[Clipart] New Feature: Collections Batch Add/Remove

[Brad Phillips]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to let you all know about an update to the Collections system that I've been working on for the last few weeks.

Firstly, if you don't know about Collections, they are basically groups of clipart that you can create on the site & are organized & managed via your user profile page.  Previously, when you wanted to create a new Collection, you would need to first find a clip art that you were interested in collecting, select the '+Collect' button & go through a series of forms.  I've just recently added a form to the user profile page (just under your Collections list) where you can add new Collections without having to have first selected a clip art to collect.

Secondly, and most importantly, I've made great strides to try and simplify the process of adding clip art to your Collections.  Previously, you had to first find the clip art you wanted to add to a Collection, then navigate to the detail page, then go through several more forms to get the magic to happen.  Without a doubt, adding clip art in this way became arduous and time consuming.  We needed to find a better way!

Enter the 'Actions' bar.  If you have at least one created Collection & you search for clipart (using the search bar on the OCAL home page).  You'll notice a new bar just below the main navigation on the search results page.  This bare can help you speed up the process of adding clipart to Collections.

Simply click 'Collect' under the 'Actions' heading.  Your last 5 Collection Titles will load into the bar (limited to last 5 at present for testing purposes).  Next, select the Collection Title that you want to add new clip art to.  From here, wait a moment as the search results reload.  Once the results refresh, you'll notice 'Add' or 'Remove' buttons corresponding to each clip art on the search results section (depending on if a particular clipart is currently in the selected Collection or not).  From here, feel free to click on any clipart in the search results to add or remove clip art directly from the results page!

I've been testing this for a while now, but I need your help to make sure this works as it should for all OCAL users.  Please report any issues you find on our project launchpad (http://launchpad.net/openclipart).

Thanks, and I hope you all enjoy working with the Actions Bar!

+Brad