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  • lessbloat 4:03 pm on September 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
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    I sent two additional users through discovery cycle 1 on Friday afternoon. The four initial tests can be found here.

    User #5 through these scenarios

    Here’s the video, and my notes:

    Step two notes – Log in

    No problems.

    Step two notes – Explain what you see

    No problems.

    Step Three notes – Preview your blog

    Found it after a bit of trial and error

    Step Four notes – Change your background color

    5:20 – Yay! She was able to use the color picker.

    Step Five notes – Change your site title

    5:55 – No problems.

    Step Six notes – Add your first post

    6:42 – No problems. Used the “+ new” menu

    Step Seven notes – Preview your new post

    No problems.

    Step Eight notes – Publish an image

    9:40 – No problems – Another instance of a user literally copying and pasting the image into the visual editor.

    Recap

    Quickest user test so far. By far. Yay!!!!

    User #6 through these scenarios

    Here’s the video, and my notes:

    Step two notes – Log in

    • Takes 2 times to log in, but no problems.
    • She see’s the big IE is out of date notice.
    • 2:20 – “It’s a little distracting”, referring to dashboard in general.

    Step two notes – Explain what you see

    No problems.

    Step Three notes – Preview your blog

    No problems. Clicked link in welcome screen.

    Step Four notes – Change your background color

    • 3:30 – hunting and pecking through left nav
    • 5:00 – tries using color picker (which semi-works in IE7/8?), she selects a color from the right hue slider, but it doesn’t update the color. :-(
    • 5:50 – comes back a second time, and only see’s hex text box – user gives up.

    Step Five notes – Change your site title

    • 6:30 – User ends up in Appearance -> header (this is about the 3rd user out of 6 that have tried it here). Note: we need to add a link on this page.
    • 7:40 – Still trying to find it in appearance -> header
    • 8:24 – Finds it in settings -> general

    Step Six notes – Add your first post

    9:30 – IE7/8? woes adding title in “Add new post”

    Step Seven notes – Preview your new post

    No problems.

    Step Eight notes – Publish an image

    No problems.

    Recap

    • So we’ve still got problems with the color picker. I think it’s slightly unfair to judge this too critically since the user is using IE7, or 8?
    • I’m going to work up a quick patch to add a link to edit the users site title from the appearance -> header page.
     
    • toscho 11:10 am on September 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I think I will add the ability to edit the blog title on the header appearance page to my themes from now on. These videos are real eye-openers. :)

    • snaushads 7:15 pm on September 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Im new to Make WordPress, though ive been using wordpress for 2 yrs (not as a developer), I got to know how the UI is being worked upon by Matts “State of the Word 2012″.
      And yes the video made me realize that its not the way “i” think users use WordPress.
      How can i contribute as a non-programmer ?

      I understand the correct url would be: http://make.wordpress.org/ui/tag/discovery-cycle-1/

      Thanks.

  • lessbloat 3:52 am on August 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Ticket scrub notes 8/29

    Needs patch

    Ready to commit

    Has owner, needs patch

     
  • lessbloat 4:48 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment
    Tags: ,   

    Now that we’ve got a couple of rough patches (welcome screen, color picker, “view” my site) it’s time go back and test a few users in our first discovery cycle with these patches applied, and see if we’ve made any progress.

    Here’s the video, and here are my notes:

    Step two notes – Log in

    No problems.

    Step two notes – Explain what you see

    No problems.

    Step Three notes – Preview your blog

    • 4:00 – She’s looking for a link
    • 4:14 – “Oh here it is” – She clicks “Visit my blog” in toolbar (Win for “view” my site patch).

    Step Four notes – Change your background color

    • 5:45 – When asked to change the background color, she immediately (instinctively) clicked the big blue “customize my site” button (woot!).
    • 5:55 – she easily found the BG color option in the customizer.
    • 6:00 – Oh noooes, she found a bug in Iris (so painful to watch…)! clicking the right column of Iris does’t change the color in the text-field (After a bit of testing, it looks like if you click the right column first, before clicking the left gradient box, nothing happens. If you click, if you click the left box first, then the right column, it works as expected.) cc// @mattwiebe
    • 8:07 – “Each time I view my blog it gives me a slightly different picture”.
    • 9:10 – still trying to figure out why BG color isn’t changing – “I’m so confused”
    • 10:30 – Moved on without being able to figure out how to change BG color. :-(

    Step Five notes – Change your site title

    • 10:50 – Looking in Appearance -> Header for a place to change her site title (which really makes sense, we need to add a link there).
    • 11:10 – didn’t find it in Appearance -> Header, no she’s checking all up and down the left nav
    • 12:20 – Found it in the customizer
    • 12:30 – What the? She couldn’t add spaces? That is weird. There is a bug in one of the patches? cc// koopersmith can you spot any reason why this would be happening in one of the patches listed above?
    • 13:20 – “I’m very confused – I don’t know how I would insert spaces”
    • 14:22 – gave up without being able to add spaces…

    Step Six notes – Add your first post

    No problems.

    Step Seven notes – Preview your new post

    No problems.

    Step Eight notes – Publish an image

    She found how to upload the image – not going to worry about anything after that for now, since media manager is being revamped. We’ll do plenty of user testing on the new media manager once it’s complete.

    Recap

    • Bug in Iris prevented her from changing her background color
    • Can we please NOT have rotating header images in twenty twelve? None of the users we’ve tested have really comprehended what’s going on there.
    • We really should add a link on “Appearance -> Header” to “Settings -> General” to change their site title or tagline.
    • There was a bug in the customizer when she tried to update her site title which wouldn’t allow her to add spaces.

    I’d like to get the color picker bug fixed before I run another user through these changes, but overall, I’d say these patches have already really improved things for first-time users. Thoughts?

     
    • Amy Hendrix (sabreuse) 4:58 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I’m really excited about some of the improvements!

      (And Twenty Twelve doesn’t ship with any header image at all — if anything, we’ll be documenting that yes, you can add a header, and you don’t need to go to some scary code-snippet back alley to do so.)

    • Isaac Keyet 6:06 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Honestly it seemed like the main problem she had with changing colors was not the bug but that type of color picker altogether – a round color picker with the slider setting the black key (like the default apple picker) would probably be easier to comprehend for beginners. e.g.: http://cl.ly/image/061K1E1k2S2u

      • etoxin 7:42 am on August 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        It looks like the actual picker (in the square) is far too transparent. Maybe a small subtle animation on click could solve this or a darker colour.

        • etoxin 7:50 am on August 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          At 8:25 she gets the colour picker to work. Maybe simplify it to colour swatches and offer an advanced colour picker.

    • toscho 6:42 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      What a pleasant voice. :)

      It should be possible to change the site title in Appearance/Header without going to settings.

      And I think the pointer for media uploads is positioned a little bit too obtrusive. The Upload/Insert text is clear enough.

      • lessbloat 6:47 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        The fact that she saw that is a bug. That pointer shouldn’t even be showing unless they click the “Add images/media” link under the right column “Learn how to” section. I’ll look into suppressing that pointer unless they click that link. This implementation is just a stop-gap until we figure out how we want to connect the two related pointers. I didn’t want that to stop me from starting to test users, so I made a quick work-around (which unfortunately was buggy). ;-)

    • Peter Chester 6:49 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I get so happy reading this! Rock on!!!

    • John Blackbourn (johnbillion) 7:07 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Where did the “Install a new theme” pointer that popped up on step 5 come from?

      • lessbloat 7:12 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Same bug as @toscho mentioned. I had forgot a “!” in the pointer code. This one should have only been triggered when the user clicked the “Change your theme” link in the right column of the welcome screen. Instead of only showing those pointers when the user clicked those links, I was showing the pointers all of the time, unless the user clicked those links… ;-) Ah… what fun a missing “!” can cause.

        Anyhoo. This is fixed now on my testing install, and should be good to go for the next user test.

      • Konstantin Kovshenin 4:26 am on August 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Why was she taken to Appearante – Themes in the first place? She was on her Dashboard, she clicked Customize, she saved and closed, and should be returned to where she initially was, her Dashboard. I pronounced the same “whoops” she did when watching the video :)

        @koopersmith, I think we fixed “redirecting to where we came from” in the Customizer in 3.4? Did it break again or does it work for front-end only?

        • Daryl Koopersmith 5:20 am on August 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I think we fixed “redirecting to where we came from” in the Customizer in 3.4? Did it break again or does it work for front-end only?

          Neither — default behavior is to redirect to the manage themes page, and it doesn’t appear that these patches are using either of the methods that will cause the “return” action to redirect to another page.

          We have two different solutions to do so: one is a query arg (see the admin bar for an example) and the other is customize-loader.js, which uses HTML5 history to maintain page state (used in the theme browser).

        • lessbloat 9:00 am on August 28, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Good catch. Ya, it would be great if clicking close would take her back to the dashboard, instead of themes.php.

    • Diana 11:01 pm on September 9, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Greate material! I would like to reinforce some aspects :) :
      This color picker is really confusing for most people, the tinyMCE text color is way more helpful providing some colors right on click .
      In Customizing panel, the itens should be separated by area such Header, Content, Background etc , though this is more a theme author approach?!
      Title and Description should stay within Header options, (not link to Settings).
      The “Insert into post” button should be blue.
      Most people access Dashboard instead using the left menu itens, then I think this panel should display icons/links for those panels with some short description. (People are afraid of going somewhere they can’t go back :D )

  • lessbloat 1:04 pm on August 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to leave a Comment  

    Ticket scrub notes for 8/21

    Patches needed

    Status update

     
    • Helen Hou-Sandi 7:07 pm on August 27, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I just realized that I never made meeting notes for the week, but this is not far from being them, so I will leave it alone. Just want to note that seeing the on-time progress on the welcome screen/panel and color picker by all involved parties was awesome! And also Sergey’s patch for page on front :) UI group rocks!

  • Helen Hou-Sandi 9:29 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink
    Tags:   

    Meeting summary for 8/14 

    Note: meeting on 8/7 did not really happen, as many were traveling or otherwise out of commission post-WCSF.

