It's nowhere near the end of the road for this module. There's lots of stuff we still want to see fixed, added, improved, etc. We don't have an up to date roadmap, but we have the issue queue. That's where people enter in what they want. I and other project maintainers try to provide guidance on some of the issues, and we may recommend that some not be done, or be done as separate projects, but for the ones that we leave in, it's up to the community to decide what to work on. The way things get done is people have itches they want scratched, and somehow find the time to work on it. However, we will have one or more BoF sessions at DrupalCon Chicago, and hope that people come, so that we can better coordinate our efforts on commonly desired things, and come away with a roadmap that's useful for the following few months or year.

For people interested in the UI direction, please monitor and participate in this queue, and especially these issues:

• #491258: Create issues for UI decisions reached, but not yet implemented
• #865006: Designs for library and wysiwyg

Thus, there is of course much to wish for before this module is usable for anything but experimental sites.

I disagree. As with a 1.0 release of any software, there's much that's still not done, but there are real sites doing cool stuff with what's already there. Here's just some: http://sampler.drupalgardens.com/. And hopefully, more will be added to #1026650: Please submit sample sites / success stories to help showcase / explain what can be done with Media module.

If I understand things correct, the Media module is supposed to be a lightweight framework that provides only the most basic features needed. It is then up to other developers to create add-on modules to expand on this.

Exactly. So, for instance:

• Media: YouTube lets you add YouTube videos to the Media library. More service provider integration modules are on the way.
• Media Gallery lets you build gallery nodes containing multiple media items to be displayed as a Gallery. There's other Gallery modules out there too, but I'm not sure what their status is with respect to how they integrate with Media module.
• Plupload allows for easier uploading of many files at once.
• Media Browser Plus provides some UI enhancements to the baseline media browser. For example, folder support is being worked on there.

This is just a small sample, and others are listed on the project page, and more will be added there. We are absolutely hoping for a large ecosystem of modules that do all sorts of cool things. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem though. We need to get a stable enough framework out there before this ecosystem can take off. We're hoping the 1.0 release is the start of that.

It would be very helpful for us who are waiting to help to know more about what features it will have and what is expected to be left for add-on modules.

The scope of the Media module itself is to provide a Media Library that different media types (image, audio, video, other [and modules can add more types]) can be added to, and for it to be possible for those library items to be added to content via the Media field and into textareas via WYSIWYG integration. This, of course, requires a way to browse the library, which is included. Those media items need to be displayed in a wide variety of ways, which is primarily handled by the Styles module, which includes a few default theme implementations, but can be extended with fancier players / effects via other modules. Behind the scenes, it also provides necessary integration into Drupal core APIs, so that the media items can be saved, viewed, deleted, etc., and so that fields (e.g., tags, description, etc.) can be added to media entities. That's about it. The rest is left to other modules to figure out. That might not sound too exciting, but as more developers find value in the basic framework and start contributing their own modules, I think it will get very exciting. Examples of things that are clearly in scope of what I just outlined, but not yet complete, are #1016376: Expose the media types allowed for WYSIWYG variable in the UI and #696970: Granular editorial access control (and many of the other issues in the queue). Examples of things that are borderline are #962110: Add views handlers for the media field type and #954918: Flag Media, but I think it makes sense for both of those to be part of the core Media project, since Views and Flag are such popular modules, that providing integration with their APIs feels like a "core-ish" thing to do.

I am sure this module is going to be a game changer for Drupal regarding media management.

I agree!

but we seems to be far from that as things are

There was a time when Views released as 1.0, and had few other modules extending it. Now look where it is. How quickly it takes will depend on how many people jump on board to help out. Fortunately, these things are always exponential (at least for a healthy project), so as far as things seem, we may get there sooner than it sometimes seems.

I hope this helps. Please respond if you have any other questions, or ones I failed to answer. It's great to get early adopters on board. Thanks for your patience, and I hope that despite some rough starts, you're still feeling encouraged to be a part of this.

