• Resolved ride2719

    (@ride2719)


    Hello and thanks for this very fine plugin.

    I think I have a simple requirement and have read a lot in the forum and documentation, but the light bulb has not turned on for me. I’m an experienced programmer with old languages, but not with PHP.

    I want to have a page containing a shortcode for the frontend upload plugin that allows a non-technical logged-in user to upload PDF files. The shortcode needs to assign a code that can be used to search for files uploaded by this page — i.e. I want to minimize what the user has to know to upload files.

    On another page I want an MLA shortcode that displays the thumbnails for the PDF’s assigned the code from the upload page. This page should be accessible by the public.

    I have not been able to determine out how to assign a code (attachment category?) to the uploaded files that can be used in MLA. I am completely open frontend uploaders other than FU, and for any coding scheme that allows the selection of files uploaded using a particular page.

    There are several categories of PDF’s, and there will be a separate page used to upload each type of PDF. The files uploaded with a particular page need to be selected and displayed by an MLA shortcode that searches on the code specific to the parituclar page.

    I hope this is clear enough. Mainly, I need advice on how to assign a code to each PDF uploaded based on the page used to upload it. It can be as simple as assigning a unique assignment category using the shortcode that occurs on a particular page.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author David Lingren

    (@dglingren)

    Thanks for your question and for the details about your application goal; very helpful.

    I, too, am experienced with the “old languages”, and I was drawn to PHP because it is so similar to my all-time favorite, “c”. I suppose that dates me…

    You wrote “ I am completely open frontend uploaders other than FU… I am not sure how to interpret that; can you give me more details?

    Here are some general comments about how to reach your goal. I am happy to provide more specific help once I have a better sense of how you want to proceed. First, here is an earlier topic along lines similar to yours:

    Automatically adding the author as a category

    Briefly, you can:

    • use MLA’s IPTC/EXIF mapping rules to assign taxonomy terms (and other values) to items as they are uploaded to the Media Library.
    • use MLA_AJAX_EXCEPTIONS to add MLA support for front end uploaders.
    • adapt the “MLA Substitution Parameter Hooks Example” plugin to gain access to data you can use to assign the terms you need.

    The earlier topic uses an author: prefix to get term values, but the example plugin also includes a parent: prefix that should give you access to whatever you need from the post/page from which the upload is performed.

    I hope that gets you started on a solution for your application. I am leaving this topic unresolved until I hear back from you regarding problems or further questions about the earlier topic and the MLA features it uses. Let me know how I can help, and thanks for your interest in the plugin.

    Thread Starter ride2719

    (@ride2719)

    I’ll be working on your suggestions today — Thanks very much. I’ll report on my success (or not) with specifics.

    The comment about frontend uploaders has a typo. I was trying to say that I am not committed to FU, but am open to using any frontend uploader that is easy for non-technical users to use and that makes linking to MLA as straightforward as possible. My choice of FU is based on a more general assessment that it seems to be a plugin that has been well-implemented and that has a lot of flexibility, AND I like the UI.

    I actually pre-date C. My career was built on FORTRAN and assembler, with a little bit of COBOL and Visual BASIC along the way. Getting into web design has been both fun and challenging for me. (It’s hard but not impossible to teach an old dog new tricks.)

    Thanks again for your very kind attention to my question.

    Plugin Author David Lingren

    (@dglingren)

    It has been five weeks since my last post in this topic> I hope the suggestions I gave were helpful and you have found a solution that works for your application.

    I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if I can give you any additional help. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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