    Meeting was largely focused on status check of various items and really bearing down on assignments and breaking down tasks into what can be realistically accomplished within a given time period (the next week) so we can regularly check in. Setting the goal is not the maximum that can be achieved – only the minimum. Things finished early or with aplomb are highly encouraged :)

    • Welcome screen/panel refinements are still chugging along after @lessbloat‘s paternity leave (CONGRATS). Latest iteration at http://make.wordpress.org/ui/2012/07/24/welcome-screen-design-v2/#comment-22349. Discussed possibly having different paths based on whether or not a static front page is assigned. @lessbloat, @melchoyce, and @chexee are looking at the UX/language side. @sabreuse and @georgestephanis are on the dev side. Would like UX/language nailed down before next meeting and rough patch started. Testing can start anytime there’s something testable. Dev-wise, all hook-ability issues should be addressed this go-round. Tickets: #21368, #21331
    • Color picker. @mattwiebe and Devin Price worked on this at WCSF dev day, going with integrating Automattic’s open source Iris color picker, and will continue to work together toward a patch. @mattwiebe worked with us directly on some UI/UX picking and will continue to refine. Designers welcome to take a look and give feedback as well. @koopersmith is on JS consult. We should be able to knock out the consistency issue while we’re at it. Would like to see basic implementation in at least one place (settings screen or customizer – both are needed for final product) by next week. Tickets: #21206 and #19616
    • Cookies are on offer for a solid patch on #16379. There are some finer details that need consideration, such as editing screens and title + slug. More details in the IRC log: https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=wordpress-ui&day=2012-08-14&sort=asc#m51505
    • @tddewey put up a nice big patch for the remainder of the admin UI images needing HiDPI treatment on #21019. Leaving this to @azaozz for review and dropping in, now that gradients are in and extraneous images have been deleted.
    • I (@helenyhou) am on #21391 as my singular dev task – using the post edit screen for attachment editing, and any CPT support and edit screen enhancements that come with. It is quite full of rabbit holes. Would love a dev partner or two (or more) on this – have some leads now thanks to dev chat.
    • Media. @koopersmith is working on making those lovely wireframes a reality. @azaozz working on preview in the editor: #21585
    • Bonus item: UI/UX guidelines for plugins and themes. Discussion stemming from http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/08/help-us-help-wordpress/, with a rough potential document started by @melchoyce at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZWPeUSFVYlMxClmHFjuAXuekXcZsLso49G3bDRquHcs/edit. Would just like to see how this might pan out in terms of a publishable document. Will be leaving my own comments over on Smashing Mag.

    Reminder: devs should ideally be focused on one large item at any given moment. Working on your own pet projects and roaming around is always fine, but would prefer to stay away from overcommitment, especially for point people. This includes me :)

     
    • Kurt Payne 6:51 am on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      @helenyhou I can help with #21391!

      • Helen Hou-Sandi 1:09 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        YAY! I will hit you up soon, then. I’ve also got blobaugh, maybe jeremyfelt, maybe tw2113, and possibly tomauger (although I think he is on the ImageMagick stuff as well; trying to avoid doubling up).

    • Shane Pearlman 11:43 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks Helen, stoked to participate in brainstorming. Will work on the document.

      Things that we often debate that would be fantastic to get guidance:

      • When do you combine content into a single meta panel in a post type vs create a new meta panel?
      • When do you create a new submenu vs combine into a submenu
      • What is the proper ux for condensing long settings / form content (tabs?)
      • Thoughts on advance form permutations > thinks like chosen and select 2 which are wonderful aids, but aren’t standardized
      • Inline documentation styles

      • Helen Hou-Sandi 12:38 am on August 17, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        To be honest, I don’t think it is possible to provide be-all-end-all documentation on the first four items. The documentation would amount to something like “do what feels right and makes sense for your situation” – we can’t possibly expect software-specific guidelines to actually teach what usability means and what creating usable interfaces entails. That’s the issue that I sense will be run into in the end: we can have guidelines for the WordPress community, and we can create awareness via guidelines, but they are not a proper medium for a crash course in human-computer interaction. However, I’d love to be proven wrong, so please do work on the document, and perhaps try to find a time to have an actual discussion beyond notes on said document.

        Inline documentation styles sounds like something that could be looked at, though, and current core usages documented and ideas proposed for extension cases those don’t cover. What we really need is to get bodies on http://dotorgstyleguide.wordpress.com/ (or move it somewhere we can put more people on) and work on items that fall under the current style guide umbrella directly.

  • Chelsea Otakan 2:51 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink
    Tags: help, screen options   

    We did some brainstorming at Dev Day today around improving the Help and Screen Options tabs in the admin. Keep in mind nothing here is a final decision, just some exploration of what we thought would be easy wins to make these tabs more useful.

    Here are the problems with them right now:

    • Most users are blind to these tabs.
    • The labels and positioning give little indication as to what these tabs actually do.
    • For a lot of users, Help is not that helpful.
    • They’re position in the admin creates yet another point of navigation for users to be aware of (and per #1, most of them aren’t).
    • The very wide container for text makes a lot of the help text difficult to read.

    Here are some of the possibilities we brainstormed (see notes below image):

    Ideas:

    • Adding icons to these tabs would (hopefully) both make these tabs more visible and give a better indication as to what these tabs too.
    • Moving these to the right side of the toolbar would give even more context to what these do, as they would be grouped with other user-specific settings.
    • (6) The toolbar dropdown would allow for a slimmer content area for better readability.
    • (7) The slimmer content area would let us make screen options read like a list for better scannability.
    • (4/5) Putting the gear on the upper right would standardise with several other web apps (Twitter, etc).

    We discussed possible changes to the labels:

    • Screen Options -> Screen Preferences
    • Help -> Screen Help
    • (3) Removing the Screen Options label altogether and only showing the icon (since the gear icon is so universally recognised). Possible expanding this to Help.

    I did a hi-fi mockup of what the new Help dropdown might look like:

     
    • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:41 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      My only worry is that makes the menu bar very crowded. A lot if plugins add to that :/ The 2 b mockups I like because you could change the color and make them more visible. Pop a little :)

    • GrahamArmfield 9:42 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Coming from an accessibility perspective I’d favour the combination of icons and words. But I don’t have a strong view about the positioning of the links – existing location/toolbar.

      There is a Trac ticket open (See #21326) about making the screen options more accessible to sighted keyboard users and screen reader users. I believe this has been accepted into 3.5. Any further changes to the functionality must ensure that the information and options are keyboard accessible and keyboard operable as appropriate. If a panel is to be used to contain the information it is important that focus is transferred to an appropriate place within that panel and that the tab order of any options makes sense. Will ‘Close Panel’ links be included at the bottom of the options/help?

      • Chelsea Otakan 6:25 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        If we chose an approach with icons only, we would still leave and text in the DOM (we could use text-indent to hide the text) for screen reader compatibility. Ref: http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/standard-css-image-replacement/

        “Any further changes to the functionality must ensure that the information and options are keyboard accessible and keyboard operable as appropriate. If a panel is to be used to contain the information it is important that focus is transferred to an appropriate place within that panel and that the tab order of any options makes sense. Will ‘Close Panel’ links be included at the bottom of the options/help?”

        AFAIK the current toolbar is keyboard accessible. It would theoretically use a lot of the same code as the current Toolbar and the current Help module. Since the menu item would now be above the content of the Help and Screen Options modules in the DOM http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21326 would be easier to resolve with the above approach.

        We could add “Close Panel” or “Dismiss” links, but, since I’m not familiar with this aspect accessibility, what’s the reasoning behind adding them?

    • Andrea Rennick 2:54 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      On the other end, we’re making sure pages will be available in the codex to be able to link to them in screens like this, to explain to the user what those screens actually DO.

    • JerrySarcastic 9:59 pm on August 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I like having the gear icon at the top right; it’s definitely a convention that users of social media, gmail, and other apps are becoming used to, so big thumb’s up on #4 and #5.

      In general I think moving Screen Options and Help to the menu bar is a big win. This is an area the user is already aware of and associates with performing various tasks in the dashboard, plus the visual contrast of the icons (and/or text label) against the dark background makes visual acquisition much easier.

      Staying with tabs, but giving them an icon (and perhaps a background color) helps address the issue of their invisibility, but not as effectively as moving them to the menu bar, IMHO.

      • Cliff Seal 7:39 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I agree with your reasoning and like 4 and 5 as well. The cog and the question mark are common enough to use alone (since accessibility is obviously being addressed), and I’d love to see the cog be the farthest thing to the right, followed by the question mark to the left, and then the ‘Howdy…’. As much tradition as the latter holds, it’s the least important, and could hypothetically be condensed to an avatar or profile icon itself to preserve space.

        I’ve rarely seen a new WordPress user even notice the existence of the ‘Screen Options’ as it is now. I think integrating it into the bar’ll help tremendously!

    • Cliff Seal 8:06 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Even if we hide the wording in favor of the cog/gear icon, what’s the reason we don’t use ‘View Options’ or something of that sort instead of using the word ‘screen’? Seems like it would be more suitable for what the options actually are.

    • Chelsea Otakan 10:35 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Thanks for all your feedback guys!

      Here’s an iteration for the screen options dropdown. According to some discussion, I rearranged the nav on the right side so the gear is on the far right.

      I also opened a ticket for this enhancement in 3.5 here: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21583

      • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 10:47 pm on August 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Wow… It’s amazing when you see something that simple and think ‘Yes, why doesn’t it look more like that?’

        Can we make the gear a more standout color? Right now one of the (many) issues is people just don’t see it.

      • JerrySarcastic 1:13 am on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Looks great! What’s the concept behind the Settings sub-menu? Interesting idea…

      • Chelsea Otakan 1:33 am on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Sorry, I completely spaced on explaining that. *headdesk*

        On Dev Day, we chatted about adding links to relevant settings screens that would show up at the bottom of the menu and including hooks so plugins can do the same.

        This way, we can allow easy access to global WordPress settings from this menu on relevant screens.

        • JerrySarcastic 4:33 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Ah, gotcha. I think it’s a great idea, but one that will need some context; if I’m a new user, I may not *get* what these settings do without a little explanation.