Well, I'm not sure any more if 1.0 is really only days away. I just released beta3, which I think is in good shape, but I feel pretty strongly that you can't call something a 1.0 (or even an RC) if disabling and then re-enabling the module takes down the website: #970696: Disabling and re-enabling media module throws exceptions, leaves website in unusable state.. But I think we're getting close to a 1.0 release, so any help you provide in the issue queue is much appreciated.

Do you know if 1.0 will have any features for being able to control where local media files are stored?

Some kind of folder support is being worked on in #969010: Ability to create folders. I might be wrong, but I think that work is more focused on virtual folders, (like "labels" in GMail), that can be used for organization within the Media Browser UI, but that this doesn't necessarily map to system folders on the server (in the same way that GMail labels don't affect how Google stores the emails on the back-end). There are some good use-cases for wanting control over where files are placed on the server, but I'm not sure if anyone has begun on that.

Another thing I really would like to see is more control over how a media object is embedded on pages... Since the Styles module is only an API, I suppose this will have to be either in core or as an add-on module.

Actually, the Styles project includes a styles_ui module with it that provides a UI for configuring styles. Aaron is still working on getting that more functional. I don't know his latest plans on how much he wants to do in the core Styles project, and how much he wants to offload on other modules. You might want to see if you can find out via the Styles issue queue.

I was actually thinking Media Module would provide all media via the Browser for Filefields as well. I tried out Media from time to time, but no trace of this to be seen yet.
Instead, now there is the media field which I can add to my content type.

So is this the road to go and there will be no support form image- and Filefields?

For an important shortcoming of Drupal has long been the inability to re-use uploaded files through different flavors of filefields, which is still the case.

Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
Notice: Undefined index: custom settings in field_view_mode_settings() (line 631 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/modules/field/field.module).
EntityFieldQueryException: Field storage engine not found. in EntityFieldQuery->queryCallback() (line 1048 of /home/doekbrij/public_html/drupal/includes/entity.inc)

All dependencies are green and all modules up-to-date (today)...
Can not activate the module.
Please advice

cheers

jos@doekbrijder.com

Please don't abduct issues.

Btw, why does this module have 7.x-1.x-dev listed twice in the Version: dropdown here in the queue?

Oops.

Guys, thank you very much for your write-ups, it really helps to understand where Media project is currently. I'll try to help to fix some bugs in the next few days.

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No criticals at present :)

Does anyone have any prediction on when we might see a beta5?

Sub

haven't been any criticals for awhile now it seems. Also looking for an update on this and where I might be able to put some efforts?

sub. thanks for all the hard work and the amazing module(s). It is very much appreciated and do not in any way want to come across as being impatient not understanding what a huge service you do for free or that you have limited time and full time jobs that come first. I just a few questions as a non-coder, and how and what we should be implementing(or not) to test:
1-is the main focus on the media browser overhaul, image/filefield integration and views support? are updates to the dev versions of media related modules that work with the media dev version waiting on the outcome of this?
4-would you suggest running the dev version and taking the time to apply the various patches for media related modules(and running it without the media gallery module), or for the non-coder would you suggest waiting? Running beta 4 would no problem, except it does not work with drush/aegir.
2-is there a timeline over the summer for another release dev or other?
3-will the next release work with drush/aegir?

again, I am very thankful for all you are doing.

Jen

Subscribing so I'm alerted when beta5/rc1/1.0 are launched. Exciting project for sure :)

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A less lofty goal- how do we get another beta, or even release candidate, instead of the old beta4 which is stuck in the past, per the 'non-backward compatible changes' in -dev note. Seems that could be rolled now, or is there a buglist for that?

I think I read somewhere that they were waiting for other modules to adapt to the API changes...
If this hasn't happened by this point then forcing them to update by releasing a new beta would probably be the best course of action.

ok, rolled 7.x-1.0-beta5. =)

Somehow I missed this until today. Thanks :D

Project page could do with an update to reflect this.

Project page is now more up to date. Closing this down as an RC1 is looming.