MG 2.2 Media Gallery 2.2 - Lightbox navigation, attachment mirroring and more!

lightbox_5.pngXenForo Media Gallery (XFMG) 2.2 sees a range of new features and improvements. Some of these are a result of new integrations with XenForo 2.2 itself, while others are exclusive new features to XFMG itself.

Lightbox navigation​

Starting with XenForo 2.2 we are introducing a brand new lightbox which as well as being a much improved user experience also affords us some flexibility in how and where we use the lightbox.

One such use case which we couldn't resist treating you to for XFMG 2.2 is of course navigating through media items in the media gallery. Before we get into it, this is what the experience looks like.


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The lightbox as used in the media gallery supports all media types including media embeds, video and audio.

By default the lightbox opens up a very useful sidebar which displays most of the information and functionality that you get if you go to the full media page. If you prefer not to view that information then you can collapse the sidebar. Sections within the sidebar can be expanded and collapsed as required and we remember your preferences here so only the relevant sections are displayed.

The lightbox will initially only contain the items from the current page but, as you can see in the video, you can continue navigating beyond the page you're on and we will load additional items from the subsequent page dynamically.

If you need to view the full media details and access the full functionality you just need to click the "New window" icon in the lightbox toolbar or click the caption of the image.

You can navigate through any media list in this way be that the list of media in an album or category, all media in the New media page or the entire media gallery via the media index.

We think this is an awesome way to navigate through the media gallery but if you prefer to keep things as they are (we won't be offended!) then you can disable it:

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We should also take this opportunity to note that all of the lightbox functionality you see here is a general concept baked into the core lightbox itself so should any add-on developers which to add a similar navigation or sidebar concept to their existing lightbox implementations then this should be fairly trivial to do.

Attachment mirroring​

For a very long time you have been telling us that you would like to have a slightly closer relationship between attachments in threads and posts and the media gallery, and the new "Attachment mirroring" system in XFMG 2.2 aims to somewhat bridge that gap. It starts with a forum-level or media category-level configuration:

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While viewing a media category you can pick which forums attachments are mirrored from...

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... and while viewing a forum you can pick which media category attachments are mirrored to.

Once you have specified which media category your forum should mirror attachments to, any attachments which are added to posts in that forum will be automatically created as media items in the specified gallery.

As an example, here is a post containing an image I have attached inside the "Travel and nature" forum:

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And here it is now displayed in the media gallery:

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As you can see here we make display a clear reference to the fact that the media item originated from a particular thread with the "Originally posted in: Thread 'Travel photos'" line. Thins links and takes you straight back to the post where the attachment was originally posted.

While viewing the thread, we also make clear that the attachment has been also posted over in the media gallery too. Of course images open up in the lightbox and when you do so, the media information opens up in the sidebar with an additional link that links back to the full media gallery view if needed:


But what about all of those existing threads with great images you might want to bring over to the media gallery? We've added a rebuild which will take care of that for you:

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This allows you to have old items that were not yet mirrored synced into the media gallery, plus it will move or remove items from the media gallery as applicable if you disable mirroring or change the target category.


But wait... there's more!​

In addition to these great features we have also added (or in the process of adding) support for the following previously announced XF 2.2 features including:
 
To give you an idea now: My XFRM categories match my forum nodes. I want to match 190 forum nodes to 190 XFMG categories.
No point telling me here as I won't be looking here when I'm next deciding which suggestions we might want to implement hence my request 🙂

Are suggestions still appreciated? I see that 'most solutions' has been added to notable members, but nothing about suggestions. No most suggestions, most suggestion votes, nor most implemented suggestions. it seems that answers are now valued much higher than suggestions. Do you prefer people to switch from suggestions to answering questions?
Would I have asked you to create a suggestion otherwise?

It seems suggestions are still appreciated and very relevant seeing as we've been implementing quite a few of them:

We also added a new forum type specifically for that purpose so, yeah, they're kind of a big deal.

I'm really not understanding your logic here. Questions and suggestions are mutually exclusive things. If you have something to suggest, please create a suggestion. If you know the answer to a question, please answer it. Both are equally crucial.

To answer your question on those metrics specifically, there really is no value whatsoever to most of those metrics. It doesn't matter to us how many suggestions someone makes. Suggestions are measured and ranked quite clearly by their vote score in the forum itself. And while "Most implemented suggestions" might be the only thing here close to being a reasonable metric, it's not one that I recall we even thought people would want.

So you can probably guess what I have to say about that...

You should suggest it so we can keep that in mind.
 
It is not currently a CLI rebuild. You should suggest it so we can keep that in mind. Please also include in that your actual use case, i.e. how many forums you will mirror attachments to, how many attachments you expect to be mirroring, into how many gallery categories etc.
fwiw, my first impression is people would want to make all their forums mirror to media gallery. I'm not sure how it works in practice... but it seems inconsistent to let some and not others.
 
in order to be able to organize content where it most makes sense and is helpful....it really needs a more flexible interface than what im gathering will be implemented....

something simple but effective....

for example an attachment is uploaded in forum A....the user is then presented a popup or such asking them where they wish to cross index the image...something simple like checkboxes or dropdown menu for categories...

once a category is selected, a prompt for existing or new album comes up(if allowed by permission system)...which allows full proper organization of content...

otherwise, you will have many forums with users jamming images in a big pile(automatically of course) regardless if they fit the category ideally...

or else members will have to go back and reorganize the content manually after the system puts it in the wrong place, which really should be avoided if possible for best UX which seems massively important in this age...
 
What happens when the post that contains the original image is deleted or the image is deleted from the post? Will it continue to exist in the media gallery?

Its a really nice feature.
 
What happens when the post that contains the original image is deleted or the image is deleted from the post? Will it continue to exist in the media gallery?
After mirroring successfully, my tests say:

If image in post is deleted OR the post itself is deleted -> MG item also gets deleted
If MG item gets deleted -> the image in post still stays

So there is one sided synchronisation.
 
not sure if this has been discussed, but my other concern with this, more related to my comment about giving members an ability to categorize into specific albums....has to do with us forcing album use and not really allowing loose organized imaged into categories.....

doesnt seem like that will really work, if thats the only place the system can put them...

is this really how it is? such a stellar idea, a little worried it will need some custom solutions to take it home tho...
 
To give you an idea now: My XFRM categories match my forum nodes. I want to match 190 forum nodes to 190 XFMG categories.

My website is set up this way, but for a different reason.

We have nodes/forums that match the XF Media Categories, but the purpose is to allow sellers to make 'Product Announcements', and those posts will be linked to the XF Media Categories.

Items that are to be put up For Sale will be handled by XF Resource Manager and an XFA Marketplace add-on.
 
Yeah theoretically.

The mirroring system - like the attachment system - is type agnostic. It would require the add-on developer to add support for their attachment content type specifically but it should be possible somewhat trivially.
 
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