A screenshot of the new file upload drag and drop interface.
1 Use a modern browser and drag and drop your way to file uploading bliss.
A screenshot of the new file upload interface with thumbnail previews.
2 If you’re uploading images, we’ll even show you a thumbnail preview so you can make sure you added the correct files.

Drag & Drop

First and foremost, if you’re using a modern browser (Latest versions of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Opera as well as IE10) you can now drag and and drop files from your computer directly into Sifter. You no longer have to browse your computer for files. Of course, if you prefer to browse, you can. In fact, browsing has been improved as well.

Selecting Multiple Files

If you like browsing files and your browser supports multiple file selection, you can now select multiple files at one time.

Reordering

Once you’ve selected and uploaded files, you can now reorder them via drag and drop, and we’ll remember that order when the files are created.

Thumbnail Previews

If you’re uploading images, we now automatically generate a small preview thumbnail so that you can be sure you are uploading the correct files.

Speed & Performance

We no longer submit the files with the form. Instead, we upload and save the files as soon as you add them. This way, you don’t have to wait around while we process and upload your files.

Maintaining Uploads on Errors

It used to be that if there was an error submitting your issue, you’d need to reselect your files because we failed to maintain them on errors. That was really lame, but given the low incidence of errors due to the rather flexible validation, we let it slide. No more. If you encounter an error, your files will still be there.

Error Handling

Before these updates, if we encountered a problem with a corrupt or otherwise unreadable file, we just sent a generic “we couldn’t handle that file” error with a little bit of explanation. If you were uploading multiple files, you had no way of knowing which file was causing the problem. Fortunately, with the new system, if we encounter an error with a particular file, we’ll let you know exactly which file caused the problem.

File Size Limits

Prior to these updates, we kept the file size limits low because the process of uploading and processing 5 files could mean really slow issue creation times. We recently increased the file size limits to 30mb, and we’ll be keeping an eye on it to see if it makes sense to go even a little higher than that.

Browser Compatibility

If you’re still using IE8 or IE9, which for Sifter is very few people at this point, now would be a great time to upgrade that browser or switch to Chrome, Firefox, or Opera. File uploading will still work, and you’ll enjoy some of these benefits, but you won’t be able to take advantage of the drag and drop uploading.

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