Manually adding source desc? Source Format? Possible to migrate from Credit T.?

I forgot one question:

Migrate Credit Tracker Data to Image Source Controll data:
Is it possible to migrate the data when used Credit Tracker (link in post above)? Would be great if you have a SQL, which migrate Credit Tracker data tables to your plugin data tables.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Manni79.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Manni79.

Hey Manni79, thanks for reaching out and your elaborate questions!

Automated/Optimized creation of the source text:

I have always been careful with full automation, but if there is a platform the images are from and it gives all the information, then I can take a look. But for this to become a new feature, I’d need more demand from users or I’d end up with a lot of code to maintain.

The premium version comes with some fallback options for the image source, like the uploader’s name, information from the WordPress caption, or encoded IPTC data.

Fixed format of the source text:

If there is more data per image then I should indeed store it separately and an option to change the output format dynamically makes sense. Right now, there is just the image source field for the main information plus the optional license field.

Source texts without a link:

You are the first to ask this as well ??

One of the existing hooks should be usable for this. How technical are you to handle custom PHP code?

Migrate Credit Tracker Data to Image Source Controll data:

I received a question about migrating Credit Tracker data a while ago, but the user ended up migrating manually. So I haven’t looked deeper into their table structure.

I thought that the deprecation of Credit Tracker, more users would reach out about this, but you are only the second. The wave of users looking for alternatives might already be over and with the possible complexity in this, I am unable to promise an implementation, unless this finds a sponsor.

It might be simpler to keep the Credit Tracker data and connect ISC to read it as a standard source. If you have developer capacities, I might be able to guide them a bit. There are already some standard source options in the premium version and building on top of that shouldn’t be a problem for a skilled WordPress dev.

Please let me know, if you need anything else.

Thomas

Hey @manni79 , were you able to make some progress on this?

Thanks,
Thomas

Hi @webzunft

Sorry, I missed your first replay. Thank you for your comprehensive and honest feedback, even I will see no changes. ??

Automated/Optimized creation of the source text:
I totally understand your decision, having a feature perhaps nobody needs, makes no sense. I just can say, as user of “Credit Tracker”, the feature to retrieve the data from Adobe Stock (and other plattforms) was great and time saving.

Fixed format of the source text:
Then I hope to see author and platform stored separately and having some format-configuration to build the source-text from the separate fields in the future. ??

Source texts without a link:
Here I am a bit surprise, that I am the only one who asked. Because at least in Germany on media pages which needs to outline the image source, it’s totally pretty standard to not include a Link.
Just examples for big pages:
heise.de – No links, just text below image as image source:
https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Was-die-naechste-Solarzellengeneration-leistet-50-Prozent-Wirkungsgrad-10241339.html
https://www.heise.de/tests/Extrabreite-Displays-im-Test-Was-passt-zum-Mac-10268980.html

Handelsblatt – Just text, no links at the image sources:
https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/anlagestrategie/geldanlage-drei-kennzahlen-verraten-wie-stark-der-dax-ueberbewertet-ist/100107838.html

Seems to be the same in “US”, e.g. Fobes – Just text, no links at image sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobwolinsky/2025/02/18/four-under-the-radar-stock-picks-for-q1-2025-from-top-managers/

So, perhaps you should think about implementing an option to use image source without a link, just because it’s the pretty standard.


Migrate Credit Tracker Data to Image Source Control data:

I am not a web developer but software developer in other area. Perhaps I can write an update SQL by myself which insert the credit tracker data and tables and format which ICS need. Could you just be so kind and point me in the direction where ISC data related to the image “Image Source” is saved? When I look over your input fields on UI, I would think beside “Image Source” and “Image Source URL”, there is no data I have to “assign” to an image, right?

When I manage to generate a SQL solution, I will send you the solution.

You should use a figcaption element around your “source text”, and not use just plain text.
See https://developer.mozilla.org/de/docs/Web/HTML/Element/figcaption
https://www.w3schools.com/TAgs/tag_figcaption.asp

Also, a CSS class would be a pretty default solution when adding html on WordPress, to easily address it with CSS manually. Here in the following screenshot, you see your source image tag and Credits Tracker image tag one over the other. Credit tracker had both, figcaption and CSS class, which totally makes sense. Hope to see both in ISC soon.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l8fpjzbj01y1wk76t0xa8/2025-02-21-13_12_56-CreditTracker.vs.ISC.png?rlkey=5r7rpczfvu8pwprvjnngx2xm4&dl=1

Hi @manni79 ,

thanks for your detailed reply!

Source texts without a link

I think the users who don’t want to link the source text, just don’t enter a link.

