Suggestions improvements for Cloudinary AI

itoldusoandso

I think the UI is fine but there are a few frustrations:

1. Additional transformationsI find the normal built-in transformations and the additional (extended or custom or whatever they are called…) transformations kind of separate. The built in are all neat in one interface but then all the rest that is not in the built in transformations requires me kind of search google to find cloudinary help pages for them e.g. I was looking how to add block objects overlays on the pictures, e.g. semi-transparent rectangles and so on ,why this is not included in the standard transformations is strange. I think they could clean this up better to bring all the transformations together.
   
2. Error solvingIf there is an error because the link is wrong formatted, all I get is that useless browser message about link not working or Cloudinary telling me something is missing but doesn't tell me what it is. In the age of AI, wouldn't be so nice if I was able to test the link in a kind of like a sand-box and Cloudinary AI tool would tell me what is possibly wrong. Sometimes the changes needed are subtle and it requires hours of work to figure that out.
   
3. Asset name vs Public IDThere are some subtle changes on the asset management page, I see old version and new version, is it so? I have an older Cloudinary account and it looks a bit different than an account I created just recently for a test environment. For example, there is ASSET NAME and ASSET PUBLIC ID is separate in the new interface? In the old Cloudinary account I would only have to edit the Public ID which could have been done by right clicking and editing the name. Now in the new cloudinary, I can edit the name, but that has no impact on the Public ID which can only be edited (so it seems) if I select the asset and then go to the right panel to edit the Public ID. That makes it annoying (for me at least) because every time I upload an asset, I need to go there to that panel to change the public ID, otherwise the transformations when used from Cloudinary woudn't work.
   
4. Deleting all assets + setting a locked folderIf I want to delete assets, I have 2 options, either manually select assets (select all) in asset library or going through account settings to delete all assets. But in some cases this doesn't work well. I may have some assets I don't want to delete, in fact I have them in a specific folder that I want to keep and never delete. If I go to settings to delete all assets, then all assets are deleted. (what makes it worse, even if I have a backup of my folder I wanted to keep in Cloudinary, if I re-upload it again, after assets purge, then all uploaded assets in the folder will get new public ID assigned and in my case, I need to manually change the public ID back to what I want it is, see my earlier comment in POINT 3 above).And if deleting assets manually, it takes forever.

DannyFromCloudinary

Hey @itoldusoandso. Thanks for the detailed post.

For points 1 and 4, I think it'd be great if you shared them as idea submissions via https://roadmap.cloudinary.com/ , providing as much detail as you possibly can.

For points 2 and 3 though, I should be able to help :)

When we can't render an asset due to an invalid transformation, we return an HTTP header that contains more information about why the transformation failed. If you look up the x-cld-error header, it should give you a good idea on what to change. You can read more about this here:

https://support.cloudinary.com/hc/en-us/articles/202520482-Debugging-why-an-image-or-video-doesn-t-load-in-your-application-or-site

Regarding asset name versus public ID, this is the difference between fixed and dynamic folders. Dynamic folders is enabled for all new accounts, and essentially decouples how the asset is stored in your Cloudinary account, from how it is delivered. This lets you put your assets into folders and arrange them as you see fit internally, without breaking the delivery of your assets on your site or application. This explains it more: https://cloudinary.com/documentation/dam_folder_modes

I hope this helps!

rlux

Hi @itoldusoandso — I've submitted your feedback to the product team.