Add expire (date) to multi-edit tool

[phiw13]

What the headline says, for the Articles panel. This would make batch processing of the expire date (add/remove) much easier.

For context, see this forum post.

TY.

[petecooper]

+1 from me.

Further considerations: given the process of expiring an article comprises setting an expire date of NOW(), I'm also interested in other-way batch processing in a similar fashion:

• un-expire an article (i.e. remove any expiry date)
• batch 'reset timestamp to now'

[Bloke]

Oooh, yes please. With all the options Pete says, too. I can take this if nobody else wants it.

[petecooper]

With that enthusiasm, sold!

[Bloke]

The only snagola with this is how to present the sub-options. Traditionally, it's been a dropdown of selections but that won't work here because a "Change expiry" multi-edit feature requires:

1. A 'none' option (easy: the empty dropdown entry, or a textbox with nothing in it).
2. A 'now' option (easy: a dedicated dropdown entry, or a textbox that defaults to the time 'now' (ish) or more likely the time the page was last loaded).
3. A custom date/timestamp (Not so easy. Requires either a) a bunch of input fields like we have on the Write panel (ugh), b) a date picker (that can also permit 'empty' dates to satisfy the ability to clear the expiry), or c) a freeform textbox to type the date and time in.

I don't really want to add three new entries to the multi-edit tool (change expiry to..., reset expiry to now, and remove expiry) so I'd like some form of combined option. Lowest common denominator is a textbox with some input validation on it or textbox that has type="datetime" and hope that the browser handles it well.

In theory, a native browser date picker solves everything, as it allows an arbitrary date, a 'today' (now) button and a 'none' button. But the kicker is that it's not so easy to type the date in, which is often faster than faffing with swiping/scrolling through years, months, days, hours, minutes, etc. Of those browsers that do permit dates to be typed, they're prescriptive on format (I believe) and only permit YYYY-MM-DD format, and possibly YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS for datetimes. Not sure: I'd need to check.

So what's the best way forward in terms of UX here? Anyone got any thoughts?

[petecooper]

So what's the best way forward in terms of UX here? Anyone got any thoughts?

Defer until 4.9, without wishing to derail @phiw13's OP.

The work planned for 4.9 would make this complementary. Gut feeling says this is outside the scope of a patch release at (potentially) the end of a release series.

[Bloke]

That may be prudent.

[phiw13]

Defer until 4.9, without wishing to derail @phiw13's OP.

Yes, please. That was the reason why I waited and only filed this after the TXP 4.8.4 release. :-)

That said, my first thought was – KISS – an option to add, and remove, an option to set that date to now(). If I am allowed to be greedy, I would of course want the whole stuff, but that present serious UI difficulties and the eventual coding complexities. On the Write panel, it is all simple (by some definition of simple…).