This issue will be used to track discussions of how Acidfree should grow in the future. The first comment will contain the current roadmap.

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#23 quicklinks.JPG31.29 KBmwheinz

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mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented
Priority: Major » Normal
  1. Get feedback from beta3 users.
  2. Add video support to demo site. Review video code for bugs.
  3. #1035320: Update the help text
  4. 6.0 GA release
  5. Split video
  6. #268418: integrate support for lightbox2
  7. #1029288: Views Integration
  8. #1029112: Acidfree uses a mishmash of png, gif and svg graphics, and the 6.x version is missing the "nothumb.png" file.
  9. #1047566: Remodeling the Acidfree "types" to be CCK based instead of custom classes. - aka adding MP3 & SWF support.
  10. Add "ajax" features (I know nothing about ajax....)
  11. revisit cron jobs - regenerating thumbnails (does image do this?), mass import and per-user-albums.
  12. per-user albums end up in the wrong parent album when sites are upgraded from 5.x to 6.x.
  13. Planning for 7.x.
mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Need to find a way to do unit testing and integration testing. Look at Quickstart. (http://drupal.org/node/788080)

Notes:

  1. Quickstart is simply a tool for setting up sites quickly, not for testing.
  2. Check out "Fade" for OSX - it's an automated webkit based browser for doing websites.
rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

SWF would be interesting for many. Should this be built into acidfree or have another module add support for acidfree?

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

I'm not sure. Since I originally thought about that, it looks like the video module can support SWF itself, so this may not be needed. The only other type I can think of that might be useful is mp3.

rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

Ajaxify image rotation. Rotate images at the album view level for those with permission.

bkat’s picture

bkat commented

I'd like a way for lightbox2 integration to cycle through the whole album whilst still retaining the pager for fallback.

Centroamerica.TV’s picture

Centroamerica.TV commented

Hi Michael.

Audio would be a great addition

Actually any CCK field that can have a "cover image", like filefield, audiofield, flash, iPaper, SlideShare, etc. would be a really great enhancement.

In a certain way. I wonder if Acidfree has a long future as it is now.

I can see Acidfree though as a colection of specific Views Cases, which could work "drop in" solutions.

Just 1 cent of imagination from the tropics.

Cheers.

Roland

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Your thoughts are echoing my own - I've also been thinking that CCK is the way forward.

As for the future of Acidfree, I think the big advantage Acidfree still has is that by using Taxonomy to organize itself, you can both have nested albums and put the same image into multiple albums without duplicating the image. I think that will continue to be useful in the future.

rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

Looking back at the requests over the course of the years, there was a lot of requests for better integration with mass import and watermarks. Maybe better integration with something like imagecache presets? This would make for consistent image formatting for the site admin. Didn't some features of imagecache get integrated with core?

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Rhylos,

I've been trying to figure out if there's a better way to merge mass import with the idea that we're simply extending and organizing content types provided by other modules.

For example, Image has an image import module, and it looks like Acidfree already knows how to extend it so that imported images are added to the correct album(s).

Given that capability, what's the point of "mass import"? You can't use it to import videos anymore; and it won't support other additional data types....

rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

In my experience the only point of mass import was for the rapid uploading of multiple images in a single page submission. But as you pointed out, the issue that we've been having is with descriptions, captions, titles, and watermarking/postprocessing that only seems to work via the individual image upload option.

Maybe for now we can make it clear that the mass import option does not support post processing or data customization. Perhaps if mass import is to support data customization it can be read from exif data if it's available. With that an option may have to be implemented to support an option of what data is imported, i.e.: title, size, etc.

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

In my experience the only point of mass import was for the rapid uploading of multiple images in a single page submission.

It's true that the image import function requires the ability to FTP files onto a server.

I guess what we really need to do is to decide what the fundamental orientation of acidfree itself. I'm leaning towards the idea of focusing on making it a generalized media manager through CCK and other modules; to that end maybe what I need to do is make Mass Import a content type or a special link associated with the Image data type, rather than associating it with the album type since, as I said, Mass Import doesn't support any data types except images.

rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

That main idea (as a manager) could work out for the better, especially in the long run. Since Acidfree is calling the image module to process the images and the image module hooks or integrates well with other processing modules, I think the mass import content type may be the way to go.

bkat’s picture

bkat commented

Mass import is one of the main advantages that acidfree has over album/gallery solutions. When I have users that need to upload an album with 100's of images, its so much easier for them to ftp or me to scp/rsync and then just point mass import to the directory.