          That said, I’m all for finding a way to make relavent settings available. They can get a little buried in the Settings area of the dashboard. I know this is a point of frustration for the users I introduce to WordPress.

          • Chelsea Otakan 4:54 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            I agree and think that’s also an overall problem with the nomenclature and labeling of the Settings screen :)

            I’ve thought a bit about this, but would love to hear any suggestions for better labels for the Settings screens. Its definitely something our users struggle with.

            • Cliff Seal 3:11 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink

              I wonder if we should label (what was) Screen Options as ‘Admin Options’ or ‘View Options’ and the links to the General Settings as ‘Global Settings’, or something of that nature. I *love* giving more intuitive access to the latter like this. Well done!

        • Stephen Harris 4:46 pm on August 18, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          That’s a really good idea. My only concern is that the options tab always kept you on the same page – and these will navigate you away from it . Might user’s confuse the screen settings with the site wide ones? I suppose this is the almost the same point Jerry was making. Maybe add a label ‘Site Settings’?

          Great work though – it’s looking great!

      • Chelsea Otakan 4:52 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I’m not sold on the colors, but if the overall layout and concept seems good (so far most of the feedback has been positive) I think I’ll start working on a patch this week.

      • Joen Asmussen 6:52 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I love this. I really love this. Vast improvement over the “Screen options” tab.

        One teensy niggle, perhaps, is the contextual settings “quick links”. To a new user, several different links that lead to the same thing can be confusing. The user might ponder which link is the “right” link (even if the links lead to the same). The settings menu can be a hunt and peck experience, that’s a challenge entirely on its own. But adding the links here to alleviate that feels a little bit like a bandaid.

    • Ryan Duff 1:37 am on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I skimmed, so forgive me if it was already mentioned and I missed it… but assuming this would fall back to current way if they have the admin bar disabled?

      ie. if admin bar was enabled for the current user, the links would be there and the old tab interface for screen options / help would be hidden, but if the admin bar was disabled (either across the board or for the current user, they tabs would be present so the options are available still?

      I’m a huge fan of the admin bar, but *still* run across client sites, themes, plugins, etc that just disable it for no good reason. Sad, but those use cases need to be considered as well.

      Otherwise, I love the way this looks and thinks it makes total sense to move them up there.

      • Andrew Nacin 4:01 am on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        The toolbar can only be disabled for the frontend, as it is integrated into the admin. Screen options and help are only available in the admin. So disabling it won’t have any effect.

        • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:20 am on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          To be fair, there are plugins and functions people use to disable it more. From what I’ve seen they do it not for the admins, but for the people who don’t need all that stuff and are just users. I think for those who disable it, it shouldn’t be a big loss, but it would cement that they’re going to have to start adapting to the over a year old new way.

          • Helen Hou-Sandi 1:10 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            If you disable the toolbar entirely, you can’t log out. I hope people are not still doing that, because that’s not a good idea.

            • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 3:07 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink

              There’s a plugin out there that puts the logout on the side-menu of the admin screen. I remember it coming up when people screamed about the toolbar being the only way to log out. I’m not delving back into the crazy pants of why we suck for requiring the toolbar. ;)

      • JasonBC 8:35 pm on August 19, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I think that’s a valid concern. I have one site that doesn’t show the toolbar in single post view and I’ve seen others who’ve had problems with it disappearing from the font and back-ends.

  • Helen Hou-Sandi 1:12 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink
    Tags:   

    Meeting summary for 7/31 

    Logs: https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=wordpress-ui&day=2012-07-31&sort=asc#m49644

    • Media wireframes: look at them if you haven’t yet, and leave feedback. Development breakdowns and work will happen in #wordpress-dev when we get there, for the development-minded. WCSF dev day will also be a forum for more discussion for those who are there, and we will be vigilant about sharing those conversations publicly. Tickets to keep an eye on: #21390 and #21391
    • Accessibility is still a big need in terms of expertise and hands on deck, and there are plenty of tasks with UI implications. Discuss on the post if you’re interested or have knowledge when it comes to making things accessible on the web (screenreaders and non-mouse users, for instance) or hit up @sabreuse, who is helping shepherd efforts. Also keep an eye on Make Accessibility.
    • Welcome screen v2 is also still in wireframe and copy feedback stage. We need to drop the Spotlight/Alfred/Quicksilver search thing in terms of core development this cycle (sorry, we know how cool it is) and focus on iterating on the panel that is there. We also need go back to focusing on new user experience (NUX) and initial walkthroughs/links for now. The ideas have been great, and are not being thrown away by any means – we just need to focus so that we can actually get something done in time. Who knows, if we move fast, and get user testing rolling, we might be able to look at more iterations (and toss in a hook to make a plugin for the Spotlight thing possible) :)

    And finally, a reminder that open office hours are every weekday at 19:00 UTC (3PM EDT). #wordpress-ui is always open for discussions, but if you’re a little more nervous about just poking your head in or want to schedule something with a group, it’s a great time to do just that!

     
  • Mark Jaquith 9:30 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink
    Tags: Development, HiDPI, Retina   

    How to Develop for HiDPI (“Retina”) without a Retina MacBook Pro 

    We’re working on HiDPI (“Retina”) support for WordPress. Of course, most people don’t have a Retina MacBook Pro at their disposal. So here’s how OS X-using WordPress developers can do HiDPI development without dropping $3,000 US on a laptop.

    What you need

    • OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
    • A monitor, with a resolution of at least 2048×1536 (probably just 27- and 30-inch monitors)
    • An Apple developer account

    Steps to enable HiDPI mode

    1. Click here and log in with your Apple developer account.
    2. Find “Graphics Tools for Xcode” (the latest version offered) and download the DMG.
    3. When the DMG opens, drag the contents somewhere (I put them in /Applications/Xcode Tools/).
    4. Launch the “Quartz Debug” app (this is the only one you need, so you can get rid of the other ones if you like).
    5. Press ⌘2 or go to Window > UI Resolution.
    6. Check the “Enable HiDPI display modes” checkbox.
    7. Log out of OS X (⇧⌘Q), then log back in.
    8. Pull up your Displays preferences pane ( > System Preferences > Displays).
    9. Check the “Scaled” radio button.
    10. Look for the highest resolution mode listed that says “(HiDPI)” after it, and select that.
    11. Lean way, way, way back in your chair and apply a saline solution to your eyeballs.

    You can now use Safari 6+ or Chrome 21+ to view your WordPress development site and do HiDPI development. Note that while you can do this with lower resolution screens, I’m not sure I’d recommend it — it’d be very cramped.

     
    • Clifford P 9:37 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi Mark. Great topic! I wrote this article not too long ago: http://wpmu.org/wordpress-retina/ Good article.

    • Russell Jamieson 10:05 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Many Thanks Mark, you saved me $3k on replacing by MacBook and gave me some more good reasons to upgrade to Mountain Lion and ditch my 24 inch monitor.

      Russell

      PS
      My new motto for WordPress themes and plugins is:

      If it ain’t responsive, it’s dead!

    • Pete Schuster 10:49 am on August 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      If you’re installing Xcode you can also check out retina elements with the iPhone (retina) and iPad(retina) selections in the device options in the simulator app. It’s not going to give you full screen, but you can check your dpi media queries.

  • Daryl Koopersmith 4:03 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink
    Tags: ,   

    Media Wireframes 

    Over the past week or so, I’ve worked closely with @lessbloat (Dave), @nacin, and @markjaquith to create a set of media workflows that will hopefully serve as a foundation and guide for the improvements in this release. (This is the fifth version of these wireframes — you can see the first four on Dave’s site.)

    The usual disclaimers: None of this is final. These are wireframes, so please focus your feedback on the experience, not the aesthetics. As for scope, we are focusing our changes on improving the modal experience. This focuses on the overall picture; not all of this will necessarily make it into the final release.

    So, without further ado…

    Wireframes and workflows — fullscreen recommended.

    The media library.

    The media library, while uploading three files.

    The attachment details screen.

    Relevant Trac tickets: #21390, #21391.

     
    • Scott Kingsley Clark 4:16 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Yes! WP 3.5 is easily the most anticipated release for me in a long while. This is beautiful!

    • Mel Choyce 4:18 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Looking good! I just noticed one thing missing — on the attachment details screen, there’s no longer an option for linking an image to a specific URL (like to another site).

      • Vitor Carvalho 4:20 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Maybe because you can do it in the editor, selecting the image and then click on “link button” which will give you more options than the ones you had before.

      • Andrew Nacin 4:22 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Not a deliberate omission — thanks for pointing that out. We should definitely look into making that UI support a custom URL.

        • krogsgard 5:34 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I’d love to see an option to link to the parent post as well (or current post if media won’t include a direct attachment relationship anymore). This isn’t included now, but it’s a great time to add the ability, or at least a hook, which I don’t think is there now.

          Absolutely incredible work y’all. This is really, really great.

      • Russell Heimlich 4:59 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        +1 for this. We use this feature a lot. Uploading an image then copying the URL of the image for use in a widget or somewhere else. If it were easy to select an image from the media library and reference the URL in something like a widget, that would be great as well.

        • Daryl Koopersmith 5:14 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Ah, I think you and Mel are talking about two different things (using a custom url when linking the image to in the post, versus the showing the permalink to the image itself), but you also have a point.

      • bradyvercher 5:20 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        +1 for me, too. I’d like to be able to save a custom URL for each image and have that available as an option when inserting a gallery. I’ve found it useful for linking thumbnails to PDFs or press photos to external websites.

      • Brady Vercher 5:39 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        This is looking pretty sweet! Great job so far. I had a couple of thoughts that might be outside the scope of this refresh, but would be nice to consider:

        Embedding the media iframe directly on a CPT edit screen (or potentially the gallery post format) without having to open the media popup would be killer. Inserting a gallery into the post editor doesn’t always make sense.

        Allowing a target field for the “Insert” button would be quite helpful for inserting an image into a widget or option field. Being able to specify whether the image URL, ID, or maybe a JSON object is returned would be even better. And can the “Insert” label be filterable?

        I’ve found it fairly difficult to re-crop an automatically cropped thumbnail and have it link back to the original image.

