Module Visual Page Selector (commercial page picker module for ProcessWire)

[kongondo]

Visual Page Selector

Released 31 March 2016

https://processwireshop.pw/plugins/visual-page-selector/

 

As of 04 January 2018 ProcessWire versions earlier than 3.x are not supported

 

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Introducing VPS, a commercial visual page field selector. 

This is a pre-sale closed-beta version. This post is WIP and will be updated now and then.

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Many ProcessWire users use the 'one image per page' principle to manage and reuse images across their sites. This works fine. However, for site editors who mainly work with images, especially for larger sites, it is sometimes difficult to remember the pages where particular images reside. This module helps to solve this challenge.

Harnessing the awesomeness  that is ProcessWire, VPS provides a rich editing experience, enabling editors to search for, view, select, add, remove and delete page-images easily, in an easy to use and friendly interface. ProcessWire Lister is the workhorse behind the lightning-fast searches. Editors will be able to search for images by their descriptions, names, partial names, page names, templates, etc. 

Current Features

1. Single-image mode
2. Full search
3. Batch add/Remove/Delete Image/Delete Page in page fields
4. Image Browser
5. Selectable pages as per page field settings + Lister filters
6. Grid and List View
7. Draggable sorting
8. Responsive (almost fully ..iframes!)

Planned Features

1. Multi-image mode (there are times you want to group similar images in multi-image field in one page; e.g. the back, front and side of a car photo)
2. Configurable CSS on the fly resizing vs real image resizing (image resizing can quickly hog memory)
3. Other as per feedback from beta testing

FAQs

When will this be available? 

Soon.

How much will it cost?

Reasonably priced. Announcement soon.

Where will I be able to buy this from?

At all fine stores that stock quality ProcessWire products

Do we really need another page field/inputfield select?

See links below.

What type of licenses will be available?

Soon to be announced.

Can I beta test this?

Thanks for the interest but all available slots have been taken.

Video (excuse the video quality please - too many takes....)

 

Screens

Previous Discussions

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/10927-wishlist-select-pages-by-thumbnail/

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/4330-get-image-from-other-pages-via-images-field/

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/417-extending-image-field/?p=6982

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/7073-profield-table-and-gallery/

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/3200-image-management-concerns-is-processwire-suitable-for-me/

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/425-file-manager/

https://processwire.com/talk/topic/10763-asset-manager-asset-selector/

Edited January 4, 2018 by kongondo
ProcessWire 3.x support only

[adrian]

Beautiful!

[Marty Walker]

Excellent. Can't wait to get my mitts on it.

[caribou]

Yesssss, I am so excited about this. This was the only real stumbling block to using PW for a bunch of projects.

[Martijn Geerts]

Great work kongondo!

[adrianmak]

support only pages with single image only?

How about multiple images of a page ?

[kongondo]

support only pages with single image only?

How about multiple images of a page ?

Planned Features

• Multi-image mode (there are times you want to group similar images in multi-image field in one page; e.g. the back, front and side of a car photo)

 

[kongondo]

Visual Page Selector

Released 31 March 2016

https://processwireshop.pw/plugins/visual-page-selector/

[Robin S]

Visual Page Selector (VPS) module demo and documentation (coming soon)

For now, please refer to the README.txt file in your VPS folder

Would you mind making the README available to prospective purchasers? Likewise the README for Media Manager?

[kongondo]

Can do, and was gonna do it but thought it is easier for guys to watch the demo videos (as I finish the documentation...)...to understand what's going on

[kongondo]

Hi all,

I'm going to be away for the next couple of weeks (4-5 weeks possibly) with little if any access to the internet. I will deal with any queries on my return.

Thanks

[gerritvanaaken]

I get an error message because there is no fancybox present in PW 3.0 ...

[kongondo]

I am back. Might be a while before I go through all pending issues.

On 24/08/2016 at 0:46 PM, gerritvanaaken said:

I get an error message because there is no fancybox present in PW 3.0 ...