If you need the link or any other information as a reference, you can store it differently, e.g., in the “Description” field. Entered there, it won’t show in the frontend.

Migrate Credit Tracker Data to Image Source Control data:

When I look over your input fields on UI, I would think beside “Image Source” and “Image Source URL”, there is no data I have to “assign” to an image, right?

Correct. The post meta keys for these are isc_image_source and isc_image_source_url .

Both in the wp_postmeta table attached to the appropriate image.

There are also isc_image_source_own with the value 1 in case you marked an image as using the “Standard Source” or isc_image_licence if you assign a license. The latter would need to match a license text entry from the license setting.

Figcaption

You should use a?figcaption?element around your “source text”, and not use just plain text.

I have looked into this a while ago.

Two issues:

• an image source is not necessarily an image description
• WordPress already adds a figcaption when you add an image description in the editor

Also, a?CSS class?would be a pretty default solution when adding html on WordPress, to easily address it with CSS manually.

It has a dedicated HTML element with a CSS class by default. If I understood your original message though, you choose the option to remove all markup from the image source output.

You can add your own markup following this example.

Thanks again for sharing your use cases. While I cannot provide a direct solution for all of them, I am happy to see the challenges you are trying to overcome.

Thomas

Hi @webzunft

thank you again for your time and your response!

Source texts without a link

I think the users who don’t want to link the source text, just don’t enter a link.

If you need the link or any other information as a reference, you can store it differently, e.g., in the “Description” field. Entered there, it won’t show in the frontend.

Yes, good idea. I just want to save the link for the source at the image data, this makes sense to review image source data, but if ISC has no field for it, I will attach is to image desc.

Migrate Credit Tracker Data to Image Source Control data:

Correct. The post meta keys for these are isc_image_source and isc_image_source_url .

I think I managed to migrate data to my needs. Here my SQLs for you and any user who will have the same goal.

My goal, having a source text like “<author> – <plattform>” in ISC image source. I decided to not insert a blank isc_image_source_own, even if it seems ISC will generate one when entering isc_image_source manually in UI, because it seems it is working also fine without it.

SQL for inserting Credit tracker data as isc data in postmeta. It’s just and insert, no update. So only images will be affected who not already have manually by UI assigned isc data:
INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id, meta_key, meta_value)
SELECT p.ID,
'isc_image_source',
CONCAT(ct_author.meta_value, ' – ', SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(ct_link.meta_value, '/', 3), '/', -1))
FROM wp_posts p
JOIN wp_postmeta ct_author
ON ct_author.post_id = p.ID AND ct_author.meta_key = 'credit-tracker-author'
JOIN wp_postmeta ct_link
ON ct_link.post_id = p.ID AND ct_link.meta_key = 'credit-tracker-link'
LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta isc
ON isc.post_id = p.ID AND isc.meta_key = 'isc_image_source'
WHERE p.post_type = 'attachment'
AND isc.post_id IS NULL;

Next update which uses the Credit tracker URL data and attach the image source URL to text written in image “description” field. Technically image desc fields name is “post_content” in “wp_posts” when “post_type is ‘attachment'”.

UPDATE wp_posts p
JOIN wp_postmeta ct_link
ON ct_link.post_id = p.ID AND ct_link.meta_key = 'credit-tracker-link'
SET p.post_content = CONCAT(COALESCE(p.post_content, ''), ' Source-Link: ', ct_link.meta_value)
WHERE p.post_type = 'attachment'
AND COALESCE(p.post_content, '') NOT LIKE '%Source-Link%';

An SQL to check all your ISC source image texts after updating with first SQL:
SELECT p.ID,
p.post_title,
m.meta_key,
m.meta_value
FROM wp_posts p
JOIN wp_postmeta m ON p.ID = m.post_id
WHERE p.post_type = 'attachment'
AND m.meta_key LIKE 'isc_%'
AND NOT m.meta_key LIKE 'isc_image_posts'
ORDER BY p.ID, m.meta_key;

SQL to check all descriptions of your images:

SELECT ID,
post_title,
post_content AS description
FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_type = 'attachment'
AND post_content IS NOT NULL
AND TRIM(post_content) <> ''
ORDER BY ID;

I am not a WordPress Expert and give no guarantee that everything will work well if someone uses my SQLs. Use them only on your own responsibility, and please review them yourself.


Figcaption, Style, Design

Thanks a lot to point me to the filter. For my needs, Credit tracker had a good solution to use theme design to design the image source text ad image caption and place it just below the image.