        Anyways, I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

    • Vitor Carvalho 4:19 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Fantastic concept! This new release will give us a good reason to not install any other gallery plugin. :)

      • wlindley 12:42 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Unless you want to do something automatic, instead of manually. The AutoNav plugin, for example lets you resize thumbnails on-the-fly: [autonav display="attached" size="200x175"]… or sort by different fields (date, title), or automatically display the first few attachments, or display attachments from other posts according to their tags or category… things which are “reactive” as you change other things in the site, versus this UI which lets you manually control everything. Both can be useful.

    • Mert Yazicioglu 4:20 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I really like it, looks like the media management aspect of WordPress will finally get some love :)

      One question though, what happens when an image is clicked seem to differ from one action to another. I personally prefer this method but would that confuse the new users is what is bugging me.

      • Andrew Nacin 5:16 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        It does differ, for sure. But we also think this will be intuitive, depending on what the user is trying to do. The different actions are glaring in the slide deck, but I doubt it will be as obvious when you’re actually using it.

        There’s also a “Back” button, and we intend for these dialogs to be lightning-fast, not full page reloads, so it’s easy to return to where you left off.

        But that said, this will all get heavily user-tested. And so if we find that we need to make modifications to our hover/click/next workflow, we will adjust it for sure.

    • Ben Huson 4:20 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I think the wireframes look really good.

      I particularly like the status to indicate the current selection.

      Not 100% convinced on the infinite scrolling but that may just be because I am used to paging – I like having the option of being able to browse the image library but easily jump forward huge jumps, or to the last page etc.

      Noticed one thing missing – there is currently an advanced tab when you edit an image which allows you to change classes etc.

      Also, it wasn’t clear what “Create a Gallery” does and wether you can create multiple galleries?

      • Andrew Nacin 4:31 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        No, that Advanced tab is going to go away. That entire dialog goes through TinyMCE’s media handling, which makes for some awkward asymmetry. As implied in the “Edit an image” section, it opens the WP “Edit Media” window, not a TinyMCE window.

        We discussed this pretty extensively. If you want to set things like CSS classes, custom styles, borders, horizontal/vertical padding, etc., you should be opening the Text (HTML) editor and doing it yourself. There’s no need for a UI for this. It’s been quite the hidden UI (and a confusing one at that), so this isn’t much of a loss.

        • thenbrent 6:45 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          you should be opening the Text (HTML) editor and doing it yourself

          Praise! Ditch redundant UI.

        • Sheri Bigelow 2:33 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          If you want to set things like CSS classes, custom styles, borders, horizontal/vertical padding, etc., you should be opening the Text (HTML) editor and doing it yourself.

          I don’t know. From my experience working with WP.com users, here are the things I think users will most miss from the advanced options:

          • Custom URL (I think you’ve already said it was overlooked and should be there)
          • Featured Image (looks like you’re adding that back too)
          • Alt text (accessibility-wise, it’s really not the same as title or description)
          • Explicit size settings (users use way more size options than the Settings → Media presets offer)
          • Border
          • Target
      • Andrew Nacin 4:36 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Yes, this will likely support multiple galleries in some way. I think multiple galleries are really important when telling a story with photos — we’ll see what we’re able to do.

        • Simon Wheatley (Code for the People) 4:56 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I think you are, but to check: do you & Koop envisage being able to add one attachment to more than one gallery, i.e. break the requirement for an attachment to be the child of a post in order to feature in a gallery on that post? (That would be cool… and I have some code to do it, but you won’t like it as it’s serialised in a meta.)

          • Daryl Koopersmith 5:06 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            In a word, yes. We’re thinking of using the current post_parent-based connection to mean “this media item was uploaded to this post object”, and changing galleries to be an explicit list of IDs (using the existing shortcode). We discussed this a bit in dev chat last week.

            • Ben Huson 7:40 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink

              Could galleries basically be a ‘gallery’ taxonomy for media or is an explicit list of IDs better?

            • Andrew Nacin 8:52 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink

              @Ben We discussed this, and think that it would be better for now to continue with the ‘transient’ galleries, rather than moving to persistence with galleries as a taxonomy. We’d rather not conflate workflow changes with underlying schema changes, and a few of us don’t think that galleries necessarily work best as a simple taxonomy (as you only get a description out of it, for example). This is something a plugin can do for now. Ideally we’ll revisit it in the long-term.

            • Ben Huson 9:03 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink

              Makes sense.

            • Ben Huson 9:04 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink

              … maybe when we have taxonomy meta in core? ;)

            • Peter Chester 3:31 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink

              +1 on @Ben’s p.s. about taxonomy meta :)

          • Andrew Nacin 5:08 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            This is actually already doable. When you do [gallery include="1,2,3"] there is no requirement for those images to be attached to the current post. We’ll be piggybacking on that.

        • GreenDiablo 3:03 pm on August 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Love the new concept for the Media Library and the fact that multiple galleries are supported and you can select the images that go into the gallery (not mandated anymore by the images that are uploaded to a post)! Great job on the wires!

          Would love to get more involved and help work on UX/UI. Where do I best get started to help work on concepts etc. even in the early stages?

    • Brian Richards 4:21 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is AB-SO-LUTE-LY amazing! Great work to everyone involved so far!

      Flipping through these, I think you guys have covered the entirety of what I was hoping to see in the media upload enhancements. I’m very excited :)

      As I was thinking about all the changes this weekend I pondered about the possibility of incorporating a drop-zone within the Featured Image metabox itself, so a user can drag-n-drop an image directly into the Featured Image metabox and it will upload and be set as featured. It’s likely this was already discussed somewhere and I missed it.

      If not, would you say that action falls in line with the rest of these changes?

      • Daryl Koopersmith 4:25 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Glad you like it! We’ve discussed integrating dropzones and other media bits outside the editor and decided that would be a bit too much for 3.5… but an easy first step will be to make the “choose a new x” buttons dropzones as well.

        As for featured images, depending on what we do with thumbnails, there’s a chance we’ll run them through the crop step as well.

        • Nick 9:17 am on August 10, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          If using a drop zone for the Featured Image metabox is too much for 3.5, might I suggest automatically setting the image as a featured image if the user opened the media window by clicking on the “Set featured image” link in the featured image metabox?

          The current workflow for setting a featured image (Click “set featured image”, upload the image in the media popover, scroll down and click “use as featured image” after it’s uploaded) is one that new users of WordPress seem to consistently trip up over, from my testing. (They forget the last step and wonder why the image isn’t listed as featured when they close the media window; they have already told WordPress that they’d like to set a featured image, after all.) Removing the need to click “set as featured image” would improve usability a great deal.

          Love the new changes, though. Great work!

    • Andrew Nacin 4:21 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I’ve had the opportunity to do in-person walkthroughs of this slide deck with a number of people who work with WordPress regularly, including @matt, a UX expert, a journalist, two developers, and a blogger. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

      It is great to have distinctive steps for the user, especially since they can jump into a specific dialog (such as jumping straight to the “Edit Media” screen from TinyMCE). However, when it comes to implementation, the screens are tightly coupled —

      One question I was asked (@matt brought it up, in particular) is at what point does a caption save to the DB against the attachment, and at what point is it stored only in the post (and no longer syncs)? @markjaquith, @koopersmith, and I literally spent a number of hours discussing this issue, and how it relates to the usefulness of attachment pages, etc. I *do* think there is a way to implement this seamlessly and intuitively, without forcing users to make a decision on where, when, or how something gets saved. (It should “Just work.”)

      Ultimately, we’re just going to have to put our heads together to work this out. And so I intend to have a discussion and resolution on this at the WordCamp SF Hack Day on Sunday.

      You’ll note that “Title” and “Description” are now omitted from the Insert/Edit Media screen. That is intentional, given how ridiculous it is to have four fields here, when these two apply only to attachment pages. See #21391 on how we hope to improve this by separating the UIs.

      • Archetyped 6:00 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Great wireframes and great discussion thus far! This is probably something that many have wanted to see get an overhaul (myself included). Here’s a suggestion for handling instance-based media properties (e.g. caption, etc):

        The main difference is that selected images are displayed at the top. This is done for a few reasons:

        • Images to be inserted are clearly defined – when selected images are inline with entire media library, they can easily get lost in the noise– especially with infinite scrolling.
        • Changing order of selected images is straightforward – it’s not immediate obvious to users how to change the order of the selected images when they are inline with the rest of the media library. Will I be able to drag them around? Will moving an image affect its position in the media library as a whole?
        • Instance-based properties are made available only for selected images – For example, caption property can set once the image is selected. There is no reason for it to be accessible prior to this and it is clear that the properties being set affect the current instance of the media to be inserted (i.e. not saved to the DB).
        • Enables multiple instances of the same media to be inserted – An edge case, yes, but it also removes an arbitrary limit on how a user can build their content.

        Again, great work all, I look forward to seeing this progress!

        • Archetyped 6:12 am on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Just a quick note regarding handling large quantities of selected images in the top area. There are several potential solutions, a few of which are:

          Carousel/slider display – Horizontally scroll through images.

          • Pro: Maintains a fixed amount of vertical spaced used by selected images to allow for maximal area for browsing through media library
          • Con: Can take time to horizontally scroll through many images

          Expand-o button – Hide selected images until done selecting all desired images. Then hit button (e.g. placed near “3 images selected” element) and grid of selected images takes center stage.

          • Pro: Allows quick and easy management of large amounts of selected images and keeps selected images out of the way until needed
          • Con: Requires an additional click to manage selected images

          Horizontal Row + Expand-o button – A combo of the best of both worlds. Display a single row of selected images, but hide additional images when more items than can be displayed until the “show all” button is clicked.

          • Pro: Small amounts of selected images can be easily managed without any additional clicks
          • Con: Requires an additional click for large amounts of images
    • Isaac Keyet 4:23 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Amazing work here. Even without a complete overhaul, the main window for browsing existing media library content or uploading new, which also combines a “shortcut” to create a gallery would be enough of an improvement going into 3.5.

