Last modified: 2013-09-19 05:52:47 UTC
I have seen many sites that are allowing for drag-and-drop uploading. The good news is that you can even preserve meta-data about the files during this process too. ;) I think I have seen previous implementations using WebDAV stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDav Extensions to this methodology of uploading could allow for automatic categoization and licensing. (i.e. you drag it into the public-domain folder which would categorize the image as a public domain automatically) This is a massive overhaul of the upload backend and might be something for "MediaWiki 2.0"
* Where would the user drop the file to be uploaded? * Aside from uploading, what other action would be taken? * What would be the best method to prompt for licencing information (where enabled), summaries, etc?
* I envision a 'Windows Explorer'-like interface... but if someone has a better idea, by all means. What happens is they would visit 'Special:WebDAV' which would load an applet (or however you want to implement it) in a frame in on the page. It might have a hierarchical folder structure. The structure could be sorted alphabetically or by some other metric of choice. In theory, you could call the applet on any page, but for on-screen real estate reasons, it might be best to have lots of space. Drilling down into categories would be done in the same way you do it in Windows. As an analogy, if Hoboken were a category under New Jersey and New Jersey under USA, drilling down in the WebDAV browser would be the equivalent of C:\USA\New Jersey\Hoboken Where C:\ is the top level folder, if you catch my drift... * Aside from uploading, this would be a great interface for copy/move/delete functionality, especially for bulk actions. Dragging overtop 3 or 4 items in the frame, then hitting delete would allow you to delete them all simultaneously. Before you click 'yes' to the 'are you sure?' message it would prompt you for a comment on why you are deleting. You should be able to do anything to the files you would do in Windows. Delete / Add / Copy / Move / Rename / etc. The licensing information could be handled in a few ways, I suppose. You could switch 'views' from 'category view' into 'licensing view'. In this mode, by moving a file into a particular license folder, you would modify the license to match. That may be pretty complicated to implement, but very easy to use. An easier implementation might just be the same or similar drop-down we use today. This of course would be enhanced by the ability to bulk/batch-load files. I am just thinking out loud here, my ideas are certainly not the limits of what WebDAV style uploading can provide. I bet you could even do this with AJAX. Some other links to sites using similar technology: http://www.box.net/info http://www.box.net/info/uploading https://www.DropBoks.com http://www.openomy.com http://www.eSnips.com http://www.MediaMax.com http://www.OmniDrive.com
Facebook.com uses a similar technology to allow users to upload images. They use an active x control though...
This is well feasible now with HTML5
UploadWizard does this...
i have added a patch for this on Gerrit : https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#change,3808 . I have added drag and drop support with a drop container. Please review it .
Still needs some love, but can be temporarily tested here: http://mwreview.wmflabs.org/
Change 3808 had a related patch set uploaded by MarkTraceur: Add HTML5 drag and drop support https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/3808
