When multiple images are uploaded at once the first image on the upload page is not the first image temporally, it's the image used to drag the collection into iNat

Bug Reports
1

Platform: Website

Browser: Chrome, but happens with all browsers I’ve tried

URLs of any relevant observations or pages: NA

Screenshots of what you are seeing:

Screenshot of observations on my computer, organized in sequential order by time taken
Screenshot of observations on my computer, organized in sequential order by time taken1237×722 275 KB
- note that the Astoa egens observation is the final one in this sequence.

Screenshot of iNat upload page
Screenshot of iNat upload page1920×1080 309 KB
- note that the observations are all in correct temporal order except for the first one, which is the Astoa egens observation, the last observation of the series and is out of temporal order, being placed as first rather than last.

Description of problem:

When you upload a batch of photos they’re all in correct temporal order except for the on you used as a handle to drag the images to the iNat upload page. Whichever image you used as the drag handle winds up being the first one in sequence instead of being in its correct place in the sequence.

In the posted example the final observation winds up being placed first, but experiments I’ve done show that it’s any image you use as the drag handle that winds up being the first one in the sequence.

This is a minor bug, but it can be annoying if you have an observation with multiple photos that need to be combined and you are uploading enough images that they overflow the viewing area of the screen. To combine images in that case you have to fiddle with the screen size (using Ctrl - on a Windows machine) so that the observations are shrunk in size to the point where you can get the observations to be combined visible on the same page, then drag them (dragging rather than using the combine feature so that you can assign the photo order at the time of upload), then return the screen to the normal size (Ctrl 0).

The way around this is the make your upload selection, then go back to the beginning of it, and drag your observation using the first image rather than the last (or other), but that’s a bit annoying.

Better if observation uploads stay in their proper order at the time of upload.

It’s a minor annoyance, but one that crops up all the time for me.

4 Likes
2

You should consider yourself lucky that you get proper order of the other observations :) This doesn’t seem guaranteed at all and seems to work differently on different versions of Windows …

3

I have this issue as well.

4

But why you need to change page size to see them all? You can move pictures (same as when you drag it out of observation to a new spot or to the side if the page if you want it to be the last one), it’s not working as fast as it could, but still it’s a way to get everything in order before uploading unless it will be fixed.

5

If you have enough images that you can’t see them all in the screen you can’t drag ones from lower down up to the ones higher up. The screen doesn’t scroll with the images as you drag them. You can only drag images onto each other that are on the same visual window.

The only way I can drag images onto each other is if I can see both images at the same time, hence the need to zoom out.

1 Like
6

You can drag them to the higher line, though in that situation choosing main pic and next to add and then combining is ok too, good to know changing size is working too, that’s a new way for me!

7

Windows decides what order to give them to iNat and Windows sends the file you used for dragging first.
Since this is caused by Windows, not iNat, it’s not technically a bug with iNat. I’m going to mark it solved, but see this feature request for more related discussion: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/sort-by-date-or-file-name-during-upload/1949

4 Likes
8

I actually consider this a feature. When I drag in a group of images, only rarely is the first image I took the one that I want to be the default thumbnail for that observation. This feature allows me, in a single operation, to upload my photos of interest and put first the image that I think will work best as the primary one.

4 Likes
9

That’s fine if you’re only uploading a single observation with several images, but if you’re doing what’s common and uploading a batch of different observations, some of which have multiple images associated with them, it’s a pain.

It’s also annoying when you’re placing the images in their proper location as they’re out of order, making it more fiddly to get them all placed properly.

10

No, I am uploading a batch of different observations and yes, it is fine for me. I have the images organized by subject and drag them each in, one subject at at time. Combine, drag in next group, combine, drag in next group.

The existing system here works very well for me.

11

In other words, you’re treating it as multiple individual uploads clumped together, not as a single batch.

You’re not selecting 20-50 photos of 30-40 observations at once and dragging them in at once, you’re selecting the photos for each observation, dragging those in, organizing, then dragging in others, rinse and repeat?

That’s tedious and unnecessarily time consuming.

12

Except there’s no need to inject your organization step specifically because of this feature, so it’s quite fast and not at all tedious.

It’s fine if you don’t like the current system, but trying to convince me that I don’t like it when I actually do is not going to be a fruitful endeavor. Just accept that I use it differently than you do, and take my post for what it is: a dissenting opinion that this is a problem. If they change the system, I’ll adapt to it, but I consider this to be a useful feature, not a problem.

1 Like
13

trying to convince me that I don’t like it when I actually do is not going to be a fruitful endeavor.

No-one is trying to do that, that’s you projecting, not anything that’s actually going on.

You have a specific and particular workflow, that’s all. Others have a different workflow, and the current system doesn’t play nice with the workflow others use.

If the system was updated to play nice with the work flow others use it wouldn’t really affect your workflow at all as you’re dragging observations in one at a time rather than in bulk. In essence, little to no change for you, but an advantage for others, which is the best of both worlds.

Another option would be to add a “reorganize” button to the upload page.

14

Then stop replying to my posts with unsubstantiated assumptions about the effectivity of my methods. You’ve explained to me several times now what I am doing (incorrectly each time) and why it is “a pain”, “tedious”, and “unnecessarily time consuming” (none of which it is). Rather than considering that I’ve figured out a better way to do things than you have, you’re setting up easy targets and knocking them down. We call this a straw man argument, and it is not particularly effective.

To repeat myself:

15

Since iNat has no way of knowing whether photos given to it by Windows are in the actual desired order or not, I’m going to go ahead and close this and suggest that further discussion move to the related feature request (https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/sort-by-date-or-file-name-during-upload/1949).

3 Likes