How to use wp_query for WP Media Category Management attachments.

Just want to add another example. This one seems to return all attachments and ignore the ‘tax_query’.

$category_args = array(
        'tax_query' => array (
            'taxonomy' => 'category_media',
            'field' => 'slug',
            'terms' => 'test-mcm'
        ),
        'post_type'        => 'attachment',
        'post_status' => 'inherit'
      );
$attachments = new WP_Query( $category_args );
while ($attachments->have_posts()) : $attachments->the_post();
    the_title();
endwhile;

Hm, strange indeed.
I agree it should be simple.

Would it be an option to try or test using a short code in a post?
You could use [wp-mcm category=”test-mcm”] to get the desired results.

Ah, wait.
It might work if you make the terms into an array:

$media_categories = 'test-mcm';
if ( !is_array($media_categories)) {
	$media_categories = array ( $media_categories );
}
$category_args = array('post_type' => 'attachment',
		'post_parent' => null,
		'tax_query' => array(
			array('taxonomy' => 'category_media',
			'field' => 'slug',
			'terms' => $media_categories
			)
		),
);

Thanks for your quick reply DeBAAT.

I did a number of test using the shortcode [wp-mcm category=”test-mcm”] on site pages and posts, but nothing displayed. It seems like it’s not working at all ??

I also tried your second suggestions with no luck ??

Did you check the WP MCM Settings?

The plugin is capable of handling different taxonomies, but only one at a time.
It might be that you think you are showing the ‘category_media’ taxonomy, but are showing ‘media_category’ instead.
You can also determine the current setting by looking at the WP MCM Shortcode page.

Just figured out what the issue may be. When I assigned an MCM category to an image file and it displayed as expected with the shortcode. I assumed that attachments would include PDF files, but it looks like that’s not the case?

This is a var_dump using wp_query in a template file:

["query"]=>
  array(3) {
    ["post_type"]=>
    string(10) "attachment"
    ["post_parent"]=>
    NULL
    ["tax_query"]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      array(3) {
        ["taxonomy"]=>
        string(14) "category_media"
        ["field"]=>
        string(4) "slug"
        ["terms"]=>
        array(1) {
          [0]=>
          string(8) "test-mcm"
        }
      }
    }
  }
  ["query_vars"]=>
  array(64) {
    ["post_type"]=>
    string(10) "attachment"
    ["post_parent"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["tax_query"]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      array(3) {
        ["taxonomy"]=>
        string(14) "category_media"
        ["field"]=>
        string(4) "slug"
        ["terms"]=>
        array(1) {
          [0]=>
          string(8) "test-mcm"
        }
      }
    }
    ["error"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["m"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["p"]=>
    int(0)
    ["subpost"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["subpost_id"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["attachment"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["attachment_id"]=>
    int(0)
    ["name"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["static"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["pagename"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["page_id"]=>
    int(0)
    ["second"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["minute"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["hour"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["day"]=>
    int(0)
    ["monthnum"]=>
    int(0)
    ["year"]=>
    int(0)
    ["w"]=>
    int(0)
    ["category_name"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["tag"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["cat"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["tag_id"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["author"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["author_name"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["feed"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["tb"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["paged"]=>
    int(0)
    ["comments_popup"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["meta_key"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["meta_value"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["preview"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["s"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["sentence"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["fields"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["menu_order"]=>
    string(0) ""
    ["category__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["category__not_in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["category__and"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["post__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["post__not_in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["tag__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["tag__not_in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["tag__and"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["tag_slug__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["tag_slug__and"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["post_parent__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["post_parent__not_in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["author__in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["author__not_in"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["ignore_sticky_posts"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["suppress_filters"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["cache_results"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["update_post_term_cache"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["update_post_meta_cache"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["posts_per_page"]=>
    int(1000)
    ["nopaging"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["comments_per_page"]=>
    string(2) "50"
    ["no_found_rows"]=>
    bool(false)
    ["taxonomy"]=>
    string(14) "category_media"
    ["term"]=>
    string(8) "test-mcm"
    ["order"]=>
    string(4) "DESC"
  }
  ["tax_query"]=>
  object(WP_Tax_Query)#51 (6) {
    ["queries"]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      array(5) {
        ["taxonomy"]=>
        string(14) "category_media"
        ["terms"]=>
        array(1) {
          [0]=>
          string(8) "test-mcm"
        }
        ["field"]=>
        string(4) "slug"
        ["operator"]=>
        string(2) "IN"
        ["include_children"]=>
        bool(true)
      }
    }
    ["relation"]=>
    string(3) "AND"
    ["table_aliases":protected]=>
    array(1) {
      [0]=>
      string(21) "wp_term_relationships"
    }
    ["queried_terms"]=>
    array(1) {
      ["category_media"]=>
      array(2) {
        ["terms"]=>
        array(1) {
          [0]=>
          string(8) "test-mcm"
        }
        ["field"]=>
        string(4) "slug"
      }
    }
    ["primary_table"]=>
    string(8) "wp_posts"
    ["primary_id_column"]=>
    string(2) "ID"
  }
  ["meta_query"]=>
  object(WP_Meta_Query)#417 (7) {
    ["queries"]=>
    array(0) {
    }
    ["relation"]=>
    NULL
    ["meta_table"]=>
    NULL
    ["meta_id_column"]=>
    NULL
    ["primary_table"]=>
    NULL
    ["primary_id_column"]=>
    NULL
    ["table_aliases":protected]=>
    array(0) {
    }
  }
  ["date_query"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["request"]=>
  string(387) "SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS  wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts  INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id) WHERE 1=1  AND (
  wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (24)
) AND wp_posts.post_type = 'attachment' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR wp_posts.post_status = 'private') GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 1000"
  ["posts"]=>
  array(0) {
  }
  ["post_count"]=>
  int(0)
  ["current_post"]=>
  int(-1)
  ["in_the_loop"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["comment_count"]=>
  int(0)
  ["current_comment"]=>
  int(-1)
  ["found_posts"]=>
  int(0)
  ["max_num_pages"]=>
  int(0)
  ["max_num_comment_pages"]=>
  int(0)
  ["is_single"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_preview"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_page"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_archive"]=>
  bool(true)
  ["is_date"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_year"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_month"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_day"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_time"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_author"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_category"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_tag"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_tax"]=>
  bool(true)
  ["is_search"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_feed"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_comment_feed"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_trackback"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_home"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_404"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_comments_popup"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_paged"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_admin"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_attachment"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_singular"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_robots"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_posts_page"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["is_post_type_archive"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["query_vars_hash":"WP_Query":private]=>
  string(32) "b30e4d95bd4d58eb728bb9cac6a689bc"
  ["query_vars_changed":"WP_Query":private]=>
  bool(false)
  ["thumbnails_cached"]=>
  bool(false)
  ["stopwords":"WP_Query":private]=>
  NULL
}

