File Manager removal

Please not the way of WP timestamp.

Therefore, there has to be an easy way to upload image files separately via FTP to a single, or at least easy to find, server folder

or subfolder

JNeuhoff wrote:The ability to alternatively upload images via FTP is essential. There are many users maintaining the actual products and categories in Excel spreadsheets, uploaded via the Export/Import tool to the Opencart server. Therefore, there has to be an easy way to upload image files separately via FTP to a single, or at least easy to find, server folder. So I think this excludes the usage of timestamp folders like wordpress does!

If implementing support for sub-folders (e.g. for image categories) is too cumbersome, then your suggestion of using some sort of searchable image attributes or tags will be the only other reasonable option.

it might be easier with the new system as you can just map the excel spreadsheet value to the image table and image location.

let me see what i can do. i might be able to allow people which folders they can store files in but it won't allow renaming of files or moving them.

Daniel wrote:

JNeuhoff wrote:The ability to alternatively upload images via FTP is essential. There are many users maintaining the actual products and categories in Excel spreadsheets, uploaded via the Export/Import tool to the Opencart server. Therefore, there has to be an easy way to upload image files separately via FTP to a single, or at least easy to find, server folder. So I think this excludes the usage of timestamp folders like wordpress does!

If implementing support for sub-folders (e.g. for image categories) is too cumbersome, then your suggestion of using some sort of searchable image attributes or tags will be the only other reasonable option.

it might be easier with the new system as you can just map the excel spreadsheet value to the image table and image location.

let me see what i can do. i might be able to allow people which folders they can store files in but it won't allow renaming of files or moving them.

Thanks Daniel. At the moment, the main category or product image is specified in the 'Categories' or 'Products' worksheet using a 'image_name' column. Our Excel spreadsheet also has the 'AdditionalImages' worksheet with the 3 columns 'product_id','image', and 'sort_order' which is mapped to the 'product_image' DB table.

This sounds like a good idea. The only input I would have is that, if possible, it would be best if people could still upload images via FTP and have them appear in the list. I know a lot of people like to batch upload images that way, or mirror them from another server, so it would be good if there was a way to auto-detect these and add them to the database list.

I think i can add a maintenance page for picking up new images that have been added and adding them to the db aswell as being able to delete used ones.

Daniel wrote:I think i can add a maintenance page for picking up new images that have been added and adding them to the db aswell as being able to delete used ones.

Not quite sure if I understood you correctly. I thought the main issue was to find a solution for uploading images via Opencart's admin backend because the old file manager wasn't good enough for this job. And then perhaps also have a function where obsolete, that is totally unused, images can be removed from the server.

I would prefer to use the image manager as I like to upload photos as I go instead of going to another section to upload a bunch of images at once, then going back to the product. It would be far too confusing to me to keep track of what I've done or haven't done and I really like doing 1 image at a time as I am adding the product that image is for. I tried doing images via ftp and HATED it - does not work for me at all. I really, really HATE - LOATH even - the way you upload images to g+ - can never find a photo I want again and end up uploading the same images over and over.

I also want to keep images in separate folders - I have one folder per vendor with over 80 vendors I deal with and sometimes 400-500+ images per vendor, having it in one folder would be totally impossible for me.

So could this be an option rather than removing the file manager altogether? Just keep it the way it is and let people choose to turn off file manager if they want to use your new one instead?

So it will work like the current downloads system works. You have to add the download first, then add the product and "link" it.

IIRC 0.x had something like this. Basically a dropdown for "subfolder" that would then ajax populate the dropdown for all images in that folder and when you selected one, it would show the image preview on the side. It also offered an "upload" button if you needed to insert a new image without having to goto the "image" page and add the image, then come back to the product edit page to add the new image.

Here's a rough mock-up for this alternative... needs work and maybe could incorporate autocomplete but it supports subfolders

I do not see an image drop down or autocomplete as a viable option when you have a LOT of images and anyone that uses multistores is bound to have a LOT of images.

I use sort orders for additional images too and don't see how you'd incorporate that in this version?

labeshops wrote:I do not see an image drop down or autocomplete as a viable option when you have a LOT of images and anyone that uses multistores is bound to have a LOT of images.

I use sort orders for additional images too and don't see how you'd incorporate that in this version?

Well if you had subfolders you may be able to at least better organize them. Autocomplete is preferred for larger shops because you can limit it to smaller subsets that won't bog down the browser like a dropdown or multiselect would.

You could do Autocomplete subfolder field
and then Autocomplete file field which would work great as far as memory, but not so much functionally.

Maybe an inline file list with images would be best and have it load more images as you scroll down, kinda like the current filemanager does.