In the meantime, I tried it with your “styled version” and re-styled it by myself per CSS. The result is not bad, and for anybody who has the same problem and wants a credit tracker style for ISC, here is the CSS code:

.isc-source-text {
position: static !important;
background-color: transparent !important;
color: inherit !important;
font-size: 11px !important;
padding: 0 !important;
text-shadow: none !important;
opacity: 0.8 !important;
}
.isc-source {
display: block;
text-align: center;
}

But I will try your pointed solution using a filter to add the CSS classes “class=”caption wp-caption-text”” to your unstyled version. Haven’t tried it yet, but this should lead the best solution.


Source images table/list
I still have problems migrating to ISC for the “image list” I want to show in the imprint. Here is a screenshot of Credit tracker, which fulfilled all my need, having a table with images and thumbnails and showing author and platform beside it:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l9sut9ryu1pzcsenr315r/2025-02-21-13_12_56-CreditTracker.GlobalList.png?rlkey=9vo9e8dmarw1vsx8ci9yvxtei&dl=1

I read the isc docu ( https://imagesourcecontrol.com/documentation/ ) but I am not sure if it is possible to get the same output. Shortcode [isc_list] gives a list without thumbnails, only bullet points. [isc_list_all] shows a table, but still no thumbnails. Also the colmun which shows image name, I do not want to show, because names of my images are (in my case) not really meaningful, having very long cryptic names of adobe stock images default names. Also [isc_list_all] shows all images, also images which have no ICS data filled. I just want to show images which have ICS data. Because I do not want to list all the images here, which do not need and image credit source text.

Is it possible with filters or shortcode option or both to have a similar output like in credit tracker?
Requirements:
– a pretty table
– thumbnails of the images
– not the images name displayed
– image source text displayed
– display only images, which have an “isc image source” assigned
example again: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l9sut9ryu1pzcsenr315r/2025-02-21-13_12_56-CreditTracker.GlobalList.png?rlkey=9vo9e8dmarw1vsx8ci9yvxtei&dl=1

Thanks a lot!

.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by Manni79. Reason: double posted

Great advice, using the filter feature to add CSS to the unstyled version. For everybody who find this thread and has a similar goal, here is my solution. With following code added with plugin “code snippets” …

= '', $image_id = 0) {
    return "<span class='caption wp-caption-text isc-source-text-custom' style=''>$source</span>";
}, 10, 2);

… I was able to very much simplify my custom CSS to:

.isc-source-text-custom {
  opacity: 0.9 !important;
}

Which shows the credit text just as simple text under the image and in very similar manner that credit tracker was.

So, at the moment, I just work on the image list.

Hi @manni79 ,

thanks for sharing your solutions! I am going to add a Credit Tracker section to the homepage with that information as soon as we finish this thread.

The code in your last message seems a bit cut off. Would you mind sharing the full version again?

Source images table/list

Most of these features are available as options in the plugin settings of the Pro version.

Thanks,
Thomas

Hi @webzunft, yes, you are right. Something cut off my filter code. ??
I can’t edit my last post. Here again the filter:

// WP Filter zur Anpassung der ISC-Overlay-Source, mit optionalem Inline-Stil (style='') und WP-Standard-CSS-Klassen für image captions
add_filter('isc_overlay_html_source', function($source = '', $image_id = 0) {
    return "<span class='caption wp-caption-text isc-source-text-custom' style=''>$source</span>";
}, 10, 2);

Let my know if you need help with the SQLs or also want to have an “update” SQL beside the “only insert” sql I posted.

Source images table/list

That’s a pity. A Subscription for my nearly non-profit tutorial blog makes no sense. Beside some stock images, is the rest I use also free of charge. Would be great to see some more (even I would call it “basic”) features for the image source list in the future. Would be enough when it’s not implemented in ISC UI Settings (this could still be premium of course), but with filters or short code options/parameter at least.
The credit tracker example seems for me like a very straight and basic idea in my opinion, which would be great to have in ISC. ( https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l9sut9ryu1pzcsenr315r/2025-02-21-13_12_56-CreditTracker.GlobalList.png?rlkey=9vo9e8dmarw1vsx8ci9yvxtei&dl=1)

Anyway, topic solved! Of course, I can’t demand new features ??
Thanks a lot for your time. Was one of the best supports for plugins in wordpress forums. ??

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by Manni79.

Thanks for your kind words, manni79.

I will make sure to publish relevant parts of our conversation in our docs, so that other previous Credit Tracker users can benefit from it.

Thomas

Hi @webzunft, even the thread is solved, here are some more news for people who found this thread and have the same goal.
News on both topics, the migration from Credit Tracker to ISC itself and the implementation of a more favored design solution to source list with filters and CSS.