      Some things I noticed/wished for while viewing the slideshow:

      • Edit image modal should probably have a Delete button to keep it consistent with the zoomed out view and it’s options – if Edit image is the expanded options it should have the same functions as the thumbnail and then some.
      • Since every upload to WP adds the media to the Media Library, it would make more sense (and save space) to have the “drop area” be the first item in the list from the media library, it would also help make the transition to showing uploads in progress make more sense.
      • Love the insert media button from the post editor itself, that addition in itself is a huge step towards increased usability. I’d argue it should be a part of the formatting toolbar though – especially if we’re going to fork TinyMCE.

      More to come, will need to let this settle for a bit.

      • Devin Reams 4:29 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Love the insert media button from the post editor itself, that addition in itself is a huge step towards increased usability.

        It looks nice but not sure how it’d work with multiple “types” of things to insert (forms, polls, other plugin features).

        • Andrew Nacin 4:38 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          We’re really just styling the existing link + icon as a button, so I don’t think this is much of an addition, or how it’d affect other forms of media.

        • Isaac Keyet 4:40 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          It’s true that it doesn’t really scale. Ultimately though, you’re inserting something into the body of a post, to me that should mean that it should be in the formatting toolbar itself (tinyMCE).

          In the meantime Insert/Upload Media could receive special treatment and be the only button there, while “secondary” options that plugins would add could be styled the old way with a label on the left.

      • Andrew Nacin 4:41 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        A few thoughts:

        • The problem with “Delete” is, what does it mean? Does it mean you want to remove that image from the post, or do you want to delete it from the media library? What if you have it inserted in other posts or included in other galleries? “Edit Image” (as in, cropping, etc.) has its own troubles in this regard as well. We need to be careful not to conflate different things.
        • We considered this. But since that pane will scroll, you lose a persistent location for uploads. It doesn’t make sense. The nice thing about the persistent left location is that it can be used across a number of screens, and have a contextual response depending on the screen. For example, if you’re actively creating a gallery, your uploaded image can be added directly to that gallery.
        • Daryl Koopersmith 4:45 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          But since that pane will scroll, you lose a persistent location for uploads.

          This is the main issue with using the dropzone as the first item (we debated it for quite a while). Also, on multisite, the dropzone is accompanied by several lines of text (space remaining, acceptable filetypes, etc), so squeezing that all into a single item would be a bit cramped.

          • Andrew Ozz 2:53 am on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            Imho the whole area should be upload drop-zone. Makes the most sense to drop images straight in the library, where the other uploaded images are (consistent with moving images from one folder to another on MacOS or WIndows).

            A Select Files button can be at the top for users that prefer to click something or use non-html5 browsers. Don’t see a problem if button is hidden when the page is scrolled down, the users would know where to find it.

            Alternatively can have a persistent (position: fixed) toolbar, much like the toolbar on other admin screens where the Upload button would be. Also good place for Help button, search etc.

          • Andrew Ozz 2:56 am on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            This would make the whole layout cleaner too. No need for thin “sidebar” and small drop-zone that might be hard to hit when dragging.

        • Isaac Keyet 4:47 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          • To me it’s just a matter of labeling the delete action correctly, could even have different removal options and have primary and secondary removal actions. Default is to Remove from post, secondary Remove from Media Library (the latter should have a profound warning about the implications of removing the item from the media library). Image editing options “delete” button could simply be “reset”.
          • Regardless we need to consider smaller screen devices from the start, this layout assumes a wide computer screen. Uploaded media items on a selected post are automatically attached to the post, so why not have this be the selected section where you could compile your gallery? It would also be the perfect place to display help text like “You have not attached any media yet, upload or select from library below”.
          • Daryl Koopersmith 5:01 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            Regardless we need to consider smaller screen devices from the start, this layout assumes a wide computer screen.

            Absolutely — most of this UI can be built in a responsive/reactive fashion. Mobile-sized screens will likely need a few extra changes, but hopefully we can make that experience just as smooth.

            Uploaded media items on a selected post are automatically attached to the post, so why not have this be the selected section where you could compile your gallery? It would also be the perfect place to display help text like “You have not attached any media yet, upload or select from library below”.

            • We’ve been discussing changing the meaning of “attaching” a media item to a post object (see last week’s dev chat for details).
            • Since we’re also looking to support multiple galleries in a post, we can’t immediately jump from batch upload to the gallery UI.
            • Help text and good copy will be key here.
        • Brian Richards 5:04 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I think the “Delete” action could be handled most simply by a confirmation modal for the user, “Are you sure you want to permanently delete this image from your entire site?” and then give them three very clear options, “Cancel”, “No, just remove it from this post”, “Yes, delete it site-wide”. We could even humanize it further by making the site-wide delete a red button.

          • Daryl Koopersmith 5:09 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            Permanent delete will have to be well marked, that’s for sure. I dislike the idea of conflating both under a single “delete” action, though — that will only add to the confusion. Instead, we can just label each accordingly (we deal with “remove” versus “delete” in several other places in core in a similar fashion).

      • Isaac Keyet 5:49 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Some quick thoughts in images (playing with this).

        Uploading an image from the post editor has only one purpose, you want to use it in the post you’re editing somehow, most likely creating a gallery. This UI would be a better way to keep an overview of what you’ve done so far, and if you’re adding old images from the library even getting an overview of what’s selected and what’s not is going to be hard (imagine if you’ve “infinite scrolled” 2-3 page folds down, only way to get an overview then is to go to the gallery tab).

        Uploading media/inserting individual image. The last uploaded item(s) should be to the left, to origin from the drop zone. Assuming ascending sorting.

        Many attached items, some selected from library

        • lessbloat 6:33 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          A couple thoughts:

          • Having 5 columns if space allows is a nice touch.
          • I still prefer to have the “Drop files here” box persistent on the side. If I scroll at all in these mockups, I would immediately lose the “Drop files here” box.
          • I don’t think the visual separation between “Selected media” and “Media library” really adds anything (except a few additional px of extra height ;-) ), in fact I like the idea that the lines between these two are blurred (everything you upload goes to the same place).
    • Devin Reams 4:27 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Cool stuff, great work everyone.

      One question I was asked (@matt brought it up, in particular) is at what point does a caption save to the DB against the attachment, and at what point is it stored only in the post (and no longer syncs)?

      We often have the same problem (training) when a ‘description’ or ‘caption’ is something dynamic (saved to db) and can be used consistently versus inline (when inserted)

      I also see a little bit of headache not being able to set the ‘Featured Image’ from the Insert/Upload screen as this is a pretty common workflow (again, training) that folks use: Upload > Set as Featured. Or Upload > Find image > Set as featured. Keeping in mind that some folks use multiple ‘Featured’ slots, too.

      • Andrew Nacin 4:33 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Upload > Set as Featured — that’s a good thing to keep in mind. That’s probably something we can add to the “Insert Media” dialog once you click “Insert.” Not quite the same workflow we have now, but, yeah… Keeping everything compatible with multiple featured image implementations is going to be fun, to say the least.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 4:34 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We often have the same problem (training) when a ‘description’ or ‘caption’ is something dynamic (saved to db) and can be used consistently versus inline (when inserted)

        This is a particular pet peeve of mine — I’d really like to find a way to communicate this well.

        I also see a little bit of headache not being able to set the ‘Featured Image’ from the Insert/Upload screen…

        One of the goals of this release is to separate out the various media workflows into their individual components. A side effect of that is separating inserting media into the post and setting a featured image. If testing reveals this to be a mistake, we can always discuss merging them back. That said, as with any UI change, will be a bit of an adjustment phase for existing users.

    • Scott Kingsley Clark 4:30 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Do we know yet how extensible this new UI will be from a plugin standpoint? Will the Media editor form be given proper hooks for adding additional fields? The current filters really stink and I bet we could do something much better during the dev of the new UI.

      • Andrew Nacin 4:35 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        The priority is going to be keeping the current filters working, which isn’t going to be a cakewalk. But yes, this will be extensible.

        • Scott Kingsley Clark 4:36 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Excellent, that’s music to my ears, I’ve been working closely with these filters and know of their many failings, looking forward to seeing what we can put together that supports the old filters as well as improving upon them for the new UI’s needs.

    • Helen Hou-Sandi 4:39 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      On the accessibility front (since I’ve promised to keep an eye on it):

      • We need to make sure that everything is accessible, both via keyboard and assistive tech. Not sure if we’ll be able to make it absolutely perfect, especially without more help and expertise, but we should definitely not be neglecting this during feature dev.
      • There needs to be an alternative (or a change) to important interactions/reveals that rely on hovering. Again for non-mouse users, and also including touch devices.
      • Isaac Keyet 4:42 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        +1, accessibility mode much needed to think through. Also of note: placeholder HTML5 element is only supported by the latest mobile webkit browsers, if possible we shouldn’t rely on it for important field labeling or at the very least have a fall-back (regular label outside the field).

      • Andrew Nacin 4:45 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        • Yes — we extensively discussed accessibility when planning these out. In particular, the main pane should be navigable via the keyword. So, up-down-left-right should move through the media library. Space or enter should select that image. In the case of a gallery, a “space” would select an image to then move it, until it is “dropped” again later. We can discuss and test these exact interactions during development.
        • This will most certainly need to work on touch devices.
        • Andrew Ozz 3:52 am on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          So, up-down-left-right should move through the media library.

          Using the arrow keys is usually reserved for navigating tree-like structures, mostly menus with several levels of submenus. For the gallery it would be better to use the Tab key.

          Arranging the gallery images would be hard without an accessibility mode similar to the widgets screen.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 4:48 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        All hover interactions will be taps on touch devices (as they are in most of our other UIs), and if there are holes in the touch device workflow we can add tweaks to make the process better. We won’t leave them high and dry. :)

    • Sami Keijonen 4:57 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Looks great! I’ve been wondering can images be also filtered by author? I have magazine with students (authors) and they upload a lot of (unnecessary) images. It would help if they could filter they own images or admin could do it. This might be out of scope here.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 5:03 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Interesting thought. We hadn’t discussed adding filter by author, but depending on how the sort/filter/search UIs turn out, it might be feasible. If not, we should make this easy to do with a plugin.

