Pinned photos stay pinned in a different album... where they don't exist.

[hfiguiere]

So you have photo A and B You have album 1 and 2 Album 1 contains A Album 2 contains B Go to album 1. Pin A Go to album 2. It still tell there is a pinned photo.

It shouldn't IMHO.

[jmathai]

Agree that they shouldn't be pinned or should show some sort of message indicating that they are pinned.

This is a good point though. I think we have to better define this UI of pinning a photo.

[jmathai]

There's now a badge indicator of how many photos are pinned. This doesn't solve the problem but helps in providing the user context on what they're about to batch edit.

Perhaps the batch edit slide down should include thumbnails of all the photos which are going to be edited?

[hfiguiere]

It doesn't solve at all.

It should just deselect the pictures if moving away from the page. Or readjust the pinning with what's visible.

[jmathai]

It should just deselect the pictures if moving away from the page. Or readjust the pinning with what's visible.

Depends on the use case. If you want to select photos across albums and tags to apply some sort of batch editing for then you'll need the operation to apply to photos that aren't only visible. That's the primary reason it works this way.

[hfiguiere]

Then you should display several albums. Or do something else.

The current paradigm is a bug, kind of like using the whole thing blindfolded. It is a serious UX issue.

[jmathai]

The only way I can think of is to show the pinned photos as thumbnails. Otherwise it's limiting what's pinned to the current view; something I'm not opposed to but didn't want to do it out of laziness or lack of creativity.

I think we need some more clear use cases similar to what you provided in the original description so we understand what we're solving.

The issue is mistakenly applying an edit to a photo because it was already pinned. Extrapolated it's that you don't have an easy way to see what photos are pinned (only the number of photos). This applies not only to when you're about to do an edit but it applies to when you're pinning photos in order to make that edit.

For example, you don't want to spend 5 minutes pinning photos only to realize when you go to edit them that there were already photos pinned that you now have to find and unpin.

Ideas

1. Automatically unpin photos once an edit is made (doesn't solve anything, adds confusion)
2. Remember pinned photos for a short time period (5 minutes of not pinning?)
3. Notify user when pinning a photo that existing photos are pinned (not sure how to determine criteria that the user should be notified)
4. Show thumbnails of all pinned photos each time a photo is pinned (probably in the confirmation message)

[hfiguiere]

1. NO
2. NO
3. NO
4. YES, but not as the only solution
5. Unpin when changing view OR
6. Unpin those not in the current view, automatically.

What does your UX designer think of that? Is there any user story about it?

[jmathai]

5 and 6 makes it so you can no longer batch edit across albums, tags, or other search criteria.

[hfiguiere]

Maybe that's what need to be re-thought. Searching.

[jmathai]

Maybe that's what need to be re-thought. Searching.

Do you mean as a way of getting all the photos you want to edit in a single view?

[edit, adding] It's entirely feasible that this problem is an artifact of poorly implemented search.

[hfiguiere]

amongst other use cases.

[jmathai]

Resuscitating #173 (search).

[jmathai]

@hfiguiere Closing #173 and using it a bit leads me believe that search (even if implemented better) is insufficient to address the potential need of batch editing across views.

Would be nice to get some other perspectives on this. // @sneakypete81 @jordanbrock @Notmarrco @Zeriuno

[hfiguiere]

But clearly pinning like that ain't the solution.

[Zeriuno]

For what is worth, I think that pinning and modifying shouldn't be necessary in the first place. So first, make sure that the uploading process allow to tag and sort the pictures in the best way.

Pinning elements that you don't see is indeed a problem. So you have to be able to see the elements even if they belong to different albums. Maybe it could be done by allowing to display albums in the album page even without entering them. You could open an album, by going to jaisen.trovebox.com/album/1 or display it staying in the album page. There you could select pictures from different albums.

[Notmarrco]

I also don't know if there's a good solution to that problem ... A use case about pinning I came across some time ago was to tag some photos "to_print" when viewing them and then bulk download these. So I think i'm on the "pin across albums" team.

To do this I'd like to be able to pin a photo when using the "lightroom" (but I understand that you're trying to do the opposite : to have a lightroom only for viewing, so I let this down :smile: ).

So my other option would be to have a panel dedicated for bulk actions. For example you pin some photos and they appear on the right of the website on a sliding panel (not visible when no photo is pinned). You can pin photo from albums or from search result likewise. Then on this panel you have the bulk options like renaming / tagging / ..., and on the album/search-view just replace the "bulk options" with "select all" option. With this it's easy to see if you already have pinned photos (from another album for instance) to avoid unwanted modification. On a mobile website/application it could be a "hidden" page that you can pop over by swiping your finger from the right side to the left.

Not sure if I'm helping here, but that's my 2cts :)

ps: thinking of it, I believe that "ES File explorer" on android is having a similar approach on selecting files to process but with a left-side panel !

[Zeriuno]

@Notmarrco but in the lightroom you can select the pictures with alt clic and then modify.

[hfiguiere]

Just to clear up confusion. It is the pinning of images that are not in the current list that do not work for me.

[hfiguiere]

@Zeriuno each time I suggest doing it on the desktop before upload I get scolded.

[Zeriuno]

Sorry, I didn't understand what should be done in the desktop, at your advice?

[jmathai]

@Zeriuno said

For what is worth, I think that pinning and modifying shouldn't be necessary in the first place. So first, make sure that the uploading process allow to tag and sort the pictures in the best way.

