I am new to Blocs…
I change at least 20 images on my website daily. I have created a new site using Blocs and suddenly realize that managing these images is now a major issue with the Asset Manager.
In DW I could simply navigate to a folder on my Mac and delete groups of past images, and drop the new ones there…but I can’t do that in Blocs.
Worse, I can’t delete a group of images…deleteing images one by one is a non-starter.
At least I can’t figure out how to easily add and remove images…or groups of images.
Or, depending on how your site is set up, maybe have a look at Volt CMS?
It’s an expense, but all of your image ‘swapping’ would be done through the browser and none of the edit-export-upload route each day.
I also think…after playing around with the manger is the differentiation between “removing” an asset from a group, and “deleting” that asset from the project.
I just removed a bunch of images, then found them in the “ALL” tab. I needed to delete them…
Try removing the unwanted images from the editing canvas, so they are not visible on the page, then go to the asset manager and click on the “-” minus sign. That will reveal an option to delete all unused project assets and bring up a new window to delete or retain what you wish.
If you have that many images to change so frequently, it may be worth considering uploading all your images to a single folder on your hosting account, then add them to your project as hosted assets using the bulk import option. You only have to do this once. Then republish your site.
When you want to change an image, simply upload to your hosted assets folder via ftp. The images will then change in your website without you having to touch the blocs project file.
NOTE: When creating your images for the initial upload, you should try and use a generic naming convention for the image files (e.g. page5_image3.jpg). When you upload new images, you would give the replacement images the same name so they overwrite the original image files. If you don’t do this, the new images will not display in the website. Also remember that your images should have a consistent aspect ratio. If you replace an image with one with a different aspect ratio, it will change the positioning of other objects on your page. The key here is consistency of image aspect ratios and file naming - it’s all down to a little pre-planning, but once it’s done, it becomes a whole lot easier to manage.
I see I am going to have to play around with this a bit to figure out what works for me and what workflow I can come up with. This is helpful as well, but I have (will have) many graphic assets that I will use occasionally, but need them all available for use at any time.
BTW, this is a weather site…and I am sure you can appreciate how often the weather changes…
Hendon:
I have been playing around with this idea. My problem is that there is at least ONE graphic in each insertion point that is static but I may, or may not add others.
This is a weather site I run so the weather changes quite frequently here in New England…
I will have to look at this “Hosted assets” feature. I am not a web programmer, so this concept is new to me.
Thanks for the suggestions…
If your images retain the same file names you may hit cache issues, first in Blocs which often needs a restart to flush out old preview images in the asset manger, but also with returning visitors to the site. You may need something like a random string in the url or some other means to ensure they always load the latest version.
You could maybe look at an image server like sirv or imagekit, upload the days images to a folder within the server. Then reference the images via code brics. You can use them in multiple ways, static images, carousels, text overlays etc.
It is an easy way to get responsive images, webp, avif (with imagekit) and no caching issues. I now use this type of system on all my sites.
I believe both servers allow you to access the storage via web application or ftp.