@gerritvanaaken. The module is not yet PW 3+ ready...but it will be once we have a stable release of that version of PW, thanks.

[Robin S]

Hi @kongondo

I have a few pre-purchase questions:

1. Is a PW3-compatible version of Visual Page Selector very far off? How about Media Manager - is that PW3-compatible?

2. Could you say a bit about how the use cases would differ for Visual Page Selector versus Media Manager? They seem similar in many ways (or similar in terms of image management - I know that MM supports more than just images).

3. Media Manager includes an upload feature to go from image files on my computer to page-per-image pages in PW. Does Visual Page Selector have a similar upload feature? If not, how do you recommend images are loaded to pages?

4. One of the main things that appeals to me about the page-per-image approach used in VPS/MM is the ability to add custom fields to the page used to hold the image. But I saw that you commented in the MM thread:

On 8/08/2016 at 0:57 AM, kongondo said:

Custom fields: Yes if you add them directly to the templates but you will not be able to edit those custom fields using the MM interface. In addition, MM pages are hidden in the admin so editing your custom fields will not be ideal (or accessible to normal users). Alternatively, you can use images/files native description and tag fields. These are currently editable directly in your Media Library.

So would VPS be a better option if the editing of custom fields is needed?

5. The demo video for VPS doesn't show if the page holding the image may be opened for editing from the VPS field. In other words, can I click the thumbnail or image title and open the page? Does it open in a modal window?

Thanks,
Robin.

[kongondo]

Hi @Robin S,

Thanks for your interest in VPS and MM.

1. My plan is for these to be ready within 3 weeks. However, some users of MM have reported successfully using it in PW 3 with no hiccups. 
2. @see below please
3. No, VPS does not have an upload feature since it functions as a 'normal' page field...i.e. it does not have a central repository of media but includes images you've uploaded yourself to any number of named image fields (named in the settings of VPS
4. Custom fields: Yes, VPS would be better in that case, although the other benefits of MM probably outweigh this one advantage
5. No, you can't, currently

#2 Differences between VPS and MM

Media Manager is a complete digital asset management for 4 types of media: audio, document, image and video. Media are stored and managed in one central repository. Uploading, editing and publication of media are tightly controlled by various permissions. Media can be uploaded to a waiting area before uploading to your Media Library. Media can be previewed (e.g. listen to a MP3 file), edited, tagged, filtered, etc with great ease. Media can be inserted in a page in two ways: in a field or in a CKEditor RTE. Media can be infinitely reused across your site. Media Manager has its own API for frontend use.

Visual Page Selector is mainly targeted to those who 'consciously' use  the one page per image approach. It is an Inputfield for Pagefields. Its purpose is to remove the guess work in site editors' minds when they have to include 'pages' in a 'page' in situations where those 'pages' are included on the 'page' for the sole purpose of accessing and reusing images found in those 'pages' (wow, a mouthful, sorry!). VPS does this by offering a visual selector where the editors can see the images contained in those 'pages'.  VPS does not have its own API...it is a Pagefield, hence is accessed like any other Pagefield in ProcessWire.

Hence, the two modules are quite different from each other actually. In MM, your editors don't know and don't care that they are actually dealing with pages. All they see are media, easily accessible via a single Media Library. VPS is a visual interface to a normal Pagefield. This means you will need to set it up like any other Pagefield, with one or two extra details you have to tell it, for instance, the name of the 'image field(s) in the 'pages'. If, on the other hand, you would like a streamlined workflow for your media management, from uploads to inclusion in pages, managing tens or hundreds or thousands of media, all in a single easy to use interface, then MM is for you. 

 

Hope this answers your question. Sorry, I have just seen that I never availed the READMEs for this modules as per your request. I can still send these to you if you wish. Please let me know if you require any more info. 

Cheers.

 

 

[Robin S]

Thanks for the answers @kongondo.