    • RDall 4:57 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I would absolutely love to be able to type in the width and get the constrained proportion. So many times I have typed in 150 width only to see the height doesn’t change as well…

    • DrewAPicture 5:12 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is a really good iteration and I’m looking forward to seeing more.

      One inconsistency that kind of sticks out for me is the ‘Edit’ button vs the edit icon button. In some places you click the icon, in some places you get both the icon and ‘Edit’ but then you’re clicking ‘Edit’ and not the icon. Personally, I’d prefer we stick with one or the other. My vote’s on the icon :)

      Per the ‘captions to DB’ discussion, why not just run some kind of ajax autosave?

      • Daryl Koopersmith 5:21 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        One inconsistency that kind of sticks out for me is the ‘Edit’ button vs the edit icon button.

        These buttons actually lead to different places, so we should probably hide the paintbrush icon in those cases. The paintbrush icon will actually lead to the image editor (crop, resize, etc), which is also accessible from the “edit attachment details” screen. We haven’t entirely decided on the technical requirements around the editor, so those screens have not been mocked yet (and will likely be decided at the WCSF hack day).

        • Daryl Koopersmith 5:23 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          We definitely need to figure out how to disassociate editing an image’s details (alignment, caption, etc) from editing an image itself (resizing, cropping, etc).

      • Andrew Nacin 5:22 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Per the ‘captions to DB’ discussion, why not just run some kind of ajax autosave?

        Oh, don’t worry, these will save via ajax. :-) But once you insert an image into the editor, that caption is free-form text. Under what circumstances should that caption text remain synced with the attachment in the DB, versus allowing them to diverge? You can use the same image in multiple posts, and captions from the DB are used in galleries, so it can get confusing very quickly.

        • Andrew Ozz 3:33 am on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Yeah, and annoying too. If all is synced with the DB that means there would be impossible to have different caption on the same image when the image is used in different places / different context. What’s more: if an old image is reused later and the caption is edited, that edit would show in the gallery. This may not be intended.

          Currently the captions are disassociated from the DB as soon as the image is inserted in a post. Seems we can keep this.

    • Mark McWilliams 5:16 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      It’ll be good to see the wireframes make their way into Core! :)

    • DrewAPicture 5:17 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I’m curious about the thinking behind moving the drag-n-drop zone from right (Dave’s 4th iteration) to the left (this iteration). I kinda like it better on the right, myself.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 6:22 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We moved the dropzone to bring more balance to the UI. All of the primary actions are aligned in the top right of the selection UI so aligning them with the right edge and bringing them closer to the dialog close button makes them more prominent. Also, when uploading is involved, it usually is the first step a user takes, so it makes sense to align it on the left side of the screen, where a user will see it sooner.

        • Dominik Schilling (ocean90) 8:05 am on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Maybe we could use the dialog itself as a dropzone, so that it’s not necessary to drop it specific to this small box on the left side.

          If you have a big screen the browser is normally on the left side and the file explorer or desktop on the right. Yet you have to drag your file from right to the far away left side, which isn’t the best usability I think.

    • Chris Jean 5:18 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is eerie. Really, really eerie. I talked with my coworker last week about a better Media Library screen, and this has all the key elements I talked about. So very, very weird.

      I’m excited. Please oh please let it be easy for non-core developers to use the full functionality of it.

      From the mockup, it looks like we will finally be able to create galleries with media that is not directly attached to that content. If we can make this happen, it will be awesome. I tried to make a gallery site for an artist friend of mine, and that limitation made me use a plugin when 95% of everything else was built into core.

    • zekeweeks 5:26 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I love the seamless flow between upload/select, gallery and image details, and insertion. And the contextual reactions between “insert single” and “insert gallery” are a huge usability plus. Very excited about this.

      One worry I have is on slides 12 and 13: https://speakerdeck.com/u/koop/p/wordpress-3-dot-5-media-wireframes?slide=12 . When one image is selected, we have two “insert” buttons which do the same thing- one persistent one at the top, and one on the individual image. However, when we have more than one selected (slide 13), the top button contextually switches to provide “insert gallery” functionality, but we still have an “insert” button on each individual image.

      I worry that this will create two problems:

      1. When selecting a single image, users may not notice the “insert” button on the top, and therefore never notice that it switches to support a gallery when multiple images are selected
      2. Worse: when intending to select multiple images and create a gallery, clicking “insert” over an image will lose their selections and take them into details for the insertion of just one image without even realizing it.

      For these reasons, I’d lean toward getting rid of the “insert” buttons over individual images altogether, and make the button on the top right be a consistent, universal button that is the “next-step-here” button for all contexts. However, this issue could be addressed other ways (only showing “Insert” for single selections, making “Insert” react as a gallery when multiples are selected, etc.)

      • Andrew Nacin 8:58 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I was strongly for the individual Insert buttons for a few reasons. Without them, I think the ease in which you can select multiple images (particularly since you can scroll so a selection is outside the viewing area) could cause people to create galleries when they don’t want to. They would need to clear the selection and then look around again to select the single image they originally wanted to insert.

        Note that we deliberately chose two different verbs: The current “Insert” into post, versus “Create” a gallery. Now, maybe that isn’t enough. This is all testable — we’ll find out during user testing. We can figure out what works and what doesn’t, and adjust the button placements, strings, and the like.

        We could also consider showing the selection status bar only once you have two images selected, and have individual insert buttons otherwise. I think this change could handle all of the issues we’ve both highlighted. Very good points, thanks for the feedback.

    • RDall 6:04 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hey guys one thing. You know how you can show the amount of post to show in the screen via “Screen Options” Can we add that to the media library? Once I got a site that have 100 or so images scrolling through them wasn’t that easy and the search was only good if I remembered what I named it. (And some days my naming convention was better then others… )

    • RDall 7:22 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      You guys rock! That will be awesome!!!!!!!!!

    • MartyThornley 8:26 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This all looks awesome! One thing I noticed is that you either insert one image or insert a gallery. There are a lot of uses for inserting multiple images, yet not in a gallery, especially for photobloggers who write a few words then say, here are ten images… And they just show ten images one after the next. Adding that option to the “Insert” buttons would be great!

      • Andrew Nacin 9:01 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        If you want 10 images consecutively, then chances are you do want a gallery. Specifically, of the one-column, full-width variety.

        If you don’t want 10 images consecutively, then you need to adjust your cursor each time so we know where you want those images. (If, for example, you’re telling a story and want text in between the photos.)

        This dialog is not going to be a separate load of WordPress inside of a frame, like the current thickbox implementation. It’ll open (and re-open) immediately, like internal linking. So it shouldn’t actually be painful to individually insert these images if that’s what you wanted.

        • MartyThornley 5:01 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          I was actually thinking the same as I looked through the workflow more. It is not possible with the current (old) one, but I think new workflow would definitely work for this.

      • Dominik Schilling (ocean90) 1:49 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        +1 for an option to insert all selected images.
        When I start to write a post I upload the images first.
        My preferred workflow would be to insert all uploaded images and then write the text between the images and/or adjust the images. And I know many people who would like this too.

        See also #7013.

        • Andrew Nacin 2:53 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          The problem with this is it confuses users, who will wonder what the difference is between inserting multiple images versus creating a gallery. A gallery really doesn’t mean that much in WordPress, but it is better when it comes to handling more than a few images. We want to keep the UI simple.

          Something we should think about, though.

        • MartyThornley 5:05 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          This is one spot where a gallery doesn’t work. Thinking of them all in a row, it makes more sense to have a type of gallery that is one image after another. But there are spots where you need to just insert a few images quickly then add some text.
          Maybe it could be “Insert Multiple Images” instead of “Insert Gallery” and then what is mocked up here as the gallery options would let you choose “Insert as Gallery” and choose columns, etc… or “Insert Images” which would just add the multiple image tags.

          • Andrew Nacin 5:18 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            I understand the latter point, but just a note, a one-column gallery with full-width images does work, if you want images one after another.

    • ChaseWiseman 10:44 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      First of all, great work. I am very excited about this. One question: is there any reason the Featured Image dialog can’t get the same cropping features as the Custom Header dialog? Both the custom header and featured image sizes are defined in a similar fashion. It would be nice to choose which area of an image you want to use as the Featured Image.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 10:54 pm on July 30, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We’ve discussed it and might do just that. It depends on how the image editor (discussed above) turns out.

        • DrewAPicture 4:31 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          This would be a really ‘good-to-have’ feature. Most of the time we’re using resized thumbs on archives and cropping from center on vertical images or images where faces are near the top is frustrating when it’s forced from the center. Being able to manually crop would be fantastic.

    • nhuja 3:49 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Great work. Having been solely into Photography themes, this is an awesome development. I always thought media management was the weakest part of WordPress. And I was planning to develop this on my own as well. :) I would love to know how these things are addressed or can be addressed:

      1. I see the Create New Gallery option which is great. So, will there be a link where we can manage those Galleries (Albums), list of galleries available? Like delete an image or add another image to the gallery ?

      2. Can one image be assigned to multiple galleries ? Currently it doesn’t allow unless we do shortcode cheat (I think). Also, if we are viewing the Media Library view (list of images), in the grid style, it might be great if there is a “belongs to X gallery”.

      3. Can we insert one gallery to multiple posts ? Now this is one prime feature I get requests from customers. :)

      Thanks, I am really looking forward to this development. :)

      Cheers!
      Chandra

      • lessbloat 12:06 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        1) Yep. The idea is that once you add a gallery to the editor, you can click the edit button on that gallery in the visual editor mode, and add/remove images from that gallery.

        2) Yep, any image will be able to be added to any gallery.

        3) Perhaps. I’m not certain this has been worked through at the stage, though I agree this would be nice. :-)

    • Konstantin Kovshenin 4:41 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is just awesome! I’m glad that media management is getting some serious love in this release. Great work everyone!

    • thenbrent 6:53 am on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This looks fantastic, thanks for all the hard work you’re putting in to get media handling right.

      When opening the Insert Media dialogue, will it display *all* media, or just those attached to the post? I’ve had complaints from users in the past about different tabs for all media and media uploaded on the one post.

      The Insert Gallery looks identical to the Insert Media. This could lead to occasional disorientation. But that’s nothing a different shade of grey or some other bit of CSS wouldn’t fix.

