File Uploads plugin beta: feedback

See File Uploads plugin — beta to grab the general plugin and the uploader add-ons.

A Fission uploader and an experimental Github uploader are now available.

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Hi @saqimtiaz , awesome :slight_smile: !

Looking forward in trying this out!

Best wishes,
Simon

Great beta saqimtiaz! Exciting times ahead. I’ve given it a try with the dummy route and it works as it should. Have yet to try it out with fission and github. Will do that later.

I don’t why, but I confused myself into thinking that creating image tiddlers automatically leads to the image being treated as binary data for uploading via this plugin. That’s clearly not what’s on the packaging, but it would be nice to have since images tend to take up so much real estate. What do you think?

Hi @abesamma and thank you for your feedback.

The way this plugin works, it uses a filter to determine which tiddlers get uploaded. You have made me realize that I need to add documentation about this filter, but you can see it in the tiddler $:/config/fileUploadFilter. The default value of the tiddler is such that binary tiddlers over 100kb get uploaded.

If you create a new image and it matches the filter and an uploader (other than dummy) has been configured, it will be uploaded and replaced by a tiddler with a canonical URI field pointing to the uploaded tiddler.

Does this match your expectations? If not please do elaborate as what the difference is.
Thank you.

Thank you @saqimtiaz. This is very illuminating! If that’s the case, that only increases my excitement. Thank you. As someone who introduces these new features to less TiddlyWiki savvy new users via Oneplaybook, I’m always thinking about ways to reduce cognitive load brought up by exposing them to advanced features like filters.

So maybe what we can do as a community is to brainstorm ways of reducing the need to fiddle with the filters, maybe set up default filter settings that conforms to broadest set of user expectations (in this case, for me at least, it was created image tiddlers).

Thank you again!

I completely agree about the cognitive load of filters and I brought this up in discussion with Jeremy recently. The trick is trying to find the balance between flexibility and ease of use.

For example, it would be very easy to expose a configuration UI to control the size at which binary files are uploaded. However, this UI would fail or become irrelevant if the user modified the underlying filter to not involve the size at all.

Using filters for configuring the file uploads is extremely powerful as it gives the user complete control over what is uploaded, but yes it isn’t the easiest to configure for new users. There are some ideas in this realm that are worth exploring, for example having a configuration UI that generates/edits a filter under the covers.

In the work on the FileUploads plugin thus far the priority has been to get something usable available for users as soon as possible. This has meant that UI concerns have taken a temporary backseat, as we need to figure out core solutions to the UI requirements which is likely to be time consuming, as anything we implement now we will then be tied to by our backwards compatibility commitment.

I will expound on this in the community call later today but rest assured that the UI and UX aspect is not forgotten.

I have added to the documentation an explanation of the role of the $:/config/fileUploadFilter in determining which tiddlers are uploaded.

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For reference — I have no idea what you guys are talking about :wink:

It uploads images so that met my expectations!

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@telumire thank you for the feedback. Replying to you here to consolidate all feedback in one place.

Just to clarify, the plugin itself only does file uploads for binary files. However, the long term goal is to refactor the core to introduce all the new capabilities discussed yesterday including RSS. The work on the plugin right now helps in that (a) it means users can make use of the File Uploads feature now, and (b) it helps us understand how to implement these new features and test ideas and gather feedback towards that end.

So the plugin is the first step towards adding all these abilities to the core.

Since the plugin itself is only concerned with file uploads will happen automatically in the background, a commit message wouldn’t have much relevance here. However, the suggestion is a good one for the long term goal of being able to upload/sync different things to Github.

I would be very happy for their to be greater community support for the Github uploader.

Yes that is correct but as part of the long term goal for the core that was discussed on the call, and not via this plugin itself. However, the work on this plugin facilitates that future work on the core.

This isn’t something I have thought much about myself but I definitely think it is within the realm of what would be possible with the new features we are envisioning, except the lazy loading part which is always a challenge with the way TiddlyWiki works (filters etc assume all tiddlers are available).

Yes absolutely, with enough community support a local file uploader module would be an option. As of yet the only uploader that received significant community support and funding was Fission.

At first glance, I don’t see anything in their model that OpenCollective doesn’t already offer. In addition to monthly subscriptions, there is also the possibility to do fund raising for individual projects.

See:

The advantage with OpenCollective is that it is a promising concept with an established and flexible system that we can leverage instead of trying to create our own.

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Somehow I missed the rest of thread until now. Insta-backing the node backend, it would be a nice thing for me.

I’m now actively procrastinating on the images issue right now. Up until now I thought about writing a cron script to externalize images periodically by running commands. But that will be more like a one off thing to do if this backend gets implemented.

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Initial tests of the WebDAV PUT option went perfectly. I’m able to drag and drop images directly into an open Tiddler and the image is uploaded to my specified directory and linked automatically. This makes for a significant reduction of friction when dealing with images. And by significant I mean the difference between including images without hesitation vs “Nah, it’s too much hassle.” :slight_smile:

Also, I’m able to do it securely from any of my machines via Tailscale. Wow, I can’t tell you how useful this will be. Thank you so much for providing this.

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Yup! This has been my experience too.

@jbaty Tailscale is pretty awesome! A #how-to of how you use Tailscale with TW would be great if you’ve got a few moments.

That’s a good idea. I’ll make some notes.

Thank you @saqimtiaz. Fileupload is a must have tool!

Oh, I also love your plugin library :wink: :heart_eyes: It is amazing!

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Managing my TiddlyWiki with WebDAV and Tailscale

Thanks very much.
I have now installed your plugin library.
Regards
Scot

A post was merged into an existing topic: Has anyone generated an RSS feed from TiddlyWiki?

2 posts were split to a new topic: Filenames for uploaded tiddlers

A post was split to a new topic: Unsplash support