Help With Mapping For The Stupid

Thanks for your question and your comments on the documentation. I certainly agree that the documentation is more reference than tutorial, and I’ve often wished I had the time and talent to write “Media Library Assistant: The Missing Manual”. That’s one of the reasons I welcome questions in this support forum and try to answer them as completely as I can. Topics like mapping image metadata can be complex; it’s purely a matter of expertise, not intelligence. So, how to map keywords to categories…

First, it depends on the program you used to add the keywords to the images in the first place. Most photographers use something like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop; other people use tools like the Windows Explorer “Details” pane or the “Properties” dialog box. Sadly, there’s no standard and these programs put tags/keywords/categories in different places. If you can post a link to one of your images I can analyze it and tell you where the information is stored. If you tell me what program you use to add the values to your images I can give you more specific help.

Second, it depends on where you want to store the values in WordPress. You’ve specified “categories”; I assume that’s the built-in WordPress Categories taxonomy. Other choices are the built-in “Tags”, or the two custom taxonomies MLA adds for your convenience. Some people want one taxonomy for posts, pages and attachments; others want separate taxonomies.

Here’s my best general advice on how you can get started. If I’ve missed something, let me know and I’ll try again.

1. Go to the Settings/Media Library Assistant General tab.
2. Scroll down to Taxonomy Support and make sure the “Support” box is checked for the Categories taxonomy.
3. Go to the IPTC/EXIF tab.
4. Make sure the “Enable IPTC/EXIF Mapping when adding new media” box is checked.
5. Scroll down to the “Taxonomy term mapping” section and find the row for the “Categories” taxonomy.
6. Pull down the “IPTC Value” list and select “2#025 keywords”. That’s the most likely source; don’t be fooled by the “category” and “supplemental category” choices; they’re almost never used.
7. Enter “Keywords” in the EXIF/Template Value field, if you use Photoshop or another program that supports EXIF data.
8. Set the Priority dropdown to “IPTC”, the most likely choice.
9. Set the Existing Text dropdown to “Keep”, unless you want to wipe out any values you’ve assigned earlier.
10. Enter a comma and a semicolon in the Delimiter(s) text box. Adobe uses a comma, Windows uses a semicolon and some people embed one or the other in their values.
11. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Save Changes” to save your rule

If you’re brave and confident you can click “Map All Attachments, Taxonomy Terms Now” to go through your Media Library and run the rule against all of the images at one shot. If you want to test your work first, you can go to the Media/Assistant submenu table and click the “Edit” rollover action for an image you know has keywords. Click the “Map IPTC/EXIF Metadata” link in the upper right “Save” area of the screen, then look down at the Categories metabox and see if your keywords are checked. Once you’ve got your rule working you can update individual images, use the Bulk Edit area to update groups of images or use the Map All Attachments, Taxonomy Terms Now button to process all of your images.

I hope that gets you started. If you can tell me how you add keywords to your images and make one or more of your images available I can be more specific. I will leave this topic unresolved until you let me know you’re getting the results you need.

Thanks for the question and your interest in the plugin.

That sounds extremely thorough. Thank You.

#6 answered one of the questions I had.

#7 is slightly confusing in that I believe you are suggesting it as a backup to cover whichever area the keywords are likely stored, and not because it is actually necessary to perform both steps #6 and #7 if one knows for certain the keywords are stored in the IPTC area?

The other helpful section was the one describing how to test that the mapping is working on a single or group of images.

Those instructions should take care of what I need if they work. Thank You.

Thanks for posting this update. I am happy to hear the instructions were helpful, and I’m sure other users will find them useful as well.

You’re right about step #7, entering “Keywords” in the EXIF text box. If you know where your values are and what they’re called you can use step #6 or step #7; you don’t need both.

If you are working with images from different sources, processed by different programs you may need both values or sometimes more elaborate logic. For advanced use, the Content Template feature lets you implement rules that try several sources in priority order or add values from several sources together into one list. Most users don’t need that, of course.

I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any problems or further questions. Thanks again for your questions and for your interest in the plugin.