New DuoCMS8 File Manager

DuoCMS7 got a lot of things right in a content management system file manager. So one of the big highlights is we’ve kept the functionality as close as possible to the previous version to make as easy as possible for upgrading users to feel right at home. In fact that was a key philosophy of cms8, to not fix what’s not broken. So the file manager still allows you to

• Upload files

• Drag and Drop Uploads into the File Window

• Rename Files

• Edit Images

• Cut / Copy / Paste & Delete Files

• Restore Recently Deleted Files

• Search for and import Stock Images from a number of free stock image services

• View File Meta Date ( size, description etc )

• Secure files for member only access

• Dropbox sync 

However there were a number of enhancements we wanted to make to help our users improve their workflow and make more obvious features which may have not been obvious in the past.

In Page Uploads

When editing a page, you sometimes have an image on your computer you want to use. But this involved more steps than necessary. In CMS8 we reduced this greatly by allowing you to drop images directly into the page.

Stock Images

Stock images are already available in CMS7 and prove invaluable when quickly illustrating a news story. However the add stock image option was hidden under a drop down menu, under the “+” icon. This has now been given its own button, making a little more obvious to users. The plus icon has been replace with the new folder icon.

File Space Usage

The file manager (as illustrated above) now also features an indicator of how much space you have used from your hosting allowance. 

Uploading Folders

DuoCMS8 enables the ability to upload folders into the CMS, in addition to the single file drag and drop upload already present in CMS7. This is an excellent way of uploading whole libraries of images which you may have already carefully named and grouped into folders on your computer. Each file will be uploaded then arranged into the same hierarchy you have setup on your computer. We will carefully format filenames to remove any spaces and lowercase them all to help with better compatibility for web use. We also automatically compress images and generate webp formats to make them as optimised as possible.

Uploading folders also works when uploading files too to the downloads section of your file manager.

Improved Icons

The new CMS8 File manager also includes a set of more distinct folder and file icons.

Improved Selection Tools

The new file manager also now supports marquee selection, the process of selecting multiple files by dragging a box around them.

The file manage already supported multiple selection by holding down the shift or ctrl keys. However drag selection is a little bit more intuitive for many users. Multi-select is really useful when you need to cut / copy / paste or delete multiple images.