      • Andrew Nacin 2:43 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        It’ll display all media.

        The two screens do look similar, yes, but these are only wireframes, not designs. I too have noted that disorientation is possible here. We will make sure the screens are designed with that in mind.

    • andyadams 1:42 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      For some reason, my last couple of comments never made it through, so I’ll try reposting the general idea:

      I like the improvements, but have you considered ditching the modal window for something less obtrusive? Perhaps something more like the Theme Customizer that pops out on the lefthand side?

      I say this because 2 major problems I have with modals are:

      • Loss of context of the content editor.
      • Difficulty in inserting multiple single images.

      Having a modal take over the whole screen makes inserting media feel like a completely different operation than writing your content, and I feel like the two tasks could potentially be toggled in a less jolting way. This would make writing your post with lots of media a much smoother process.

      • Andrew Nacin 2:42 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We’ve discussed ditching the modal window for years. Literally, here’s some sketches from @jane from October 2009.

        I used to be squarely in the I-want-my-media-inline camp, but I’ve adjusted that a bit. Certain actions should actually be blocking. Also, since we’re aiming for a super-fast dialog that remembers where you were, speed should not be a factor in repeated actions like inserting multiple images. As the dialog will likely be movable (like internal linking), context also becomes less of a problem.

        Perhaps over time, more things move inline. Uploading, for example, should not be a blocking action. But our goals for 3.5 include separating out the overlapping and confusing workflows, which means individual, contextual dialogs. Moving everything inline at once would be a huge challenge of balancing a desire to create distinct workflows with a small space to work with.

        • andyadams 3:44 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Perhaps the blocking and more complex dialogs could be expanded to fill the whole screen, while the simpler and more common tasks (such as inserting an individual image or gallery) could be moved to something more inline, like the customizer?

        • Alex King 12:07 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          > Perhaps over time, more things move inline.

          I’ve considered creating a plugin to provide a pop-over menu of images attached to the post for easy insertion into the content. Perhaps this is an area where some API enhancements (JS to insert, for example) might drive some creative plugins. Some of those ideas might in turn suggest useful enhancements to consider in core.

    • Dominik Schilling (ocean90) 2:03 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I really like this wireframes, great job.

      One question, is it planned to be able to adjust the image size (maybe via a slider) or to get a list view?

      • Andrew Nacin 2:24 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We did discuss the slider idea! We didn’t include it in the wireframes, but it would be a great enhancement to this.

        List view, I am not sure — depends on whether it can be designed to be useful. I would think that the view area itself would be pluggable.

    • sanchothefat 2:06 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      What considerations are there for other media types? In particular video and audio.

      I can understand the desire to leave creation of things like playlists to plugins but the above wireframes are purely image focused. Will non image files be treated in the same way visually?

      Also how will the above wireframes cope with how the media upload tabs can currently be extended by plugins? For example the ‘Upload’, ‘upload from URL’, ‘Gallery’ and ‘Media Library’ tabs that there are currently? That ability is crucial to some of my plugins.

      • Andrew Nacin 2:48 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        This will be pluggable, which means a video could show a single frame, audio could have an embedded player, PDF documents could have an image thumbnail, etc. But by default, non-image files will likely be greeted with a generic icon/thumbnail — images first, then everything else.

        I am not yet sure how we will handle tabs added by plugins. What are some examples you have seen or used?

        • sanchothefat 3:20 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          That sounds fine re. the handling/display of different media types – it’s pretty much what happens now and I agree you’ve got to prioritise this stuff!

          A good example of using media upload tabs out there in the wild that’s widely used would be the JW Player plugin – it lets you create playlists in one of the tabs it adds. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jw-player-plugin-for-wordpress/

          Also currently I’m working on a plugin that splits out media by type – it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that all attachments regardless of type appear under ‘Gallery’. My plugin creates tabs for Audio, Video and Other and for audio and video it has a form at the bottom for inserting a playlist shortcode similar to the way galleries are inserted currently.

          I think the new wireframes are great and show a huge improvement to creating & embedding galleries but if possible it’d be good to have some way to see what attachments you’re looking at by source (post/media library) and then also to have them separated by type – Image / Video / Audio / Other.

          Say I’m looking at audio attachments only – the add to gallery button could become ‘Add to playlist’ (assuming it’s feasible to code the gallery functionality in a generic way rather than strictly coding for images). I’d at least like to be able to plug that in if possible.

          Sorry for rambling! Just getting my thoughts down – check out the JW Player plugin anyway

    • Anthony Hortin 2:22 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Wow. Great work guys! This is looking seriously sweet. Some really nice improvements to the workflow.

      One thing I’d love to see, as @bradyvercher touched on briefly up above, it would be great to be able to link each gallery thumbnail to a individual url. It’d make the gallery functionality much more versatile.

      Looking forward to seeing some or all of these improvements in the next release. Keep up the geat work!

      • Sheri Bigelow 1:59 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Linking gallery images to outside URLs is a fairly-common request on WordPress.com.

        • Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 2:04 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          But is that even really a good idea? Too many people don’t know about the dangers of hotlinking as is, and encouraging it …. Okay, I know a lot of that is my buggaboo, but it seems like a bad idea. If flickr etc allow it, then that’s a plugin use-case, so I can see making it pluggable/hookable so a plugin can grab onto it, but I really would hate to see external image inclusion overtly included in core.

          • Anthony Hortin 12:30 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            I wasn’t actually meaning the ability to include external images. I meant that it would be good to be able to link the thumbnail images to a specific URL (ie. other than just the larger version of the image or the attachment page). For example, It would be handy to have a gallery of 5 images that link to 5 different pages on your site.

    • Ryan Hellyer 7:48 pm on July 31, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This looks really slick.

      I’m not sure it fits into this particular area of core, but some sort of system to allow us to move attachments between folders would be darned handy. It gets really messy handing large numbers of images if they’re just chucked into folders based on the date they were added.

    • Reji Thomas 8:52 am on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is excellent work!

      Some thoughts:

      • The Gallery workflow could have some extensions. At ‘Create/Edit’ Gallery, show Gallery Title and Description fields, above the Display Properties settings.
      • Bring Gallery Management under the Media > Library. Add an additional listing type ‘ Galleries’ and enable it to be searchable (based on the above). That way a user can quickly identify galleries attached to posts or post types
    • John Smith 9:10 am on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Looking very, very nice.

      The only thing I had hoped was that the insert button would be moved down into the actual WYSIWYG toolbar. Any reason why we keep it at the top, it’s a little confusing for first-time users until it’s pointed out.

    • wycks 12:38 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Please consider adding some of the gallery options (http://codex.wordpress.org/Gallery_Shortcode) into the actual UI .Most end -users do not even know about them.

      Also please add as many filters as possible for developers, for example ‘image_size_names_choose’ for the size dropdown, which should work with add_image_size.

      Looks awesome can’t wait because this improves everyone’s experience with wp!

    • Sheri Bigelow 2:39 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      The Edit Image dialogue seems to be missing, specifically: crop, rotate, flip, and scale.

      • Sheri Bigelow 2:41 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I just realized this is in the media library, not the Upload/Insert media workflow. Sorry!!

        • Andrew Nacin 2:44 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          This screen is reachable from an “Edit Image” button, and buttons to this screen appear in a number of places. But no, we haven’t mocked up the screen yet.

          • Sheri Bigelow 2:50 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

            Aha, gotcha. It does seem like these are advanced image edit options and some of the things you were planning to cut (i.e. border, target, file URL) might make sense to keep here while removing duplicate edit fields (i.e. title, caption, description).

            • Andrew Nacin 3:16 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink

              Well, they’re two different workflows. The fields we want to cut are glorified HTML controls that have to do with how an image is presented/displayed in a post. This screen is about modifying the image itself — scaling, cropping, generating thumbnails, etc. Conflated fields and windows are what we’re trying to get away from as much as possible.

    • Jonathan Davis 3:13 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      On the image dropzone positioned to the left, I realize it is likely a decision based on the most economical use of the space and allowing a clear visual prompt for the user to put it one side or the other. For usability, having it stretch across the bottom (or top) horizontally provides better drag access regardless of the user OS (regardless of whether the host OS keeps files on the left or right). I realize that the vertical screen realestate is at a premium. That makes it a decision of priorities. Is the drag access from left or right important enough to take up that vertical space? Is there a balance in height/size of the dropzone horizontally that won’t chew up too much space but is large enough for clumsy drags? Is left or right enough of a hindrance on usability to be worth taking up vertical simply for the sake of universal access from one side of the browser or the other?I’m not advocating one way or another, just bringing it up for the sake of discussion. Question everything and all that.

      Aside from the problem of the “prompt” (how you prompt the user) with the dropzone, it would be ideal if the entire modal were a dropzone, understanding that may not be possible with how pupload’s mecahnism works, or that it might interfere with the rest of the UI. Still I wonder (thinking out loud) if you could detect the mouse drag and setup the drop zone over top the entire modal area. Probably too divergent a thought to gain traction, but thought I’d share my musings anyhow.

      Good work team. It really is very well thought out. It will be very interesting to see how the user tests go.

      • Daryl Koopersmith 7:20 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        …it would be ideal if the entire modal were a dropzone…

        It wasn’t shown in the mockups, but this will indeed be the case. It’s certainly possible, and just a matter of getting the UI right.

        • Jonathan Davis 6:42 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Well, there you go then. That makes most of my earlierr usability feedback moot. No need to take up precious vertical space on the prompt if the entire modal is a drop zone.

    • gabediaz 3:28 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is fantastic, really great to see all these wireframes and can’t wait to see more.

      Just want to ask if there was any thought about providing a List View with Order Number option when editing/sorting a gallery?

      Starting with Slide 55 the only way to rearrange gallery images seems to be with a drag and drop. This works great for smaller galleries but with larger galleries you’ll find yourself dragging up/down through several slides of your infinite scroll. The currently Media Gallery Screen allows for sorting via order numbers which you can quickly tab through and manually sort with a number.

      Keep up the great work!

      • Daryl Koopersmith 7:27 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Just want to ask if there was any thought about providing a List View with Order Number option when editing/sorting a gallery?

