Custom fields – Checkbox to tags

Thanks for your kind words and for your question. Your English is much better than my French! Thanks as well for taking the time to find and try the solution outlined in the earlier topic.

That topic simply copied a value from the “WFU User Data” array to a custom field without changing it in any way. Your goal is more complicated; ‘ I want to add the blackcolor tag to the uploaded picture when the “black” check box is “true”. ‘

There is no way to accomplish that with the features available in the current MLA version. The only solution I know would be to write a small custom plugin that uses the hooks MLA provides to inspect the “WFU User Data” array and assign tags to the item based on the checkbox values. If you are interested in that solution I can develop a new MLA “example plugin” and make it available to you. It make take some time to do that depending on my other commitments, but I will do my best. One more question – when you write “tags” do you mean the MLA Att. Tags taxonomy or the WordPress Tags taxonomy?

Let me know if you want to proceed, and thanks for your interest in MLA.

Hello David,

Again, thank you for your answer and your proposal. It’s realy fantastic (and rare) !

My initial goal is to allow members to upload and tag pictures. Then I want to display these pictures in a grid blog with tags/categories filtering features

As my idea seemed basic to me, I thought that many people had already thought of it and that there must be a plugin to do that. But now, I’m not so sure…

Basically, the trick is to get a (an independant or not ?) plugin that copies variables/properties (tags, categories,…) between two of them and following events. This plugin could allow to create rules.

Like in your MLA plugin, the rules could allow this:

On Event (on manual launch, when a file is uploaded, when a gallery folder is updated,…)

If

• property1/property 2/… of variable1/variable 2/… is true/false/equal to something/different to something/…

Then
Copy

• property1 of variable1 to property2 of variable2

For example:
If

• WFU “black” checkbox of picture 1 is true

Then
Copy

• WFU “black” to MLA tags of Picture1

Something like this.

Because WordPress doesn’t natively allow media to be tagged or categorized, I think this is better to favor the MLA Att Tags taxonomy and MLA Att Category taxonomies

However, isn’t it easier to imagine allowing to copy any property to another ? May be using the ACF (Advanced Custom Field). So your plugin could be more useful to more people.

Thus this plugin could also allow to copy MLA Att Tags taxonomy to WordPress Tags taxonomy and vice versa.

Anyway, a basic solution would already be something fantastic.

Kind regards.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by johnsteed.

If there is anything I can do in the meantime, please feel free to ask me.

Kind regards.

Thank you for your patience while I worked on a new MLA example plugin to meet your requirements. I am happy to report that I have an initial version you can experiment with and give me your feedback.

I decided that the best solution within the MLA context would be to make the WFU File Data available as a custom data source/substitution parameter. This approach makes the results useful for MLA’s mapping rules, bulk editing, shortcode display and so forth. The new example plugin lets you convert the WFU values to more useful formats and values by writing “conversion rules”. You can find detailed information in the Settings/MLA WFU Data Documentation tab, but I will outline an example.

As you know, WFU stores ckeckbox data as text “true” or “false” values, which is not very useful for your application. You wrote “I want to add the blackcolor tag to the uploaded picture when the “black” check box is “true”.” Another way to state the requirement is “I want to convert one or more checkboxes to term names and assign them to uploaded pictures”. The example plugin does the conversion, and an MLA mapping rule does the assignments.

First, define the conversion rules in the new example plugin:

Colors,element(black,blackcolor,' ')
Colors,element(white,whitecolor,' ')
Colors,list(',')

The element rules have three arguments; the WFU File Data label (“black,white”), the “true” value (“blackcolor,whitecolor”) and the optional false” value (‘ ‘, the empty value). The list rule provides an optional delimiter between the list elements. The three rules create a new data source named “Colors” that will contain all of the non-empty values in the element rules separated by the delimiter. So, if both boxes are checked for an upload, the “Colors” list will contain “blackcolor,whitecolor”.

Second, define an IPTC/EXIF mapping rule that uses the new data source to assign terms to uploaded items:

1. Go to the Settings/Media Library Assistant IPTC/EXIF tab.
2. If you want to apply the rule to new items as they are uploaded, check the “Enable IPTC/EXIF Mapping when adding new media” and “Enable IPTC/EXIF Mapping when updating media metadata” boxes.
3. Find the rule name that corresponds to the taxonomy you are using, e.g., Att. Tags
4. Hover over the rule name and click the “Edit” rollover action.
5. In the “IPTC Value” dropdown control leave the default, “- None (select a value) -” value in place.
6. In the “EXIF/Template Value” text box, enter template:([+wfu:Colors+]). This assigns the terms named in the new data source.
7. In the “Priority” dropdown, select “EXIF”.
8. In the “Existing Text” dropdown, select “Replace” to replace the current field content, or select “Keep” to retain any terms assigned by other means.
9. In the “Status” text box, select “Active”.
10. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click “Update”.

Once you define the rule you can update existing pictures by applying it to a single item, multiple items or all items:

• To map a single item, go to the Media/Assistant submenu and click the thumbnail of the item you want (or click the “Edit” rollover action) to get the Media/Edit Media screen. You can click the “Map IPTC/EXIF metadata” link to run your rules on this item, then look at the “Menu Order” text box to inspect the results.
• To map two or more items, go to the Media/Assistant submenu and click the checkbox next to the items you want. Then, select “Edit” from the “Bulk Actions” dropdown above the checkboxes and click “Apply” to open the Bulk Edit area. Click the “Map IPTC/EXIF metadata” button to run your rule on the selected items.
• To map all of your items, stay on the Settings/Media Library Assistant IPTC/EXIF tab and click the “Execute” rollover action for your custom rule. This may take a while.

The first two methods will apply all active IPTC/EXIF rules to the selected item(s). This won’t be a problem if you have only the one rule, but the third method might be the best if you have other rules in place.

I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20220717 that contains the new example plugin. You can find step-by-step instructions for using the Development Version in this earlier topic:

PHP Warning on media upload with Polylang

Once the Development Version is installed you must install and activate the example plugin. Navigate to the Settings/Media library Assistant Documentation tab and click the “Example Plugins” button. Type “WFU” in the text box and click “Search Plugins” to filter the table.

You are looking for the “MLA WFU Data Source” example plugin. Find that plugin and hover over the title in the left-most column. Click the “Install” rollover action, then go to the WordPress Plugins/Installed Plugins submenu and activate the example plugin as you would any other plugin. Make sure you have the latest version, 1.00, installed.

Once the Development Version and new example plugin are installed and active you can navigate to the Settings/MLA WFU Data admin screen and configure the plugin for your application. You will find a Documentation tab with quite a bit of instructions and information. I would be very interested in any suggestions you have about the documentation content.

This example plugin will be part of my next MLA version, but in the interim it would be great if you could install the Development Version and the example plugin and let me know if it works for you. Thanks for inspiring this MLA improvement.

NOTE: I am traveling next week and will not be able to post any updates until I return.

Hello David,

Just GREAT ! I’m travelling to now. But as soon as I can I work on it and I come back to you.

Kind regards.

I have released MLA v3.03, which contains the example plugin developed for this topic. I hope you have been able to use it for your application.

I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have problems or further questions regarding the example plugin. Thanks again for inspiring this MLA improvement.