Extracting metadata to new post

Thanks for all your positive feedback, and for your question.

At first reading this sounds like a similar project I did a while back to create a Post object with some metadata from a PDF document in the Media Library. I can send a copy of that plugin to you if you have enough programming skills to adapt it to your application.

If you need more help than that, I can work with you after I complete some other projects already underway.

Let me know if/how you would like to proceed.

Thanks for getting back so quickly, David. I would be very interested in having a look at the plugin you mentioned. My programming skills are not existent, but playing around with the plugin might be a step in the right direction. Many thanks

Thanks for your patience. Since you said “My programming skills are not existent” I concluded that sending you the earlier plugin I did would not be helpful.

I’ve had some time to set up an Easy Digital Downloads test site and have a quick look at it. I think I have a rough sense of what you’re looking for.

The earlier plugin I mentioned added a “Create Post” action to the Media/Assistant rollover actions on each Media Library item. When that action was clicked it created a Post and copied some of the information from the item into the excerpt and content fields of the post.

I can imagine a similar plugin that would create a “download” custom post type from a Media Library item, populating “(title, description, tags, categories etc…)” from fields in the item. Of course, a complete list of “etc.” is required, along with some other specifics.

The most productive way to proceed would be offline, by email. I will post a summary here when we have some progress to report. If you send me your contact information I will respond with an email address we can use to continue the dialog. You can use the Contact Us page at our web site:

Fair Trade Judaica/Contact Us

I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for your interest in the plugin and for an interesting application idea.

Hi David, that sounds like a good idea for a plugin as you could easily populate the fields in the download post. I think it would be especially useful for photographers.

I’ve actually been testing the Woocommerce plugin because I was finding Easy Digital Downloads too restrictive. Whilst I like its lean approach it just doesn’t have the functionality that I require. The inability to set multiple price variables is very frustrating for an ecommerce package. Also, the csv importers are quite basic in comparison to those that work with Woocommerce.

I’m still testing and haven’t made any final decisions but at this stage I’m leaning towards Woo. Having said that, I’d be quite happy to be a sounding board if you’re proceeding with your plugin.

Thanks for your response and the additional details on your evolving application. Both Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce are excellent products, but Woo is a much more comprehensive e-commerce platform. I have done some simple WooCommerce/MLA work in the past and am working with someone in Europe on a project not unlike yours.

Whichever solution you finally decide on, let me know how MLA can help. I am going to mark this topic “not a support question”, but please update it or contact me via the FTJ web site when you have more specific questions or ideas. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

I just ran across this article about Best WordPress Marketplace Themes, which mentions “Stocky” for selling photographs.

Separately, if you are interested in communicating with someone in Europe who is working on a WooCommerce-based stock photography site, send me your contact information and I will put you in touch.

Thanks, David. I was originally looking at the Stocky theme and I think it has many good aspects. I just found it a bit limiting because of Easy Digital Downloads not having the functionality I needed. I’m making good progress building something around Woocommerce. IT would be good to chat to someone else in a similar situation. My email is metice(at)gmail.com. Thanks for your kind help ??

I will send your contact information on and put you in touch with the MLA user in Europe.

@moderator – could you remove Metice’s e-mail address from his post, to protect his privacy? Thanks!

Hi David,

Thanks for your plugin. I am really hoping it is going to work for me. I am in somewhat of the same position as Metice, except that I am not selling photographs but have an archive of photographs and videos (hosted on Youtube) for a non-profit website I am developing on city identity. Though I have some experience with web programming, I am kind of new to WordPress. I don’t have experience yet using short codes but think I could get the hang of it if guidance is provided. That said, ideally, what I would like to happen is that some of the metadata assigned to a particular media asset would automatically auto-populate a post in which that media asset is used, particularly the “description.” If more than one media asset is used in a post then the first media asset’s metadata would auto-populate the “description”, but all the tags (except duplicates) would be merged together.

That said, I also am wondering how do I get “keywords” metadata in my jpg file to map to the “Tags” list in the Media template?

Rosemary

Thanks for your kind words, for your questions and for taking the time to provide some details about your intended application.

Categories, Tags and Media Library items are a popular combination and one of the most popular MLA features and source of support topics. Here is a recent topic with some background information and links to earlier topics with lots of detail and examples:

Why are there two Categories sections?

You wrote “some of the metadata assigned to a particular media asset would automatically auto-populate a post in which that media asset is used, particularly the description.” There are several ways a “media asset is used in a post”, including:

1. Inserted in the body of the post with an <IMG> tag
2. Used as the Featured Image
3. Displayed by a shortcode such as [gallery] or [mla_gallery] contained in the post

By far the most common way to display a set of images or other Media Library items with “auto populated” information like the Description is to define an [mla_gallery] shortcode that displays the items you select and the information about each item you want to show. I would encourage you to start with a thorough understanding of [mla_gallery] before you consider less common approaches. Have a look at the earlier topics and the Settings/Media Library Assistant Documentation tab.

Mapping keywords to Categories and Tags is covered in the Documentation’s “IPTC & EXIF Processing Options” section. There are also many earlier support topics on the subject.

You also mention “videos (hosted on Youtube)“. There are many WordPress plugins that dynamically pull images and videos from Youtube, Flickr and other services. MLA only works with items in the Media Library, i.e., items stored on the same server that runs WordPress for your site.

Finally, if you really, specifically need to “automatically auto-populate a post“, it can be done with PHP coding in a custom plugin that uses the hooks provided by WordPress and MLA for such advanced tasks. It’s deep water and a fair amount of work, though.

I will leave this topic unresolved until I hear back from you. Let me know how the information I’ve pointed you to shapes your application ideas and questions. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

May I ask for your assistance in the same topic?

I also like to automatically create a new post containing the uploaded image and assigning tags and categories of the attachment to it. Creating a new post after image upload can be done by this little plugin: Auto Post After Image Upload which I tried to modify to assign attachments tags and categories to the new post. Unfortunatetly I failed in getting it to work. I had no success in retrieving the metadata from your registered taxonomies nor my properly defined custom fields.

May be the plugin you mentioned above would help me, too …

In case you will kindly mail me the code, heres my adress:
[email protected].
Many thanks in advance!

@dpfuhl,

Thanks for working with me offline on this issue. As you discovered, the “Auto Post After Image Upload” plugin isn’t working because MLA uses the wp_update_attachment_metadata filter to add the meta data. This filter runs later in the process, so the add_attachment action used by the other plugin isn’t very helpful.

MLA does provide hooks of its own, such as mla_end_mapping you could use to accomplish your goal. You can find more information in the Settings/Media Library Assistant Documentation tab.

Good luck with your application. Let me know if there’s anything MLA can do to help.