Improving the Attachment Manager

محروم.كوم · #1 10-27-2009, 12:20 AM

First off I want to say that I believe the "Attachment Manager" window will be a huge improvement. I can tell a lot of work has gone into it. With a bit more help it can be considered a great new feature.

I see the same "Attachment Manager" is being used for forum posts and album/social group uploads. I can only assume it will be used (at least once) in the CMS and probably often for modifications* addons & widgets as well* correct?

Because the "Attachment Manager" has been completely changed in VB4 I expected to see more discussion here.

I'll try to get the ball rolling and hopefully we can put together a lot of constructive feedback to fine tune the "Attachment Manager" into something that is more intuitive and functional for everyone.

Here are a few of my initial ideas & suggestions:

Hide attachments already uploaded. Direct people to click on folder links to view existing attachments. Have the UI focus on uploading new attachments* since that is how it will be used 99% of the time.

Don't hide the "Allowed Filetypes" under help. Let's write a proper help file for the "Help" button and also have a prominent link to the "Allowed Filetypes".

Dislay max allowed files somewhere as prominent as "Allowed Filetypes". This is important because the number of max allowed files will most likely be different for albums vs. posts.

Since thumbnails are being used (even for non photo files) perhaps making the "Attachment Manager" fullscreen would be better.

A "Close Window" link would be good. As far as I can tell* that's all the "insert Attachments" button does. However* at this point the attachments have already been added to the post.

Call it a "File Manager" now. The phrases are being interchaged too much. Sometimes "attachments"* sometimes "assets". Let's just call them files everywhere and make this the "File Manager".

The word "browse" should be somewhere....in particular instead of "select files" now.

I think we should be able to get from the "Manage Attachments" button in a post to the actual Windows file open dialog in one less click. Right now you have to click: 1. "Manage Attachments"* 2. "Add files"* 3. "Select Files". Since most people will be using this interface to upload new files* I hope the default behavior of the UI can skip step 2 and prompt users to immediately open a browse for files dialog.

The current use of "Select All" and the individual X's (that can potentially delete all the files) is confusing. Perhaps the "Select All" boxes should be linked to a menu driven control that would be more self-explanatory.

Make the "Attachment Manager" options relevant to where it is being called from. For example if its being called to upload Album photos* all non photo files should be hidden from the lists of existing attachments and also excluded in the list of files displayed in the Windows file open dialog box.

Like I said above* this is just a start. I'm not a member of the beta team* so I'd like to see as much public discussion about the new "Attachment Manager" as possible. I'm currently working on a busy forum that already has over 1.5 million attachments. So* I guess you could say I have a vested interest in making sure the new VB4 "Attachment Manager" is as functional and user-friendly as possible.

Thanks*
James __DEFINE_LIKE_SHARE__

المواضيع المتشابهه
الموضوع	كاتب الموضوع	المنتدى	مشاركات	آخر مشاركة
Attachment Manager	محروم.كوم	منتدى أخبار المواقع والمنتديات العربية والأجنبية	0	10-27-2009 06:40 PM
Attachment Manager	محروم.كوم	منتدى أخبار المواقع والمنتديات العربية والأجنبية	0	10-27-2009 03:10 PM
Attachment Manager	محروم.كوم	منتدى أخبار المواقع والمنتديات العربية والأجنبية	0	10-27-2009 01:20 PM
Improving the Attachment Manager	محروم.كوم	منتدى أخبار المواقع والمنتديات العربية والأجنبية	0	10-27-2009 01:20 AM
Improving the Attachment Manager	محروم.كوم	منتدى أخبار المواقع والمنتديات العربية والأجنبية	0	10-27-2009 12:30 AM