Implement album creation

[Mikescops]

As a user I want to be able to create an album from a selection made (see #83) or from a button "Create new album" on the UI.

As a user I should also be able to add more files to a previously created album.

[skjnldsv]

cc @jancborchardt

[jancborchardt]

Yes, this should be possible, however this is probably something a bit further in the future due to us handling photos as files in the filesystem? What do you think @skjnldsv @rullzer @Mikescops?

[Mikescops]

I don't know what kind of storage we have access too, but if we can have a mysql table, should be fine

[wein-geist]

In my post on the forum, I showed a possible implementations on this feature. I suggest the following options in the context menu:

• Add selection to existing album
• Create new album from selection
• Create separate albums from folders

The last one is when you have already some folder structure, in my case first level a folder per year, sub folders are then events, vacations, etc. It would be nice to bulk create albums from selected folders.
If it is not wanted to have a folder structure in the Photos app, it could be integrated in the context menu in the Files view.

I think however, this necessitates the implementation of #120 , because it does not make sense when folders and albums are not separated.

[jancborchardt]

What I brought up in "Search by date, multiple tag, location,..... #445" is even more relevant here:

What’s nice in iOS Photos is that they directly create virtual albums for any trip. They group photos by time and location and thus most of the time you don’t need to fiddle with manual album creation. They call it "Memories": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207023

Of course this might be a bigger thing to look into, but it will also fix a lot of UX problems where currently people have to do manual work of searching and categorization.

[axellebot]

Is it like virtual folder that can also be shared to others ? (like Google Photo albums)

[Mikescops]

Correct yes

[axellebot]

Great. Thinking about photos comment while using virtual folder : What will happen to photo comments ? Merged with file comments ?

[skjnldsv]

Photo comments?

[axellebot]

Photo comments?

Referring to the existing "comments" section (right next to the "activity" section) for files

[skjnldsv]

Ah, you mean the sidebar in general.
No, for virtual albums I don't think the sidebar would be able to contain sharing and the other tabs unfortunately. They all rely deeply on the filesystem.
Comments would be doable as we could register a new entity 'albums' for comments, but that would be quite some heavy work tbh

[inthreedee]

What I brought up in "Search by date, multiple tag, location,..... #445" is even more relevant here:

What’s nice in iOS Photos is that they directly create virtual albums for any trip. They group photos by time and location and thus most of the time you don’t need to fiddle with manual album creation. They call it "Memories": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207023
Of course this might be a bigger thing to look into, but it will also fix a lot of UX problems where currently people have to do manual work of searching and categorization.

@jancborchardt I really like this idea and I think it should be tracked in a separate issue so it doesn't get lost and the implementation specifics can be discussed further. I'd suggest keeping this issue just about the first step of allowing for the creation and sharing of virtual albums. This alone would be a major upgrade for the photos app, bringing it much closer to parity with other solutions. Once that foundation is built, additional features like automatic album creation for trips can be worked on.

[killua99]

what about use symlinks to create albums ? would be that possible on Nextcloud data object ?

[Jiter]

Are there any plans to integrate this in the future?

[dzecevic]

This is the only thing that is missing. Albums, and sharing albums among users.

[rob1998]

+1

[strugee]

Hey @rob1998! Please don't add +1 comments, as they don't contribute anything to the discussion and just generate more email for the maintainers (and those who are subscribed to this issue) to go through. Instead, you can support issues by using GitHub's reactions feature (smiley icon at the top-right of each comment).

[klikr]

Can any of the developers who might be involved in this drop a few lines about what the current state of this is? Is the feature too difficult to be realized? I'm no developer (except of Powershell Spaghetti for my job use), but from my blue-eyed perspective this is:

1. make images "selectable"
2. complete the selection by giving the selection a name (i.e. the album name)
3. display these selections in a menu, f.e. "your albums"

internally, the selection(s) could be saved in a database table, right? you don't even have to invent any ID stuff, just add the relative path to the image.

Am I mistaken here, or is the feature maybe too unimportant.... Any hints, please?

P.S.:
I also read
#83
and especially
#120
The latter is hilarious because someone renamed "Albums" to "Folders", and the first part of the issue title somehow got dropped ("add album feature"), but the issue got closed anyway.

PPS:
Come to think of it, the feature of sharing an album adds complexity, but hey... you guys are clever, aintcha ;)

[marcelklehr]

There is work being done currently to improve the photos app, including #1142 and #1119

[klikr]

There is work being done currently to improve the photos app, including #1142 and #1119

Thanks @marcelklehr for the quick reply. I see from the links you posted that it might find its way into NC25...
Tanks also @artonge for the work on this.

[stephanhoennekes]

I'm also very interested in having an album feature within the Photos app. To push this topic a bit & to show its relevance I created a concept & prototype for this feature. I guess now I'm a little too late to the party ☹️ I simply wasn't aware of #1142 .

But on the other hand I think my concept could also be a lookout or a version 2 of the album feature. So far that I am aware, current developing is focused on manually adding photos to an album. So it's basically about adding the idea of virtual albums to the classic file & folder structure.

My concept takes this feature & adds the possibility to create rule-based smart albums. This is, of course, far more complex to develop ... and, I must admit, it is relying on many other factors.

But I think it would give the Photos app the relevance it really earns. What do you think? Could something like this be a future extension of the feature? Is it worth to open another issue for it or would you think this is never gonna happen 🫣?

• Please find the prototype of Smart Albums here on Figma.
• And here is the detailed description & concept of how it could work frontendwise.

In any case: I hope that I was able to give some inspiration for the potentials of the Photos app.
Thanks for making at least creating albums in general possible in NC25! So glad that this is gonna happen soon.

[skjnldsv]

Done for 25

[rob1998]

I just tested the album functionality today. Absolutely amazing, thanks for all the hard work!
However, when wanting to add a bulk of photos (especially the first time, but also when a lot of photos have been added), it is a lot of clicking. It would be nicer if there was the ability to hold shift and select all photos between the first and second click. Also stuff like selecting all photos of a specific day, could be very useful.

I could be wrong but I think, the shift clicking stuff is also not implemented in the files functionality of Nextcloud. I think it would be useful there as well.

[strugee]

@rob1998 please file a new issue in the appropriate repository and make sure to check for duplicates first

[Krautmaster]

niiiiice!

[Deedikjupijn]

I just tested the album functionality today. Absolutely amazing, thanks for all the hard work! However, when wanting to add a bulk of photos (especially the first time, but also when a lot of photos have been added), it is a lot of clicking. It would be nicer if there was the ability to hold shift and select all photos between the first and second click. Also stuff like selecting all photos of a specific day, could be very useful.

I could be wrong but I think, the shift clicking stuff is also not implemented in the files functionality of Nextcloud. I think it would be useful there as well.

Not sure if its just me but I am unable to find the right solution for this as of now. I'm trying to add 600+ fotos to an album and not sure how I should go about this. I'm not willing to do 600+ individual clicks and all the files are already in one folder but I would love to put them in one album aswell (with a few other files).