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  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 14, 2013 @ 19:08
    Richard Barg
    0

    Matching media/xxxx in Content Area to Image in Media Library

    Here is an image in the content editor.  What SPECIFIC IMAGE (node ID etc) in the media library does /media/50524 refer to?  This seems like a pretty basic thing, yet there appears to be no way to find this.

     

  • gary 385 posts 916 karma points
    Mar 14, 2013 @ 19:18
    gary
    0

    Hi Richard

    This may not be a complete answer, or indeed the one you had hoped for, but in the Media Section, hover over the node and in the bottom left hand corner of Umbraco, you will see the node Id in brackets. Hence you can match the node name with the node Id.

    Or you could run a foreach loop on media nodes to get name and Id.

    Was there something specific that you required this information for?

    Regards G

  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 14, 2013 @ 19:49
    Richard Barg
    0

    The node ID does not match the media URL. For example, the node ID of the image above is "1912".  

    re: the practical need for this function, one has to do w/intellectual property.  If you have an image in your content that someone complains is copyrighted, you would want to have the ability to locate it quickly.  If you have duplicate images in the media library, you would like to know which one is not being used in the content area. You'd also like to know, for any given image, if its actually being used in the content area, and if not, you'd probably delete it.

    The lack of an easy means of discerning/locating relations between media used in the content area and the media image itself and vice-versa, in my opinion, is a flaw in Umbraco and I am not the only person who has raised this issue.

     

  • gary 385 posts 916 karma points
    Mar 14, 2013 @ 21:19
    gary
    0

    Hi Rich,

    Accept your points - have never noticed it, but, then again do not advocate use of images in RTE.

    However, Umbraco V6 MVC;

    @foreach (dynamic item in Umbraco.Media(1110).Children)

    {  <li> @item.Parent.Name, @item.Url(), @item.Name</li> }

    Where 1110 is the only node I have in the media section on current project, but you should be able to (1110, 1111) or run dynamically.
    Lists all you should need, Media Folder Name, media Url , name of image.
    Hope it helps G
  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 15, 2013 @ 16:14
    Richard Barg
    0

    I don't understand your comment about using images in RTE.  How else are you going to get images on your website if not through the content or and how else thru the content than thru RTE.

    That aside, Ttis issue is clearly of importance to content editors. This is a capability that should be built into the  Umbraco core.  If a content editor wants to know where an image in the  media library appears in the content, this is a fairly basic feature. Similarly, if a content editor has inserted an image from the media library at some point and then returned to the page, he or she should be able to instantly determine where that image is in the media library.  Again, this is a very basic requirement.  It should not require a developer to write complex SQL queries or add-on packages.

    If your boss comes to you and asks you to change an image or remove it because the license expired,  are you going to tell the boss, Oh sorry, Umbraco HQ didn't think that was important.  I guess I will have to go thru every image in the media library to find the one  in question. Of course, people use folders to help them organize the media images, but why the relationship between  images and their related content are not readily apparent and easily discernible is a puzzle to me.

    In version 4.9 or thereabouts, Umbraco HQ created a new flashy looking media library.  Unfortunately it did nothing to address the opaqueness of the relationship between images and content where they are used.

  • gary 385 posts 916 karma points
    Mar 15, 2013 @ 19:21
    gary
    0

    With the greatest of respect, your comments are not of the attitude of Umbraco.

    However, in the spirit of Umbraco, I will try again to help you.

    At the top of the Media section is a search facility, write in the box the name of the image you are looking for and press the search button. If it has been renamed then there is nothing that anyone can do to help you except the person who renamed it.

    When you find the file from the search you can delete or replace it. Because the image is being used in the rich text editor, this will not automatically update if replaced, however, if the image was called via a datatype it would update every instance. (See note on datatypes below). This is one of the reasons why I do not advocate the use of images in the rich text editor.

    If you want to find the name of the image from the web page, right click on the image and click inspect element, the media url will be given and the name of the image. You can then search to find it, as above. 

    There is no need for code, just a basic understanding of the web.

    Umbraco contains 30+ datatypes to allow data entry straight out of the box, not just the Rich Text Editor. It is also possible for a developer to create custom datatypes if required. Among them are datatypes to allow for the upload of images which can be called to the page using asp calls in Webforms, xslt or razor in two formats. There are packages that can be utilised that allow image editing with pixlr in the Umbraco Content Area, addition of crops for images, and a link to open directly in the media section. At this point it is a struggle to see how much simpler Umbraco could make it.

    Umbraco is a framework, not a solution, how developers work with the framework is their own choice, coupled with providing the solution for the client.

    If the developer of your site has not used this functionality, this is not the "fault" of Umbraco - the friendly CMS.

     

  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 15, 2013 @ 20:08
    Richard Barg
    0

    Thanks for your explanation.

    re: the search facility, it does indeed allow you to match front-end or back office images from the content area w/the corresponding images in the media library, although its worth noting that the Umbraco search boxes in both the content and media areas are clunky and return results irregularly and often times return too many results that you then have to sift through when you input in a more targeted search. It works but its crude. With enough elbow grease, it does work however and I appreciate the guidance.  For the average content editor, this is a heavy lift.

