Addon Request: Categories Mod

[Sivani]

While I am wishing out loud...

This would probably be a different add-on, but perhaps someone can point me to an existing one (if any).

For those of you familiar with Movable Type: it has a power editing mode where all the posts are listed with editable fields for title, date, some settings and categories.

It would be great if the "images" under admin had a similar feature, especially for those times when you upload a whole lot of images automatically, or when you decide to reorganize your categories, adding some and deleting others.

Ideally it would work something like this, where _x_ means x is editable.

[img] _Title_ _Date_ _dropdownlist_of_categories_ filename.jpg _delete_

This would mean one would have to edit the old-fashioned way to add a text description or change the thumbnail, but everything else can be changed for several images at once, making the process a whole lot less painful.

So, does this exist? If not, should I post a separate add-on request? Is it something that would be appealing to others?

Thanks,

Sivani

[tinyblob]

Sivani, thanks for the URL i'll check it out later.
That's the basic premise i'm going with. Which will be useful for people like spazzwig, who will have a categories page in forefront.

Your solution might look something like this:

This image is 1/10 in the Studio category.
This image is also in the following categories:
Light | Colour | People | Portraits

But again, which category do you use as the default if one hasn't been passed in the URL?

I should really have coded this today...

[Sivani]

Originally Posted by tinyblob

But again, which category do you use as the default if one hasn't been passed in the URL?

Whichever was the last category passed, I would guess. If none were passed, use "all," which allows the standard pixelpost viewing through everything.

IOW, remember the last selected category.

If (selected_category==NULL):
selected_category="all"

[tinyblob]

I'm actively working on this addon as of today.. but it won't be released till after Pixelpost v1.5 debuts, as it is taking advantage of some new features which you'll all enjoy.
Those of you who have requested this mod, i'd appreciate dummy pages or fake screenshots to let me see how you're visualising this working for you. That way i can tailor the addon around your needs as preference.

[tinyblob]

Good news.
As of about 3 minutes ago, the main requirements of this Addon are now complete.

I'm successfully constraining image browsing on the main page to the current category. It breaks down as follows:

The "homepage" works as usual, unless a category is selected. If one has been selected, then only thumbnails from that category are displayed. Clicking the image takes you to the next image in that category.

There's a new tag, which creates text stating something along the lines of:

"This image is 1/20 in the [studio] category, it also belongs in [people], [portraits] and [mono]".

Which relates to the currently displayed image. Anything in square braces is a link.

I also added category descriptions, which are simply added as a tag, wherever you want them to display.

There are several possible ways to select categories.

You can use a tag to display them on the page, which pulls them from the database and formats them however you want. This solution is good because it's dynamic, and will obviously be updated when/if you add more categories. The addon allows you to add HTML.

You can hard code them in your template. Useful if you want to add graphics or whatever. This is a good solution for those that aren't going to add categories randomly, and who want to use an intricate design.

You can also get to them through the text which displays the categories the current image belongs to.

Although it's working, i'm still not finished with the addon. Thanks to our industrious leader, i'm working with a dev version of v1.5, so i should be able to release the addon very soon after v1.5 launches.

Expansion:
I'm going to be adding controls to the administration section. These MIGHT involve hacks to the normal pages, for example, adding category descriptions and possibly picking default categories when posting images. But we'll see how it goes.
I also MIGHT add facility to upload "header" graphics for categories, this would play nice alongside the descriptions. Again, we'll see.
Last but not least, i may add facility whereby a categories selection screen loads as default, rather than the current "home" page. For those of you that want category selection to be your main focus. People running portfolio sites or commercial websites might find this useful.

Note:
Apart from Sivani i've had NO direct feedback about this addon. Unless people let me know what they want and think, i'll be going with the bare minimum compliment of features that i think is suitable. There's a fair chance i wont even be using this addon myself. So please, let me know what you're thinking.

[Sivani]

Has anyone told you lately that you are a marvel?

It sounds as if you are doing a fantastic job; I can't wait until v1.5 is release ready.

(Any chance that this will be rolled into v1.5 along with some other addons like "New Copy Folder" etc?)

[tinyblob]

I would assume not. I imagine the addons released with Pixelpost are all written by the dev team. I'm not part of the team so it might be troublesome to chase up any problems that might exist.
Plus, i'm trying to make it modular.. Several addons, so people can pick and choose what they want. So it might be quite confusing to have a few addons in there. Plus, the category description "addon" will actually be a hack. So that wouldn't be included.
If the dev team want to include addons they will, but i imagine they'd want addons that had proven themselves over time.
I'll keep you posted.

[sal]

Hi tinyblob,
I haven't found the time to read a lot in this forum.
Now that I have some quiet minutes to read and write, I'm totally surprised how far the things have gone in this special thread...
You have completed the addon? Wow! I never thought that this could be done so quick. You must be a genious

Yes, I feel ashamed that I didn't spend much time here and offer help.
(In fact i could not help very much because I know almost nothing about that PHP stuff - I have completely trust in you.)
But I could have given some feedback...

Well, Sivani described it perfectly:

Is it possible to allow users to select a category and then let them browse through that category on the main page (image_template.html)? In other words, once a category has been selected, clicking the image would take them to the previous item within that category?

I couldn't say it better.

What you write know about your results sounds great.
I'm very curious and can't wait until its relaese...
I also tried your other addon (Category Thumbnails) and it works great out of the box.
So I'm sure, you made again a good job.
Thank you very much for spending your time on this...

regards
sal

[tinyblob]

once i've ironed out some bugs, i'll upload a preview version for you guys to look at

[spazzwig]

Wow, this looks great! A lot happened while I was gone... tinyblob you rock. This looks great.

Just wanted to get a kudos in now that I'm back. I'll post again after I've gathered my thoughts together.

Thanks again!