After using Concrete5 for many years I must say the Version 9 file manager is extremely disappointing. Everything you do takes more time now and is not development friendly. Some examples include:
Last Folder Used: Previously when building a site, you could go to a sub-folder in C5 (ex: header images) and while you built out your site, each time you went back to file manager it took you back to where you last left off - very handy. Now in Ver 9 it takes you to the top level and you have to hunt and search for the images you need, every single time. And the new layout is not good, not easy to find images you need quickly. Not development friendly.
Quick Info on Click: Previously you could check attributes, sets, file information, etc. right from the main image listing. Very helpful and quick. Now in Ver 9 those items are not available. You now have to click the image that takes you to a detail image page and then hunt for the information needed. Time consuming and not as useful as pre-version 9.
Bulk Actions: In previous versions you could easily do bulk actions (ex. Delete, Move to Folder, etc.). This is no longer available in Ver 9. Example, letās say I had many watermarked images that were only used for Beta, and now they need to be deleted. This has to be done one at a time - thatās really bad and time consuming. Same for moving files - can only manage one at a time. Not user friendly.
Slower Image Replace: In previous versions you could simply click on an image and select āReplaceā and choose your new file and you were done. Now you have to select the image and go to a detailed image page, then select āSwapā and then you can choose a new file. Why the extra clicks? Why would a new version make things harder and slower instead of faster and better? Older version was better.
In a nutshell, from a user-friendliness and developer-expediency perspective, the Version 8 and previous file manager was WAY BETTER. I would hope that the old file manager could be updated to Ver 9 and brought back. To be brutally honest, I dislike the new file manager a great deal. Any time I find WordPress more user friendly, I know there is an issue that needs to be addressed. (I donāt like WordPress file manager either, but now itās easier to work with than the Ver 9 C5 file manager). Letās hope this gets fixed quicklyā¦ We can hope.
Same complaints from me as well. The File Manager has been reworked many times over the years and now itās getting worse instead of better. My main complaints are 1) it forgets where you were the last time so you have to re-dig your way to the images as noted by darrellgw and 2) There are at least 4 context menus (ā¦, Manage, Edit, Bulk actions ) that contain functionality like sets, download, delete, etc and I can never for the life of me remember which menu does which functions so Iām always opening an image, hunting for functionality on all these menus.
Also a small point but one that tells me the designer of this section really isnāt paying a whole lot of attention to usability is when you want to open a folder, you need to click on the row anywhere BUT the folder icon even though the cursor indicates that you should be able to click on the folder. Without a word of a lie, it probably took me 6 hours to figure out that you needed to NOT click on the folder icon to open a folder. Iām not proud of that fact but it shows how counterintuitive it is. The dev team at Portland must use this File Manager all the time as they build sites for paying clients so how can they live with it like this? I thought Portland hired a UX guy a few years ago.
Question Darrellgw, on my Bulk actions menu, I can Move to folder and delete multiple files. Iām on 9.2.2 (soon to be 9.2.3) What version are you on where those options donāt show up?
Currently running 9.2.2. There are boxes beside images in the list, and you can check as many as you like, but there is only a choice (three little dots beside a particular image) that only do one file at a time - regardless of how many images you have checked. Unless I am missing something, I have not figured out bulk actionsā¦ And really, should a file manager be that hard to work with?
Some concerns have been previously expressed in github and there have been some pulls approved in the last few months (or perhaps the fixes were not as effective as purported). I suggest you add your weight to existing issues or open new issues. I also suggest individual issues for each problem.
Overall I agree with most of the above. The new file manager and file selector offer a lot of potential for better functionality, but have both taken a few steps backwards to offer that potential without actually realising it. In the file selector I find myself relying on ārecently uploadedā as a convenient workaround for the awkwardness of navigating folders and at the cost of actually keeping files organised. In the file manager, as @mhawke notes, I am confused by the profusion of context menus on an individual fileās dashboard page.
+1 to pretty much all of that. I find the lack of a āstickyā folder to be perhaps my biggest bugbear. Just remember the last one I picked and stick with it until I indicate otherwise.
The extra work involved to swap/replace (why the change in nomenclature?) images is without doubt a retrograde step. Moving most if not all of the functions you can only get to by use of the Details option onto the context menu that links to it would make it far less cumbersome, IMHO.