Thanks for your question and for taking the time to include the details of what you are trying to achieve.
I share your frustration with the lack of a useful Support Topic search function, and I hope “comatosed” does not refer to the effect your efforts left you with.
Your question (particularly the second part) is a variation on this earlier topic:
Regex to Split Data to Custom Fields
Let me start with the first part of your question:
-Selecting all images without an ALT tag
-Batch changing all empty ALT tag to = FILE NAME (or TITLE if that’s easier)
For the examples below, the FILE NAME (without the .jpg extension) is available as [+name_only+], and the TITLE is available as [+title+]. I will use [+name_only+].
You could sort the Media/Assistant submenu table by ALT Text to find the empty values, then select them for Bulk Edit:
- Go to the Media/Assistant submenu
- Pull down the Screen Options area and check the box before ALT Text
- Click on the ALT Text column header to sort on that column. The default sort is descending, but you can click again to make it ascending
- Check the box to the left of the thumbnail image(s) you want to update
- Pull dow the Bulk Actions control and select Edit
- Click Apply
- Enter “template:[+name_only+]” in the ALT Text text box
- Click the Update button to apply your changes
- Click the Refresh button to see the results
The template:[+name_only+] value is a Content Template, which gives you a lot of flexibility in composing the field content. You can find more information in the Settings/Media LIbrary Assistant Documentation tab.
The above process is a good way to experiment on one or more items to make sure you can get what you want. It can get tedious if you have more than a page or two of items to update, though.
Creating an IPTC/EXIF mapping rule is a good alternative for the long run:
- Go to the Settings/Media Library Assistant IPTC/EXIF tab
- Scroll down to the “Standard field mapping” section and find the ALT Text entry
- Leave the default “IPTC Value” selection, “– None (Select a value) –” in place
- In the “EXIF/Template Value” text box, enter “template:[+name_only+]”
- In the “Priority” dropdown, select “EXIF”
- In the “Existing Text” dropdown, select “Keep”. This will leave any existing values intact; it is the same as selecting only the items with a NULL value.
- Leave the “Format: Native” and “Option: Text” defaults in place
- Check the “Delete NULL values” box
Now you have a choice. If you want to make this a one-time update you can click “Map All Attachments, Standard Fields Now”. That will apply the rules once but will not record them for future use. If you want to make the rule permanent, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes” to record your new rule. You can check the “Enable IPTC/EXIF Mapping when adding new media” box (before you Save Changes) to apply the rule as new items are added to the Media LIbrary.
After you click “Save Changes” you can click “Map All Attachments, Standard Fields Now” to run the rules against all of your existing items.
The above should get you started and give you most of what you want. To get the “icing on the cake“, stripping dashes and so forth, you will have to add a bit of PHP code to a custom plugin or your theme’s functions.php file. The earlier support topic gives an example of that, and I can give you some code specific to your needs if that is of interest.
I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any problems or further questions regarding the above suggestions. If you want to pursue the custom plugin code, let me know. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.
