Different form field for category selection?

Thank you for this question and for taking the time to post a link to the example of your application.

It looks like the category list in the example you posted is based on film titles. My immediate reaction is that “categories” are meant to group items into a manageable number of terms, e.g., “crime”, “adventure”, “comedy”. Film titles might be more appropriate as a tag or perhaps a custom field.

That said, I’m not in a position to second-guess your application design. I know that the MLA enhancements to the Media Manager are rudimentary at this time and would benefit from further enhancement. In fact, the “set a media category/taxonomy on upload” function has been mentioned in an earlier support topic:

Hide edit cat and tags in media manager

I have found the new Media Manager to be a challenge; it’s new, not well documented and quite complex. I’m very interested in improving the MLA enhancements in this area and I will add your suggestions to my list. I regret that I don’t have an immediate answer for you but I will keep you posted on my progress.

Thanks again for your interest in the plugin and for these suggestions.

Hi David

Appreciate the response.

Yes in most cases tags would be the way to go for this amount of things, but we want to create a media library that is browsable by category (essentially automatically creating galleries). We’ve already got things pretty much working in terms of the frontend of this now, it’s just streamlining the management of it and usability from our writers perspective for when they are using the images in articles.

So we have, for example

Film
– Movies
— Fight Club
— Toy Story
— Etc
– Actors
— Chris Rock
— Christian Bale
— Etc
Football
– Barcelona
— Lionel Messi
— Xavi

etc

As you’ve seen, the list is quite large! What would likely be ideal is if above the drop down, or even just replacing the dropdown entirely, was a imdb.com style search box that found the appropriate category for you as you typed it in. So if I began typing… “Chri”… it would bring up Chris Nolan and Christian Bale as selectable options.

I did have another query in light of how we’ve got it structured. At the moment, when I select a category from the dropdown – it only reveals the images that are directly linked to that category. With our setup, I’m only putting the images into the bottom level child category. E.g. I am putting an image in the “Lionel Messi” category but not the “Barcelona” category. When I select the “Barcelona” category, though, I am not seeing any of the images that are in the child categories.

Is it possible? I’ve got this setup working on our frontend output (e.g. I can browse through all the images that are in the children categories of “Barcelona”).

Obviously I’m aware the new media modal/library is a bit of a pain and undocumented, so no idea if this is possible in the backend but it would be awesome is there was a way to make this work.

Thanks for responding with more information on your application.The way you’re using Categories is unusual, but it makes sense in the context of your application. It sounds like you would like something along the lines of the “searchable” category metabox implemented by these two plugins:

• Media Categories (version 1.5) by Eddie Moya
• Searchable Categories/Back End Category Search (version 0.2) by Jason Corradino

Another MLA user suggested that Media Categories’ way of handling this function was worth a look. It’s a nice implementation, but it only works for the WordPress-standard category taxonomy. Searchable Categories is nice, too, but only for the category taxoonomy and only for posts. I would be interested to know if the way these plugins work is what you have in mind.

My general philosophy is to follow the WordPress style, which is why I use a dropdown list for the filter feature and why child categories are not included in the results. It’s also why the term assignment on upload is, well, primitive; that’s native WordPress code, not mine.

In your two posts you have asked for three things, I think:

1. A different type of category selection/filtering on the Media Manager modal window, with the ability to type a partial match and narrow the list.
2. Better assignment of categories on media upload, e.g., something like the scrolling checklist you see on the Edit Media page. I’m guessing you’d like to type partial matches here, too.
3. The ability to include child categories in the filtered results when a parent category is selected.

Have I missed anything?

With respect to the first point, I am concerned about the amount of space a “searchable scrolling checklist” would require; there’s not much space in the Media Manager toolbar to begin with. I’ve considered a button that pops up a separate search window, or putting the search tool in the right-hand column, but I’m not happy with either approach. Any suggestions?

With respect to the third point, including child categories would have to be a user option; changing the default would not be to everyone’s taste.

As I said, I will add these items to my list of enhancements to consider for a future release. I can’t promise quick action, however. I’ve got some travel coming up and some other things I’m in the middle of working on. I will update this topic when I have progress to report.

Thanks again for your interest and for sharing the details of what you have in mind. Good luck with your application.

Hi David,

Thanks again for coming back to me.

Yes there’s certainly an issue with point 1 due to the space constraints. This looks useful – but perhaps isn’t very “obvious” to the user that it is searchable: https://jsearchdropdown.sourceforge.net/

The other way of doing it could be to have an option to get rid of the drop down altogether and simply replace the default WordPress search box with a more robust autosearch… I’ve done a mockup for what I would suggest in an ideal world:

View post on imgur.com

Clicking on each result would immediately show you the images from that Media Category (in the same way selecting an option in the dropdown list currently does).

Obviously this is likely to be a very niche requirement given our usage of categories in this instance. If it’s something you’d consider and is possible for a premium version of the plugin I’d certainly be interested in having that conversation.

Thanks for the update and for taking the time to post these additional suggestions.

I will be out of the country for a few weeks and away from my development system, but I will pick this up when I return. I will post any progress to this topic.

I have released version 1.51, which includes support for the enhanced category/tag selection metaboxes in the ATTACHMENT DETAILS pane on the right-hand side of the Media Manager Modal Window.

To activate the new feature, install and activate this related plugin:

Media Categories, by Eddie Moya

Then, open the Settings/Media Library Assistant screen, General tab, and scroll down to the Media Manager Enhancements section. Check the box next to Media Manager Searchable Categories metaboxes and/or Media Manager Searchable Tags metaboxes, depending on your needs. Click Save Changes to record your choice.

I intend to add something like this as an MLA feature in a future release, but this interim step is an easy change that should give you some of what you need. The only drawback to the “Searchable” metaboxes is that you can’t type in a new category or tag value; you must pick from values already defined on your site.

I know this step does not address the filtering/selection dropdown issues you raised, either. I haven’t lost sight of that.

Please let me know if you have any trouble with this new feature, further questions or suggestions. Thanks for your interest in the plugin and for this suggestion.

My next version will have significant new support for taxonomies in the ATTACHMENT DETAILS area of the Media Manager Modal Window, responding to your suggestion:

It would also be great if MLA could introduced functionality that allowed you to better set a media category/taxonomy on upload. The default field isn’t very user friendly as it doesn’t take into consideration parent relationships or help you in seeing what categories already exist.

Since you have the largest collection of Categories/Tags I know of it would be great if you could give the new version a try before the official release. If you’d like to help, please send me a note with your e-mail address and I will give you a copy by return e-mail. You can use the Contact Us page at our web site:

Fair Trade Judaica/Contact Us

I am still working a better alternative to the toolbar dropdown box used to filter by taxonomy terms; another challenge.

Thanks for your interest, your understanding and your patience.

This idea has come up again and I am actively thinking about how to implement it. Have a look at this new topic, then post an update here with any feedback you have; thanks:

MLA search images by tag

I have released version 1.80, which replaces the “Media Categories” interim support with complete native MLA support for taxonomy values in the ATTACHMENT DETAILS area of the Media Manager Modal Window. You can find more information in the “Other Notes” tab.

Please give it a try and let me know if you have any problems, questions or suggestions. Thanks for your interest and your patience.