[Plugin: Media Library Assistant] Thank you!

Thank you for the kind words; glad you found the plugin useful.

I’m busy working on more functionality, such as a “Quick Edit” action that should save even more of your time. Stay tuned, and let me know if there are other features you’re interested in.

Thanks! In fact, there are already three small features I’d love to see, if possible:

• A setting to have the default sorting in reverse chronological order. This would help when one’s editing a group of images recently uploaded.
• The ability to change an image path. It’s happened to me to upload an image with the wrong file name. ?? In addition, perhaps an option to actually rename the file?
• Lastly, a change in where one goes after saving changes. Right now the plugin redirects to page 1, so if I were editing images in page 15 I have to remember the number and return there manually.

With those additions I guess I’d have all my media editing needs covered. ??

Thank you for the suggestions; these are always welcome!

• I will work on a “default sort” setting for a future release. Reverse chronological is just one possibility; I think you should be able to select any column and the order you want.
• Changing the image path is complicated, and I’ve been thinking about it for some time. If the item has been inserted in posts or pages, all of those references must be updated. Mass changes of posts and pages make me nervous! Maybe an option to change the file name (but not the path/directory) for “orphan” files (no references) would be enough. What do you think?
• The redirection to page 1 after an edit was a bug, not a feature. This is fixed in the next release – thanks for finding it.

Stay tuned for version .20, due out in a day or so. Thanks again for your input.

Sorry for the delay. About changing image file names, allowing it on orphaned images seems like a good compromise. But given the plugin is a power user tool, adding an override option would be a nice touch, so that one might use the feature on non-recommended ways if he so desired. IMHO, the best place for such an option would be a define to be manually added to one’s wp-config.php. Having it as a simple check box would be dangerous. ??

That reminds me: one thing I’d love to have would be the ability to have an image as an attachment to more than one parent post, so as to take advantage of the built-in gallery. I know this isn’t how the database is structured, since in it an “attachment” post-type can only have a single parent. But I think it might work if the plugin allowed one to create a new attachment post pointing to an already existing file. It’d be something like this:

Parent post 1 -> Attachment post 1 -> A file
Parent post 2 -> Attachment post 2 -> The same file
Parent post 3 -> Attachment post 3 -> The same file again

Oh, and a small bug I found: if a title, alternate text and/or caption (I haven’t tested the description) includes a single quote, it breaks the edit single item page. In the three fields, the string is cut at the single quote, anything beyond it disappearing. Additionally, in the caption field <p> tags appear.

I hope this helps!

Thank you for your comments and for the bug report.

• I will continue thinking about an ability to change the file name and perhaps the path.
• The multiple-parent ability was one of the first things I thought of when I started developing this plugin. Your idea is interesting but this is another complicated area, e.g., what happens when one of several attachment posts pointing to the file is deleted. WordPress will delete the underlying file, leaving the other attachment posts pointing at nothing. I’ll put this on the list, but don’t hold your breath. This change really belongs in the WordPress core.
• I have fixed the single-quote bug in the next release, due out shortly. Thanks for finding it!

I’ve just released version 0.50, which features the [mla_gallery] shortcode. The new shortcode offers complete support of Category, Tag or custom taxonomy selection to build a gallery from any combination of Media Library items. I think this capability is a good alternative to the “multiple parent” ability you suggested. Let me know what you think, and thanks for using the plugin!