Re: [xwiki-devs] Thoughts about the attachment and image insert

Re, On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Ludovic Dubost <ludovic(a)xwiki.org> wrote: I've thought a bit more about the topic and I think an elegant solution that would both match user expectations and be elegant exists. I'll explain it after providing some context. - Our aim in the new WYSIWYG has been to let users do more than they could in the previous one - We dissussed a lot about what the best way to achieve easy browsing of pages & other items - We eventually agreed on using a treeview approach for most purposes - However, the tree view isn't necessarily the most effective for some use cases such as the one Ludovic identified - Thus we may want to look at the way other pieces of software resolve this type of file browsing issue - For instance, Mac OS X's finder offers 4 different kind of views: folder contents, tree, miller columns & coverflow - Some users favor the tree view while other like the folder view better (the last 2 are pretty much superfluous) - The view Ludovic is pushing forward would be pretty much covered by a standard folder view showing the images / files attahed to the current page as thumbnails (similar to http://i21.tinypic.com/29zyott.png in the context of the wiki) - If we look at http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Design/NewWysiwygEditorInterface?xpage=…, we see that it would be pretty easy (from an UI point of view, not a technical one) to add a zone at the top of the screen (between "select an image" and the tree itslef) that would provide the following 2 elements: - Buttons / select box to switch between tree view and folder view - A search box (Vincent has been asking for it and I believe it's important too) - Here's a tentative mockup showing what I have in mind: http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/download/Mockups/WebHome/Alternative… - We could hide the Wiki address field from standard users (show it only for advanced users) - The default view would open on the folder view for insert image and insert attachment links - This feature can be implemented at a later stage, once the current tree is done, so it doesn't disrupt the current planning - The WYSIWYG editor would provide a configuration option allowing to choose whether to hide some of the views in some cases (show only the folder view on the current page for instance) - Note: my proposal doesn't have back / forward buttons since it doesn't take into account the possibility of full folder browsing: the folders opens only on the current page attachments. This might have to be discussed. I think this proposal would address most (if not all) of the points still under discussion about our dialog boxes (view on the current page only, search, possibility to browse other pages, etc). However it implies a lot of additional work by the WYSIWYG team, and it's not necessarily the direction we want to push the editor forward. Thus I'd like to get everybody's feedback about it before pushing for any kind of implementation plan. Thanks, Guillaume -- Guillaume Lerouge Product Manager - XWiki Skype ID : wikibc http://guillaumelerouge.com/