Uploading images while in editing page mode is not user-friendly

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss or "announce" this, but we find the interface to upload a image to a section of your site, while you are in editing page mode is very unfriendly and downright confusing to content editors.

The thing that makes it so confusing is the interface for searching the location where you want the file to go. If you click in the wrong place on that search bar, you end up with a location string that you don't want. Also, it puts what looks like a copy of an "image" inside the search box, which is very confusing. It should look like a location string and not an image. By making it look like an image, it generates all kinds of confusion. I know the workaround is to upload all the images you want to use into a folder first (using the folder contents view), but this isn't reality to how users are adding images to a site.

Our process is:

  1. Go to the page that you want to edit and click the edit menu.
  2. Click the icon in the TINY MCE editing bar to add an image to the page body.
  3. Click the upload tab
  4. Click the browse button to find the image on your computer, or drag the image from somewhere on your computer to the upload box.
    ===Below is where the interface breaks down.==
  5. At this point it puts something in the search box that looks like an image, but really it's a location trail to where you are uploading the image (which defaults to the current folder that you are in while editing the page). Most users aren't picking up that this is the location trail since it looks like an image. You need to click the little "x" in the corner of that "image" to delete that trail to begin to put the image where you want it (that's isn't intuitive to users).
  6. Then, you have to click the search icon (the bars on the far left of the word "search") to bring up a menu of the first level locations in your site. It's unclear at this point whether you need to click the arrow to the right to dive deeper to the folder you want, and if you do, it takes you to just the next level and inserts an "image" of that location in the search bar. It won't let you go three levels down to get to the location you want, it just inserts the second level as the "image."
  7. What you really need to do is click the name of the folder you want, which opens another menu, and lets you select another folder, and another folder, etc. until you get to the folder where you want your image to upload to. After you've reached the final level, it's unclear whether you click the arrow on the right, or double click. Both seem to work, but it's confusing.

I agree that this is too difficult. I would want an editor more like the one used by discourse (this forum).
You can even drag images into it.

IMO, this seems to be somehow related with this PLIP:

Lynn, the whole concept of being able to upload an image to a different (non-default location, ie. "not here") is powerful, but, as you note, the UI for it requires too many hard-to-guess elements. Familiarity with the new UI (and maybe some training) helps of course. Another approach taken on some sites I've worked on is to remove the concept of "where do I upload images" (or files) entirely; the site has a default folder for images and another one for files. All uploads of images and files go to those folders, and there is no user choice. This also makes finding an image you just uploaded so you can link to it or include it in your page trivial. That is a UI change I think Plone would benefit from.

I don't think single media folders is suitable for all plone sites but most sites could certainly benefit from it. I think plone should support this via configuration where if you setup restrictions such that media can only exist in one place then plone UI should correspondingly simplify itself to only show that choice.

I think whats listed above is a bunch of UX issues. I'll either try to generalise that existing ticket or create some more tickets. Thanks very much @lynnp08 for letting us know the problems you are experiencing. We will work on Plone to improve this.

Hi Kim, Actually single folders for images, is a good idea. We have such folders, but many of them spread throughout the site. Consolidating them might be a good idea. However, this doesn't solve the issue of the poor user interface for putting images where you need them to go. I still think that needs work.