        We will certainly have to hone the sorting UX. I’m not convinced that manually typing in order numbers is the best possible experience (or necessary). We also will support keyboard-based image organization (with arrow keys). That said, this should be possible in a plugin regardless.

    • Maor Chasen 8:13 pm on August 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Wow, what a great work. Can’t describe in words how excited I am to see this great progress!

    • bakaburg1 1:25 am on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Maybe this is more specific to mac users since stuff tend to pile up on the right side of the desktop, but when i drag and drop stuff I use to mouse in from the right of the window. I wouldn’t find it nice to drag all the way to the other side of the screen.

      I would then suggest to put the drop area, if not on the right which wuold be best for me, on the bottom center, large as much ad the panel, so that you don’t have a preferred dragging side, but this is left up to the users.

      HWR extremely nice work! especially being able to drag directly in the editor!

      One more thing I would is to be able to resize pictures directly in the editor, with text moving away during resizing. Pretty easy to achieve with javascript.

      Is still possible to use external images with URLs?

    • Maor Chasen 12:33 pm on August 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi, just wanted to ask with what software did you guys create these wireframes? Looks amazing! Thanks!

    • MacItaly 4:28 pm on August 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi, great work indeed, Media Library needs a deep remake.
      But nobody are interested to upload and organize files in folders/subfolders?
      WP isn’t anymore only a blog and many people use it as CMS and, in those cases, have media organized per year and month it’s useless and have all of them in one folder it’s confusing.
      Should be possible to have an option, on media settings, to enable a folders manager?
      Something that when I upload one or multiple files, I can choose in which folder will be.
      Does it make sense?

    • Dennis Whiteman 7:14 pm on August 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Will it be possible when creating a new gallery or uploading files to manage the upload location in the file system in the upload UI? I have some sites with thousands of posts and thousands of images. If I use the built-in media uploader, I end up with thousands of files in a directory. It would be nice for end users to have the option of uploading images within the media upload directory to a new folder with a name of their choosing instead of being limited to segmenting out files only based on date as is currently the option. Another example is that I have a bunch of images that I’d want in a directory called ‘images’ and podcast audio files in a directory called audio, etc.

      This is particularly a problem when migrating from another CMS where the files have been manually uploaded for years. Without some choice in where files go, I usually end up having the client continue to use an ftp program to upload instead of getting the benefits of having an actual media library with meta data that’s provided in WordPress.

      I have conceptualized being able to choose a folder on upload within the existing uploader, but it would be so much better if it were just builtin.

    • lonchbox 11:37 pm on August 4, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi!, finally! that part of the WP was too old, all my clients will love this new feature :) Good Job!

    • Ayman Aboulnasr 9:41 am on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Wow, a very interesting new facelift to the WordPress Images and media handling! Well done guys.

    • Jan Fabry 1:25 pm on August 5, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Have you considered making the individual edit dialog (alignment, caption, alt text, …) non-modal? I was thinking of a floating widget, that would only appear when you have selected an image in the post editor. This gives you instant feedback (alignment, size), and could be extensible (so plugin and theme authors could add or hide controls to suit their client).

      https://img.skitch.com/20120805-ruuippsxadef54fm4qcdcj8guc.png

      This could also solve the problem of “saved in the db/saved in the post”. Everything you edit here is just for this post.

    • hearvox 3:46 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This beautiful new Media rewrite might also be an opportunity to look at the way the attachment’s Title text is auto-used in two different ways.

      1. As the post_title of the attachment post, which then is used:
      a. in the Media Library’s column “Title”, and
      b. in many Themes, as HTML text for the H1 and head’s title elements, when displaying the attachment post.

      2. As the title-attribute of the img element when using the “Insert into Post” button.

      #1 is expected behavior, and makes sense-
      an attachment’s Title is meant to be the document title, like any other post..

      #2 is hidden to many users and can make little semantic sense.
      an img’s title attr should: “offer advisory information about the element” (w3c).
      this is often NOT the same as document title

      Perhaps WP might consider adding a field,
      so there’s one for each of the two different “titles”, like:

      Attachment Title * ___________
      Alternate Text __________
      Image Title Text _________

      (and like “alt”, the img “title” wouldn’t be written if this new last field was empty).

      • hearvox 3:46 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Here’s a couple common use cases that shows why current WP default
        may not be optimum:

        1. You have several versions of an image or scene, you may Title them
        so you can easily distinguish them in Media Library list:
        “Me & Crew: wide-shot”
        “Me & Crew: close-up”
        “Me & Crew: close-up cropped”

        now say you chose not to caption the image,
        but do want some img title text (a tool-tip in many browsers), like:
        “Me and the home-town Crew chilling at WordCamp”

        That’s great “advisory info” but maybe not-as-great a doc title.
        So you must edit HTML manually to make them different.

        2. Imagine the oh-too-frequent case:

        • User uploads image w/ name: image0001.jpg.
        • User does not re-Title attachment, so post_title is: “image0001.jpg”

        so, user gets a poor attachment title, but no harm done.
        until the Insert into Post grabs the post_title field as text for the title element:
        <img title= "image0001.jpg" src="image0001.jpg"…

        now WP's default behavior subjects the whole web to useless/redundant "advisory info".

        if this is something the WP community feels needs amending,
        i'd be happy to start working on the code changes in media.php.

      • Andrew Nacin 8:31 pm on August 7, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        We noticed this double-use of the title as well. We’re simply going to eliminate title attributes from images inserted into posts, and viola! #18984

    • Bruno Costa 8:51 pm on August 6, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I think you only forget the image link.

      The layout is very beautiful, I only think all this page changes won’t please a lot of people.

    • John 5:39 pm on August 8, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Are these rewrites going to be adapted to the Media Library screen itself ( upload.php )?

    • fanderzzon 9:23 am on August 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Great work, it’s looks amazing!

      How is the search function working? Are you adding AJAX search so the user automatically get a list of objects/images that matches their search query on the fly?

    • Peter Chester 3:37 pm on August 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Great work Daryl!

    • hixen 12:49 pm on August 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This is really awesome, great work.

      Just got one question, are you guys looking into adding more ways to structure your media library? (tags, categories?)

    • jamesmehorter 7:29 pm on August 22, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I would LOVE it if galleries/albums did not need to be linked to a specific post.. but could be if wanted. Many times this is the only reason I will choose NextGen Gallery. PLEASE make NextGen obsolete!

    • Jesper van Engelen 4:36 pm on August 24, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I am very pleased to see that some major changes are finally being made to the media UI, great work on that! I am wondering though: in what way will this affect the countless plugins that change the media interface currently. Many plugins add buttons to the media interface for allowing users to upload media for use in their plugins. This includes many popular plugins such as Advanced Custom Fields and Option Tree – to what extent will these plugins be affected by these changes?

    • kkalvaa 1:16 pm on August 25, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Looks amazing, as people above has said, this alone makes 3.5 one of the key releases to look forward to.

      I think the drop zone should be on the right, in a RTL setting it feels like the second step should be to the right rather than the left.

    • deursmo 11:15 am on August 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      This looks great. Discussion here is too ‘technical’ for me but a question about using images in multiple posts. Will it be possible to see in which posts (and pages) one particular image is used? From the editor’s point of view? I don’t mean (nor use) galleries, but perhaps that is the answer. Thanks for all you people make, good whishes.

    • ms-studio 7:59 pm on August 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I love that concept, it’s pretty much the best system I could imagine. But I have one big question: how is the default ordering of uploaded files being handled? To me, this is a weak point in the media management, and must be improved.

      Currently, the default is “by upload order”, which means that if you upload a bunch of pics from a photo camera, numbered from 00001 to 00020, the last one (00020) will be on top, the first one (00001) will be at the bottom (because the OS tends to send 00001 first).

      If you want a chronological gallery, you need to reorder them each time.

      Personally, I mostly want the files inside a batch upload to get ordered by filename – 00001 on top, 00020 at the bottom. But if I add a second batch of files, I want them to be added at the bottom of the list! So it’s a very tricky issue to solve …

      I just openend a thread on that topic in trac – http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21643 – but I believe it’s more appropriate to continue the discussion here.

    • ms-studio 8:31 pm on August 26, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Just a few more words about the “default ordering” issue.

      The wireframes show the ordering option “Sort by upload date”, so I assume that could be the default.

      • Is this really the best default? How is that “upload date” determined if the user batch-uploads multiple files at once?
      • Do we have any stats about how people tend to order their images, in image galleries? Chronologically? By upload date? By file name?
      • “By upload date” doesn’t actually tell what direction is applied. Newest first, or oldest first?
      • If the user changes that setting (let’s imagine that she prefers alphabetic ordering), we must make sure that WP remembers that change and applies it for future uploads.

      To understand the problem I see with the current setting, have a look at that quick demonstration in WP 3.4:
      http://sandbox.4o4.ch/wp/WP-3.4-uploader.swf

      And see here the (much more intuitive) behavior in Facebook:
      http://sandbox.4o4.ch/wp/facebook-uploader.swf

  • Amy Hendrix (sabreuse) 4:40 pm on July 25, 2012 Permalink  

    Accessibility tickets with UI implications 

    There are a number of recent tickets about accessibility improvements in the admin, several of which raise questions that relate directly to the UI group. In particular:

    #21283 Keyboard focus in the theme customizer should be on left options panel

    #21310 Need skip link(s) at top of admin pages

    #21312 How to log out of WordPress without a mouse?

    #21324 Visible Focus within Admin Screens could be much clearer

    #21326 Screen Options in Admin – Accessibility Enhancement

    #21334 Accessibility of Quick Edit panel in Posts/Pages/etc

    Please check them out and comment in-ticket with any feedback you may have; the same goes for any of the open tickets in the Accessibility component. Also, there are some tickets in the most recent batch that should be fairly easy for people who are just learning how to contribute. As always, you can ask here or in #wordpress-ui or #wordpress-dev any time if you need help with the whole process of working with trac and trunk, applying and building patches, and the like.

    In general, we want to be keeping accessibility in mind with all UI work and working closely with the accessibility group. Major thanks to everyone who has been stepping up and raising these issues lately!

     
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