Issue: Use standard XenForo drag n drop image upload

XenForo attachments are user owned and are not version-safe, this presents major problems with in a multi-user and versioned environment, as occurs in wiki pages. A lot of people request regular forum attachments, without considering what that means. Regular forum attachments used to be allowed in VaultWiki 3. However, we quickly noticed issues and discouraged/deprecated the behavior; it was fully removed in VaultWiki 4. Some examples:
- If users with different upload permissions edit the same wiki page, some attachments might be lost or the user might be unable to save his edit, because the editing user doesn't have permissions for the existing attachments. There are ways around this. One thing we tried in VW3 was to only allow a single user to add attachments to a page; however, if the user dies or leaves the site, it would be impossible to change them.
- If an attachment is removed from the page in a later edit, standard forum cleanup automatically removes unused attachments after some time. If we later want to view any previous edit or even restore those edits, it is not possible, because the forum's background tasks removed the unused attachment already. This is the especially nefarious issue.
- There were other problems too, but these stand out in my memory.

Regarding non-insertable attachments:
We have had plans to bring back regular forum attachments somewhat (attached to the end of the content or on its own tab), but not as entities pastable into the editor/page text (because that combination would still be victim to the above problems). Even this partial return will require some major feature additions to VaultWiki 4 in order to provide a wiki-safe place for such attachments.

Regarding insertable attachments w/ drag-drop support:
- This might be feasible for regular forum attachments without creating a problem if the wiki has a dedicated fake user that becomes the owner of the uploads, with the original uploader not being the owner of the uploaded content. There would still need to be concessions made to workaround the cleanup problem and other issues.
- Another option is just to add a drag-drop trigger for wiki attachments, prompting the user to enter a name for the image when they drop it, without needing to step through the File Browser first.

This second option is probably easier to implement, avoids the non-user-friendly ATTACH tag, is less hackish than using fake user accounts that the admin might accidentally delete when pruning the member base, and avoids the background cleanup issue entirely.

I am really glad that you are considering to implement solutions. it is not needed to have an exact forum attachment system, but we do need something far simpler than what we have now. A simply upload button will suffice.

Its optimal if the attachment is stored as an attachment to the wiki page owned by no user. Essentially the page is the parent.

In regards to the html5 drag & drop feature. I think the second option is the best. Adding a fake user doesn't sound like good practise.

I think that once I finish all the changes I discussed in your other request, the File Browser will be much easier to use. So far the style inconsistency and the first two points were fixed, but there are still some clicks that can be reduced and visibility changes that can be made.

For the time being, I think it needs to be more obvious how to access the current system. I think we need to add an Upload or Attach button in a more recognizable place, such as where regular posts have the Upload a File button, which opens that 4th level overlay of the File Browser directly. For new uploads made in this way, they should appear like the normal forum attachment does below the editor, except maybe with the heading "Recent Uploads", and a blurb to specify that one of the Insert buttons must be used or the image will not be "attached." Also, provide drag-drop capability which is a shortcut to the same uploader with only the title needing to be filled.

Once we finish that major feature which provides an unversioned attachment space, then we can get rid of that blurb -- anything that was uploaded but not inserted can automatically be sent to the dedicated space for that page.

As you can expect, it is unlikely that all of these improvements would be made in a single release, but they will still be made. As you have noticed, there has been progress on this even since as recently as 4.0.13.

I really think we need a way to turn off a 4th level file browser.

Its nice to have a file browser for those advanced members who want to use this. But for all other members it only creates confusion.

Please mind that the VW attachment system is an additional system to the MAIN attachment systems (Forum, Media Gallery, Resources) and other addons. The VW attachment gallery should be treated as a secondary or even tertiary system. When the average users open such attachment browser they expect to be able to browse all their attachments on the site. Therefore it only adds confusion to these members. I'd want to have the attachment browser only accessible for advanced wiki editors.

For average users I would just like to have a 'Upload a File' button similar to the XF button below the editor. IMHO this should not open the attachment browser. It should just add the attachments to the post and from there the user should be able to insert it into their wiki post.

Adding an image for my users is HORRIBLE !!! A person without internet-experience has no chance to upload or insert an image to a wiki-page via the vw-uploader.
It would be great to find a solution for the wiki, where the files are version-safe and it's easy for users to work with images/files.

I like Alfa1's proposals. Those will work for my users as well. What can we do to help this be implemented?

thanks . +1

greets

Please mind that the current release of XenForo 1.5.12 has a new HTML5 uploader.
Please make VW4.0.17 compatible with this HTML5 uploader.

How does this uploader affect vaultwiki?

Members will be used to using this upload method that they can use anywhere on the site except for the wiki. In wiki there is the complex uploader that many users have difficulty with. The XenForo HTML5 uploader is super easy to use and users should have a very similar experience for Vaultwiki.

Yes, i know!
A easier process for uploading files would be great!!!

Yes, thsi is why I think that the optimal time for this is now that XenForo has added a new uploader. The XenForo Team found it to be important enough to push it into a maintenance release. VW can do the same in this case.

n1

I also will put in a vote for using the new HTML5 uploader, it's very, very quick and easy to use!

Are there known problems to update XF ?