Optimize Usability of Link Insertion

Prismic for Content Creators
1

Feature Idea:

Optimize Usability of Link Insertion

Issue that it solves:

Inserting a few links becomes time consuming and annoying when having to go through the sidebar - dropdown - wait to load - insert link process. An option to just be able to insert the links directly into the field would be very nice and save a lot of time.

Screenshot or video of the issue:

image
image706×253 7.98 KB

3

Hi Micha,

Thanks for submitting your feedback. We love to see users get involved.

The reason we use the window is to make searching for internal documents easier, we do this by showing preview images of the documents. So pasting those documents isn't an option.

How would you imagine this would look in the UI? Do you imagine the dropdown of the 3 link type choices being directly in the document rather than another window?

I'm marking this as a feature request in our tracker, but I'd love to discuss more.

Thanks.

4

Hi Phil,

you are very welcome. :smiley:

Having the drop down directly in the form would be a little bit better yes.
But additionally to that I would imagine a switch in a top bar or another fitting location that let's me change that globally. The switch could be named URL Picker and options would be: Dropdown and Manual. Manual would let me put in a URL all by myself and save a lot of time for my use case.

5

I don't really understand the manual option you're suggesting here, how could you manually handle the document link for example?

What's your exact use case for this?

6

That's exactly the point, I do not want to link to any documents, I want to insert the links I have to insert and get stuff done. :slight_smile:
The people who made the slices must have put the field as an URL field or so, would have been better if it was just a simple text field that would collect the URL.

7

OK, but you can see this issue with that solution in that anyone who wants to add a link to a document won't be able to?

8

I could see an option where you can switch between the link types in the document and only open the side window once you choose a link to document or link to media, this might improve your editing expereince.

9

Think of the workflow visually. I have a large screen and am not the only one. I go from up to down to fill out the fields to put in my content (Used to WYSIWYG...). Now when there is a URL field, I have to go to the sidebar which interrupts this up to down flow and does not keep it as simple as possible.
I do not even know what these documents are that you refer to, all I want is to insert my URLs as text and I will be appreciative if the hoops to jump through to do that are reduced. So anything that you consider and implement to that end will help me and probably others.

10

Just so it's clear, maybe it's not configured on your repo, but as seen below the link field window handles the following 3 link types:

Screenshot 2021-12-01 at 10.50.32
Screenshot 2021-12-01 at 10.50.32856×722 26.6 KB

Then when you click 'Link to a Document' you're are given a list of documents in your Prismic repository that you might want to link to. So there's no way to handle this use case with just a URL.

Screenshot 2021-12-01 at 10.50.39
Screenshot 2021-12-01 at 10.50.39854×1530 100 KB

I'm just trying to present all use cases so we can work on a solution to improve your workflow collaboratively.

11

Possible improvements:

  • No more sidebar chooser. Put the complete chooser where the user is with the mouse already.
  • The three options:
    • When one chooses to insert a link to the web, make it load instantly, no little loading points. Whatever dynmaic stuff you need to load, do that in the background and let the user work and put in the link as text. This can be inside the form itself, no modal or sidebar.
    • When choosing "Document" load a modal that does not take the whole screen on desktop with the list of documents to choose from
    • When choosing "Media" load the same modal window and show the media screen therein.
    • The modal will be less of an interruption in comparison to the whole media screen that you get to when you choose it now. The document choosing can be presented in the same way to make it a uniform experience.

Hope this makes sense.

12

That's really clear for me now, I appreciate you taking the time to write this. I think this is a really strong idea for the team to consider and I can see how this will speed up the editing process.

This isn't something that the team is working on right now, but if/when that ever changes they will update you here.

Thanks again for your feedback.