Both Media Manager and Visual Page Selector look like useful and clever modules, although the cost/features ratio favours MM.

I think what would be really fantastic is something in between the feature set of MM and VPS, and this could perhaps be accomplished by borrowing some of the features developed for MM into VPS.

To explain, something I think PW is missing is custom fields for images (and I'm not alone: this GitHub request from today has 4 upvotes in 2 hours). There are loads of use cases for this, but one example: you are using images in your site that have a Creative Commons Attribution license. To fulfill the terms of the license each image needs the following fields attached: Author (text), Source link (URL), License (Page select), License link (URL, although in fact you'd probably store the URL for each license in the License page field). The ImageExtra module only supports textarea custom fields so it's not the right solution. What would work is a page-per-image approach with the custom fields for the image stored in the image's page. VPS is a big step towards making this a workable solution, but to use this as a replacement for a standard image field some extra features are needed beyond what is currently offered...

1. There needs to be an easy way to edit the image's custom fields from the Page inputfield. A modal link to Page Edit is all that's needed to begin with - this is something that's possible with existing inputfields such as AsmSelect. Somewhere down the line this could maybe be enhanced with AJAX loading of the custom fields into the list view of VPS, as per repeaters (just dreaming here).

2. There needs to be an easy way to add an image (page) from the inputfield. This is possible with most existing Page inputfields if the template and parent for allowed pages is defined. Basic support for this would be to open the Add Page form in a modal (the Page Field Edit Links module does something like this). But to be a closer match to existing image field functionality it would be nice to be able to upload multiple images at once. This feature is in MM - could it be added to VPS? (when template and parent are defined for the field).

3. There needs to be an easy way to embed an image into CKEditor. This feature is in MM - could it be added to VPS?

Really keen to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!

 

[kongondo]

Hi @Robin S,

Just acknowledging that I've seen this. Really pressed for time currently but would like to give a comprehensive answer, so hope you can wait a bit longer? In summary though, I think I might be able to add some of the features you've suggested (though some might take a while...a long while to implement). My biggest constraint is time (cliche, I know) though,...not lack of willingness . 

 

[Robin S]

Thanks for the reply; no hurry at all.

Am currently getting by using PageTable for page-per-image images, and when I get time I will explore Inputfield Selectize also as that looks like it would be good for the task.

One last question for now: do you offer an upgrade path for your commercial modules? That is, if I purchase a Single license and find that I love it and want to use it on all my projects can I pay an upgrade fee to move to a Developer license?

 

[kongondo]

1 hour ago, Robin S said:

One last question for now: do you offer an upgrade path for your commercial modules? That is, if I purchase a Single license and find that I love it and want to use it on all my projects can I pay an upgrade fee to move to a Developer license?

 

Yes I do. You'd only have to pay the difference. You'd have to send me an email to arrange that. Thanks.

[Macrura]

Hi Kongondo, i'm looking for a popup page selector, that would show the pages in a lister – but in my case sometimes no image is needed, only the list - is that something that VPS can do, or could it be something made configurable for the module;  Out of all of the various page pickers, one that i seem to be in need of is a lister style popup, which could be very useful where you have to select a page, but need to see some columns to know what you are picking, and the ability to sort, and filter the selectable pages...

[kongondo]

Hi @Macrura,

Sorry for the very late response. Currently, VPS cannot do that. However, if you want a custom solution based on VPS, we could discuss that separately. 

[Macrura]

ok thanks, i will send a message....

[gmclelland]

@Macrura Sounds like something similar to the CraftCMS relations picker https://craftcms.com/features/relations in the video.

Indeed, that would be good a feature for Processwire.

[kongondo]

Quick note for those following this. As per @Macrura's request above, VPS has received a major upgrade; It can now be used as a normal page field pages' selector or in a 'one-page-per-image' strategy as before. Working on the final release now. Hope to release next week.

[Macrura]

nice!