There does need to be flexibility in subdirectory naming, sorting, and accessibility. Where Labeshops has "one folder per vendor with over 80 vendors [. . .] and sometimes 400-500+ images per vendor," I've worked with essentially 100 subdirectories of scores of images per subdirectory of (sort of) sensibly clustered products per vendor, as well as with hundreds of essentially random images per vendor. If a shop draws in by feeds or period manual .csv/.xml and image imports easily on the order of a thousand products and of images on one (bad, bad) day or in one week, and has no convenient way to cause OC to take them as they come related sensibly or not to products, where for example timestamp orientations would sometimes seem even worse, then the whole process would build a cussable Fizzleville. Renaming or redating such images massively, other than to batch-substitute characters (_, etc.) for spaces for Linux, is probably not going to happen. Note that many servers do or can preserve timestamps, many others don't and can't. Many a potentially useful idea falls where customer or administrator timeout and burnout sooner or later begin. Onesies and multitudes both wear thin under boredom, confusion, or frustration when images must be related to products and "somebody's gotta do it" in person, in addition to the rest of product and category entries. It does seem that a realistic way out is a mix of how now, new how, and some sort of intuitive "explorer" to use as available tools as may be best for a given batch or onslaught. But then the tools would each need to be big enough and still be accessible on one screen at once without having to scroll much of anything. What is wrestled with at console level and code level won't satisfy everyone, but at least we're seeing levels and scales of problems in trying to reconcile the two in advance.

the auto complete would rely on a tag system that would be added to each image.

I suppose if you want t keep the current folder system i could just only have basic functions such as browse, search, upload and create folder.

get rid of rename, move, delete

Maybe something like this

I think that getting rid of rename, move, and delete would be a good move, since those are readily done anyway in ftp (or the very slow cPanel/etc. file manages), and since most people will figure out that part from other files (installation onward) before they get to dealing with images and products. A tutorial for stragglers would bring most of them, in turn, up to speed.

The PrtScr is a doable size and layout. Of course, at the moment it's meant to be just suggestive. Allowing that pane to be toggled up to full screen (somewhat as ckeditor allows) would provide for usable size as well as for opposite need for relatively compact starting arrangements.

Daniel wrote:the auto complete would rely on a tag system that would be added to each image.

Which means I'd have to go back thru thousands of images and add tags to them? NOT an option and if this were required, I would seriously never update to 2.x

I have edited my file manager to show the most recently added images at the top so for me, this works perfectly. I don't do product imports and enter my products in one at a time - I'm sure I'm not the only person who prefers to do it this way rather than dealing with a mass upload of images I would probably have to open and edit one at a time anyway before I assign them to products - I crop/resize, color adjust, and add my logo watermark to every image I get from the manufacturers before I upload them.

Perhaps leaving the image manager for those of us that prefer adding images from the product page along with the mass uploader you are talking about for those that prefer doing that would be the best solution?

labeshops wrote:

Daniel wrote:the auto complete would rely on a tag system that would be added to each image.

Which means I'd have to go back thru thousands of images and add tags to them? NOT an option and if this were required, I would seriously never update to 2.x

I have edited my file manager to show the most recently added images at the top so for me, this works perfectly. I don't do product imports and enter my products in one at a time - I'm sure I'm not the only person who prefers to do it this way rather than dealing with a mass upload of images I would probably have to open and edit one at a time anyway before I assign them to products - I crop/resize, color adjust, and add my logo watermark to every image I get from the manufacturers before I upload them.

Perhaps leaving the image manager for those of us that prefer adding images from the product page along with the mass uploader you are talking about for those that prefer doing that would be the best solution?

I get what you're saying about not being able to or not wanting to back track and add tags and such but at the same time, Opencart has to continue to grow and expand and can't please every past version and user. There may have to be some give and take along the way to allow Opencart to progress.

DL

i'm scraping the idea. have to use filemanger i suppose. it will be cut down though. no rename, move or copy.

Like CKeditor, Image Manager is an essential tool for most administrators.

If it needs to go in v2.0, so be it, but it has to be for a better solution. I kind of agree that the actual Image Manager, jQuery UI style, had its days, and a more modern alternative might be required for v2.0. So I won't miss it really.

Saying that, I'm hoping to find the same functionalities with the new v2.0 Image Manager, if not more !

I did some quick searches and I came accross this OpenSource file manager called AjaXplorer (Pydio), that some of you will already know. Link: http://pyd.io/
Please note that it already has bridges to Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla ! http://pyd.io/cms-bridges/
It also has clients for IOS and Android !

This is the type of manager I would like to see in v2.0

Anyway, I've got no doubt that Daniel and the team will find a good future-proof solution ...

its ok. what i have done seems to be working ok.

file manager update was a big pain to do.

what i have done should be fine. i have been looking at shopify and big commerce and their file managers are really basic.