Let’s start with the first topic: the migration from Credit Tracker to ISC has caused me some headaches.
The problem in my case, and I don’t know how this happens, was that all the source text generated by Credit Tracker is entered as captions in the image options. And what was worse, the captions were also hardcoded into the WordPress page code as shortcodes. I looked in the Credit Tracker documentation, but I’m not sure how I used it years ago to define the source texts. There are different ways to use Credit Tracker. Perhaps I missed some credit tracker options while deleting the plugin. Anyway, both were a problem for me, and solution was messy.

I first tried to delete all caption-shortcodes from my post with sql update. But that had the problem that the default wp-caption css stopped working, because proper wp caption css has a sequence of css attributes that are also required with the current formatting goal.

Also, you can’t delete the full caption content, because it seems WordPress doesn’t create html/css classes for the captions either if caption content in wp post caption shortcode is empty, but you can replace them with non-breakable spaces.

Please use the following SQL ONLY WITH GREAT CAUTION, BECAUSE IT REWRITES ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS IN POSTS!!! Only use it if you know you are not using image captions for other reasons, such as for credit tracker image source text. Please fully understand the problem before using this program!!!
I also give no guarantee that I will not see any problems or negative side effects. Make backups before.
SQL to replace all caption-content in all wp posts with a non breakable space (&nbsp;):

UPDATE wp_posts
SET post_content = REGEXP_REPLACE(
    post_content,
    '(\\[caption[^\\]]*\\].*?<img[^>]+>)[\\s\\S]*?(\\[/caption\\])',
    '\\1&nbsp;\\2'
)
WHERE post_content REGEXP '(\\[caption[^\\]]*\\].*?<img[^>]+>)[\\s\\S]*?(\\[/caption\\])';

I also deleted all captions in wordpress image options. This perhaps is not needed, but you do not need the credit tracker caption source string anymore in image settings.

Again, USE ONLY WITH GREAT CAUTION AND FULLY UNDERSTAND ALL CONCERNS AND PROBLEMS BEFORE USING: Backup first. no guarante! Make backups before.
SQL to delete all captions in the image options:

UPDATE wp_posts
SET post_excerpt = ''
WHERE post_type = 'attachment'
  AND post_mime_type LIKE 'image/%';

This migration has some problems:

• all image captions will be deleted, think about if you need some captions and exclude them by changing the sql or make the changes manually.
• Adding proper formatted ICS source text need you to add a caption to your image when used new images. Which is bad.
• So, perhaps my migration was a bit messy. I have a 2nd web page and after understanding better about the caption code and more details came from, I think will work out a better solution.

Now to my 2nd problem: More control over the design of the image source list, I used the following solution:

1. Use [isc_list_all] e.g. in imprint
2. Set ISC settigs for “global list” to “Images in the content“
3. In ISC settigs for “global list” put “Thumbnail” ON
4. I used custom css to hide the column which shows the “image title” and the column which shows the “pages the images are attached to” (Important to understand, columns are just hidden in rendered web view, both columns are readable in web page source, so, also readable by bots/crawler)

/* Image source control - ISC - Hide title and attached-to-page columns when thumbnail is enabled */
.isc_all_image_list_box table thead th:nth-child(3),
.isc_all_image_list_box table tbody td:nth-child(3),
.isc_all_image_list_box table thead th:nth-child(4),
.isc_all_image_list_box table tbody td:nth-child(4) {
    display: none;
}

5. I used a filter to just show images with ISC data in the list:

/**
 * Filter the global list attachments to only include images with a non-empty ISC source
 * or images marked as using the standard (own) source.
 */
add_filter('isc_global_list_get_attachment_arguments', function($args) {
    // Build a meta query to only include attachments with a valid image source.
    $meta_query = [
        'relation' => 'OR', // Use 'OR' to match either condition.
        [
            'key'     => 'isc_image_source',
            'value'   => '',
            'compare' => '!=' // Include attachments where 'isc_image_source' is not empty.
        ],
    ];

    // Include attachments using the standard source if the option is not set to exclude them.
    if (!\ISC\Standard_Source::standard_source_is('exclude')) {
        $meta_query[] = [
            'key'     => 'isc_image_source_own',
            'value'   => '1',
            'compare' => '=' // Include attachments where 'isc_image_source_own' is set to '1'.
        ];
    }

    // Add the meta query to the arguments.
    $args['meta_query'] = $meta_query;

    return $args;
});

Result: Output of global list is not the same as in credit tracker, but similar.