    Going the opposite way, see http://our.umbraco.org/forum/using/ui-questions/39276-Determining-Where-a-Media-Library-Image-is-Used-in-Content  (the back office extention does not work, at least for us), you would have to do a search on the front end to find the image based on the name in backend. Its hard to understand why this function is not built into the Umbraco media area.

    re: your comments re: the RTE, it clearly is a problem that changing or renaming the image in the media library does not update the RTE image.
    Since the node ID is unchanged, its hard to understand why the RTE could not do this, but I'm not a programmer.

    We'll certainly look into using alternate ways of entering images. I will talk to our programmer about this.  I am not sure what you mean by "straight out of the box". Obviously the RTE, based on TinyMCE, is designed to make it easy for users to create content. TinyMCE is often used interchangably with Rich Text Editor in these forums.  

    re: "your comments are not of the attitude of Umbraco", I'm not sure of your point.  If its that I went overboard on my criticisms and could have been less critical and more circumspect and professional, your point is well-taken. 

     

  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 15, 2013 @ 22:18
    Richard Barg
    0

    Gary,

    I spoke to our developer.  The purpose of a CMS is, among other things, to allow the average person to create content pages, in some cases, free form pages.  This assumes the addtion of images. The RTE, which is present in Drupal, Jooma and other CMSs allow the insertion of images using a WYSWIG editor, generally TinyMCE.  Here, for example, is a free form page I that I developed:

    http://transplant.surgery.ucsf.edu/conditions--procedures/islet-cell-transplantation.aspx

    The insertion of images is not fixed. Its very much an artistic effort.  Yes, we have areas of our website where we have developed uniform ways of inserting images using alternate datatypes.  But those custom datatypes are expensive to develop and do not replace free-form content development in the RTE.  We are not talking about image editing at this point, but image placement. We're aware of programs like Imagen, but that's not what is at issue here.  The RTE is the primary vehicle for entering content on a customized web page vs a news feed or heavily templated page. The RTE was intended for image insertion.  Without that, you really dont' have a CMS for ordinary users.

     

  • gary 385 posts 916 karma points
    Mar 15, 2013 @ 22:48
    gary
    0

    Hi Richard

    Apologies for not replying to your earlier post, trying to get things finished up here for the weekend.

    One of the things that is clear is that CMS covers a vast area of "options" in terms of creating web pages. From my perspective I guess my developments tend to be very tight, formal, with very little lattitude for content creation outside of that format. However, through your explanantion I see the perspective of when someone will need to add those extra images, ones that have not been accounted for in the "formal" structure. I would have like to have seen your page, but it threw an error, however your explanation was clear enough for me to understand. 

    It is not any secret that the whole content section of Umbraco is currently being redeveloped, it is named Belle and is due out in the not too distant future. Part of the current discussions are based around TinyMCE. The thinking is that it has become dated and although used by all the major CMS systems there are more "useable" editors available. Looked for the page where I read this but cant find it, when I do will drop a link.

    Perhaps, your case is exactly what Umbraco HQ need to hear. As we mentioned, often we overlook certain functionality because "we don't need it", but that doesn't mean to say it cannot be critical to someone else. Covering the tracks, another reason I do not like RTE is because it's horrible to use, so I guess that I will develop around it rather than include it. So, if it was to be vastly improved it may save me a lot of time and effort, offer greater flexibility to my customers and less frustrations all around.

    I will find the link and post it, hopefully something good can come of our conversation, like a lot of people benefitting from the sharing of ways to improve an open-source product for the good of all the users. 

    Have a great weekend, 

    Regards from across the pond

    Gary

  • Richard Barg 358 posts 532 karma points
    Mar 16, 2013 @ 00:53
    Richard Barg
    0

    Gary,

    The above page is up now.  Our site was unexpectedly down. We have pages like this which are totally automated: http://www.surgery.ucsf.edu/faculty.aspx  Then we have pages that are partially automated (most images are done programatically and a few are done on the fly):  http://www.surgery.ucsf.edu/news--events.aspx

    Some pages are free form in the content area, but have modules that produce informity elsewhere: http://www.surgery.ucsf.edu/conditions--procedures/islet-cell-transplantation.aspx

    Uniformity is great wherever possible because it produces a consistent look and feel, but there are times it doesn't work.

     The RTE editor a/k/a TinyMCE can be a major headache. It frequently puts tags in the wrong place, turning a whole section h2 instead of h3, requiring users to go into the HTML. BR and p tags are often inconsistently created and applied.  It's not like using MS Word. That's probably one reason I have some of the same philosopy as you. This is also one reason we are developing Contour forms that actually create web pages that I can just configure. 

    https://websupport.surgery.ucsf.edu/bios--mini-bios/full-biography-(faculty).aspx

    I assume Bellle is part of version 6, not 4.xxx  - if so that's a great reason to move to 6.

    This has been a very fruitful discussion. You educated me on the media library, got me to tone down some of my bluster, and it appears I gave you a different perspective on creation of web pages.

    I will pass on one other thing that speaks very highly of Umbraco.   This is out flagship site: http://www.surgery.ucsf.edu/

    Another Dept. at UCSF copied our site design almost verbatim and created it in Drupal: http://pediatrics.ucsf.edu/

    The person who developed the Drupal site is also our front-end programming leader (CSS/JQuery/HTML).    He told me that Umbraco was infinitely easier to use when updating content. Pediatrics has numerous sites but all using a single hostname. He said even creating a new page was a challenge and beyond the skills of the average user.

    We have 50+ websites/hostnames in our installation - see below.

     

     

     

     

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