Make "attachment metadata" field editable

Thanks for the kind words and for your question.

The Attachment Metadata is a complicated data structure stored as a “serialized” array in a postmeta (custom field) database field. As you’ve seen, MLA makes it available as a read-only meta box in the Media/Edit Media screen using the PHP var_export() function to decode and format it.

Many WordPress features and functions depend on the integrity and accuracy of the data, and I am reluctant to undertake the work required to ensure that manual edits would not cause damage.

You can, however, define mapping rules that add or modify elements within the Attachment Metadata. You can find instructions and more information in the “Adding or changing Attachment Metadata” section of the Settings/Media Library Assistant Documentation tab. You can define a rule to update any element in the metadata and you can use a Content Template (also covered in the Documentation) to compose new values from a wide variety of sources.

If you can provide more details about the kind of modifications you’d like to make I can give you more specific guidance. I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have problems or further questions regarding the mapping rules for Attachment Metadata updates. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

Hi David,
I’ve tried to follow your instructions and here’s a screenshot of the mapping:
https://screencast.com/t/vmStJO1T
Does this look correct?

I can’t seem to actually find those fields anywhere for viewing or editing. I’ve checked on the Media detail and MLA Assistant pages, but nothing I can see.

I’m trying to extract the following EXIF information so it can be edited:
camera,aperture,shutter_speed,iso,focal_length,exposure_bias,flash,created_timestamp

I’ve got a separate plugin which is responsible for displaying that EXIF data and that works fine. But I’m needing to edit the EXIF data on individual images when some of the info is missing (since the images are from various sources).

Does this help you with a better idea of what I’m trying to achieve? I appreciate your feedback and guidance.

Thank you for your update with the additional information. Thanks as well for taking the time to post a screenshot of your mapping rules; very helpful.

Regarding the mapping rules, your “copyright” rule may not be working because EXIF data is case-sensitive and all the images I have seen use “Copyright”, not “copyright”. You can also simplify your rule by just entering “Copyright” in the EXIF/Template field. MLA will assume that “Copyright” is an exif field and will automatically test for and ignore empty values. You can use “GPS.LatitudeSDD” in the same way.

If you haven’t already read through them, you may find these earlier topics interesting:

Camera Exif Fetch

EXIF/Template Value editing

Geo-tag custom field

The first topic was the inspiration for adding the “Field-level enhanced EXIF CAMERA values” (see the Documentation) information you need. It also shows how to format and display the data directly from the image file, without mapping it into the Attachment Metadata area. There are pros and cons of each approach.

You wrote “I can’t seem to actually find those fields anywhere for viewing or editing.” If you mean the raw EXIF data, you can use the ALL_EXIF pseudo-field in an [mla_gallery] shortcode to view much of the data. I use Photoshop’s “File Information” feature to see ALL the data in detail, but most photo-editing tools have some ability to display it as well.

If you want to “edit the EXIF data on individual images“, the best approach I can think of is to map these data to individual custom fields and maintain them there. If you use the “Existing Text: Keep” option in your mapping rules any changes you make will not be lost if you re-map the image more than once. It’s a little tedious to set up, but flexible. Would that work for your application?