That's a valid point and we probably need a better UI before uploading. Batch editing can work on the upload confirmation page but it's not the same as doing it before uploading. Flickr does a pretty good job at this.

@Notmarrco said

So my other option would be to have a panel dedicated for bulk actions.

We essentially have this but it doesn't do much (i.e. show thumbnails). We could make this panel which slides down be more interactive.

@hfiguiere said

It is the pinning of images that are not in the current list that do not work for me.

I think the panel idea from above is the best solution. Else we have an entirely separate view or disable editing photos in batch that can't be in a single view.

@hfiguiere said

each time I suggest doing it on the desktop before upload I get scolded.

We can't expect all users to do this, that's all.

[Zeriuno]

@jmathai Well, I thought I did wrote about it, but looks like I didn't (or simply I can't find it). Sometimes I have like 10 files to upload, but I don't upload all of them in one time, because I can't tag them exactly. I may have 10 pictures belonging to the same album but 2 are with person X and I others don't. As of now I can't set tags for individual elements in the uploader and that really impacts the UX of uploading process. This is something that in my opinion could really decrease the need for editing operations.

About the panel I think it could work, but it would be better to allow the album to open, to unstash, in the albums page. This way the user could pin the pictures by alt click, a badge will remind him how many pinned pictures are (and by clicking it you'd be brought to the next pinned picture). But this would mean that the user would also have a way to browse all of its pictures (hopefully, when a smart "No album" feature will be created) by album. I see it as a nice browsing option.

[jmathai]

This is something that in my opinion could really decrease the need for editing operations.

I agree. Perhaps it is enough to not need it in the non-uploading UI. But we'll need similar on mobile as well.

This way the user could pin the pictures by alt click, a badge will remind him how many pinned pictures are (and by clicking it you'd be brought to the next pinned picture).

Is this much different from what we have now besides the current pinning UI not having thumbnails?

[Zeriuno]

I agree. Perhaps it is enough to not need it in the non-uploading UI. But we'll need similar on mobile as well.

No, it won't be enough. The example of someone reviewing his pictures to print some of them is perfect for that: pinning in multiple albums can be necessary.

Is this much different from what we have now besides the current pinning UI not having thumbnails?

Yes, it is.

First of all now you can have photos pinned in different pages (and that doesn't work, and we all agrre on). So all photos that you pin must, in my opinion, be in the same page. You can achieve that allowing to expand albums within the album page.

What I suggest is that by clicking on an album, a drawer opens and reveals all of the pictures of the album (and that doesn't close when you expand another album). This way you can open all of you albums in the same page.

We have a badge now, showing how many pictures are in the batch queue, yes. But you can't click the badge, the number: you can only click to act. Clicking the number could bring you to the next pinned item (if the page is so long that you don't find all of them). That's what I was thinking as a solution, if I managed to explained it properly.

Then having the opportunity to confront the pictures you pinned can be useful, but it looks to me that, especially on a little screen, this adds to the problem.

[jmathai]

What I suggest is that by clicking on an album, a drawer opens and reveals all of the pictures of the album (and that doesn't close when you expand another album). This way you can open all of you albums in the same page.

I get the goal but I think that's a bit too complicated and the UI for that would be a lot of work.

Can you (or anyone) explain why displaying the pinned photos on the batch editing dialog would not suffice? What's the use case that this doesn't work for?

I suggest this solution because it's the most consistent with the UIs that already exist. But as always I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

[Zeriuno]

Can you (or anyone) explain why displaying the pinned photos on the batch editing dialog would not suffice? What's the use case that this doesn't work for?

What do you display exactly: the number of the pictures (it doesn't work because "Ok, 1 picture selected: but WHERE!?!") or the pictures themselves?

[jmathai]

What do you display exactly

We're already displaying the count which I agree doesn't work. I would like to display the thumbnails in that drawer when you click to perform the batch edit. I'm not sure what size the thumbnails should be or how effective it will be if you're editing a large number of them. But that's my first stab at a UI for it.

[Zeriuno]

I don't see the thumnails in the drawer solution working. The menu is for icons and text, not for images, and a dropdown menu containg images seems really quirk to mee (maybe it won't be so…). Perhaps a new drawer, coming from the bottom screen (and that you can click to hide, in order to make it usable for small screens.

[jmathai]

@Zeriuno I can see how the drawer is not optimal for thumbnails. I like the idea of sliding a panel up from the bottom though. There are two options for that. One is to have it display when expanding the batch edit dialog and the other is to have a separate link to view the panel with thumbnails. There are probably other ideas but those are what came to mind first.

[Zeriuno]

You could put a "handle" on the panel. It could expand both when clicking on the batch menu (it is useful to have a reminder of what you are editing) and indipendently, by pulling the handle (you may just want to chek what you selected without committing changes yet).

[Notmarrco]

Fwiw I'd prefer a panel on the left or right side. I'm thinking "mobile" there : it's kinda complicated to slide up from the bottom to see the pictures in the album page AND to slide up from the bottom to show the edit panel, even if there is a "handle". I agree that's a change of "paradigm" ( is it ? ) considering the actual UI (with elements sliding up and down and never left to right) so I won't bother if you implement the bottom panel, but I think it could be good to redesign the user experience for another release.... Ok i'm perhaps overthinking things here ... :smile:

[Zeriuno]

Couldn't the panel adjust its position based on the viewport?