I have a few hundred pdf’s that I need to assign categories to. Yours is the only plugin I could find that would do this in a batch. Any chance you’ll be making changes to allow for PDF files as well?

I have to admit I didn’t test my plugin for handling pdf, or any other format besides images.
This because I didn’t intend to behave it differently.
So now I included some pdf on my test site and they work as expected.

Can you provide a screenshot of the WP MCM Settings page?

So strange…

The WP MCM Settings are as follows.

• Toggle Assign: yes
• Media Taxonomy To Use: MCM Categories (#4)
• Name for Custom MCM Taxonomy: empty
• Custom Singular Name: empty
• Use Default Category: no
• Default Media Category: no default category
• Use Post Taxonomy: no

(If you need a screenshot, let me know where to send and I can do that.)

Your settings seem to be ok.
Can you send me a screen shot of the category management page?
It should be something like “yoursite.com/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=category_media&post_type=attachment”.

You can send it to de_baat (at) de-baat (dot) nl.
Hope to get this working soon.

Any luck with this? I’d like to be able to use wp_query for specific media categories.

Hai.
I did receive a screen shot but that didn’t help.

Your question however triggered me and maybe I’ve found the issue now.
Looking at the code examples above, I noticed a difference in the query array definitions.

$media_categories = 'test-mcm';
if ( !is_array($media_categories)) {
	$media_categories = array ( $media_categories );
}
$category_args = array('post_type' => 'attachment',
		'post_parent' => null,
		'tax_query' => array(
// This is an additional array level, needed to use multiple queries
			array('taxonomy' => 'category_media',
			'field' => 'slug',
			'terms' => $media_categories
			)
		),
);

The ‘tax_query’ should be an array of commands used to search a taxonomy. When you would want to combine multiple taxonomy queries, you could combine them with “‘relation’ => ‘AND'”.

Hope this helps.

You can always have a look at the function “mcm_get_attachment_ids()” on line 184 of file “wp-mcm-functions.php”.

I use this function to filter out the IDs using the tax_query.

Thank you!

You’re welcome!