Uploading them 1 by 1 is hideous and uploading a zip file can require you to set you upload file size limit and php memory limit to sizes much larger than you would otherwise like.

rhylos’s picture

rhylos commented

With the CCK in mind, as a curiousity, what are the major differences and plans for the future that would then differentiate this project with the node gallery project?

http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

rhylos:
With the CCK in mind, as a curiousity, what are the major differences and plans for the future that would then differentiate this project with the node gallery project?

Well, glancing over the demo site, node gallery seems to be pretty simplistic:

http://ngdemo.sysadminsjourney.com/content/blah

The thumbnails are laid out in a single column and there doesn't seem to be any kind of album hierarchy.

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Bkat:
Mass import is one of the main advantages that acidfree has over album/gallery solutions. When I have users that need to upload an album with 100's of images, its so much easier for them to ftp or me to scp/rsync and then just point mass import to the directory.

That's the way I always do it; but I do admit I have users using the 5-at-a-time method, too. Many of my users are older and really don't get it when I talk about ftp.

I think that for know, Rhylos is right - we should take the image transform stuff off the mass import tab, until we can work out exactly how it's going to work in the future.

bkat’s picture

bkat commented

Of course we should keep the 5 at a time upload (which can also be tar/zip files).

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

I'd like a way for lightbox2 integration to cycle through the whole album whilst still retaining the pager for fallback.
Opened issue #268418: integrate support for lightbox2 to deal with this.

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Centroamerica.tv
Audio would be a great addition

I've added it to the road map.

scroogie’s picture

scroogie commented

mwheinz: That demo page is pretty outdated. This is a better one:

http://ng3demo.sysadminsjourney.com/

Although this one isn't really up to date either, it better reflects the feature set. NG uses CCK, Imagecache and Views for all its work. There are some additional submodules to extend it:
http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery_slideshow
http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery_jcarousel
http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery_access
http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery_taxonomy
http://drupal.org/project/node_gallery_user_profile
Indeed it doesn't support hierarchies, but a patch is in the queue. Perhaps for Drupal 7 we could discuss a collaboration.

Cheers
scroogie (co-maintainer of node gallery)

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Scroogie,

I agree about the demo site - that's actually referenced in a different issue, for the documentation roadmap.

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented
StatusFileSize
new quicklinks.JPG31.29 KB

Added the ability to display the acidfree quick links in album views, instead of only in the quick links block. (See attached screen shot.)

As a side effect of this, the Mass Import and Mass Update pages are now quick links rather than menu tabs. (There's no value in having links in multiple places, and trying to jam a possible additional 3+ tabs onto album views simply looked awful.)

The new links are properly css'ed so their look-and-feel can be overridden.

mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented
Priority: Normal » Major
mwheinz’s picture

mwheinz commented

Updated roadmap (comment #1) to define what tasks need to be done before going GA and which can be postponed to 6.1.

xmacinfo’s picture

xmacinfo
he/him
Primary language French
Location Canada
commented

I love Acidfree. I moved away from it on a few sites but I am still keeping it on my main website.

I notice that there were a beta3 release on March 7th. Is it possible to update the roadmap in #1 and see where we are up to?

Keep up the good work!

dark11star’s picture

dark11star commented
Priority: Normal » Major

any thoughts about a d7 port?

xmacinfo’s picture

xmacinfo
he/him
Primary language French
Location Canada
commented

@dark11star: Look at the roadmap in #1.

nancydru’s picture

nancydru
she/her/hers
Primary language English
Location Boston
commented

As for mass upload, I like the way PLUpload works (at least in D7). And using it might reduce the complexity of this module and allow it to move forward faster.

As for moving to D7, I've had experience with Media Gallery, which reminds me of a modernized AF. The biggest drawback to MG is that it is not (yet) hierarchical. It might be worth joining forces with MG rather than trying to move AF to D7.