On a recent website project I found that a large number of users submitting content with an imagefield were not submitting titles for their pictures (which I also use as captions). When speaking with clients, I discovered that often they didn't know they even could submit titles or even multiple images.
I think the imagefield UI is to blame. Since user's can't insert a title or alt value until after they have uploaded a picture. A more streamlined approach would be to show the file, title, and alt fields all together at the same time. Each individual image has it's own upload file field.
I also like this approach because it's clear when a user is replacing an existing picture and when they are creating a new one. It is also possible to replace an existing picture at the top of a list of many others, while keeping the alt and title text.
Downsides are this method takes up more vertical screen space and it'll likely make the patch to upload multiple zipped images at once slightly more difficult.
Patch for Drupal 5 attached. Backport will follow if we want to pursue this approach. Before/After images in the posts below.
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #3 | imagefield_interface_after.png | 74.63 KB | quicksketch |
| #2 | imagefield_interface_before.png | 51.05 KB | quicksketch |
| #1 | imagefield_beforeandafter.png | 39.75 KB | quicksketch |
| imagefield_interface5.patch | 15.43 KB | quicksketch |
Comments
Comment #1
quicksketchSingle image before and after. This is the case where this approach is going to make the best sense.
Comment #2
quicksketchMultiple image before.
Comment #3
quicksketchMultiple image after.
Comment #4
dopry commentedYou got my plus 1, and it seems to collapse all the hook calls into functions as well, I need to do that for the AJAX upload anyway... If its still working for you commit it.
Comment #5
quicksketchAwesome! I'm stoked about these changes. We've decided to wait till after the 1.0 release for 5.0 to implement these changes. I'll weave this back into 5.x after the release.
Comment #6
dopry commentedsry. about the delay but the patch won't commit to the DRUPAL-5--2 branch anymore.. You feel like re-rolling?
Comment #7
gddI'm anxious for this functionality so I'll volunteer to re-roll this patch if quickpatch isn't working on it. Would hate to see it not get into the next release.
Comment #8
quicksketchI'd still like to get this into imagefield (2.x). Unfortunately I'm fairly sure it won't work properly while being dependent on upload.js. Of course with Drupal 6 and the new AHAH Forms API (http://drupal.org/node/154398), this won't be supported anymore anyway :)
If you're interested heyrocker, please feel free to roll the patch. I'm pretty booked, but I'd be glad to review.
Comment #9
gddI finally got a chance to look at the 2.0 branch for the first time, and I feel like the ajax uploader does most of what I wanted this patch for - users can upload and then enter their data in place without submitting the whole form. Given this I'm going to pass on re-rolling this now, although it would be nice to get to at some point so the non-javascript users can gain from it (since they still get the old interface.)
Comment #10
quicksketchThis has completely dropped off the radar in importance for me. With the new CCK in Drupal 6 imagefields can be reordered, which was my other driving force behind getting this done. Like heyrocker, the no-reload was the other important issue. Let's just close this and be done with it :)