The purpose of the Shiba Media Library Plugin is to facilitate the manipulation and grouping of images within the existing WordPress image library framework.
[Most recent Shiba Media Library updates]
December, 2015
Tested on WordPress 4.4. No changes needed.September 13th 2015 – Release 3.9.1
- Updated thumbnails column for WordPress 4.3.
- Tested on WordPress 4.3.
When creating permalink structures, care must to taken to ensure that the new structure does not override existing post, page, category, and tag permalinks.
Key Features of the Shiba Media Library Plugin
- Enables image tagging and allows you to group images into galleries by using their tags. Images can also to added manually using the regular media manager interface.
- In addition to images/attachments, galleries may also contain posts and other galleries. In this way, you group not only images, but also posts, galleries, and any combination of these object types. Here are some fun things you can achieve with expanded galleries.
- Easily search for posts, pages, galleries, and more in the expanded media manager interface, and include them directly into a gallery. The days of painfully hunting for IDs are over!
- Freely order images, posts, and pages within a gallery.
- Gallery objects get saved into your WordPress export files. This allows you to keep a backup of your gallery objects, as well as move them from blog to blog.
- Expanded media manager image search that allows you to find images based on title and alt text.
- Expanded search that allows you to find attachments and galleries based on titles, tags, and categories.
- Show the number of posts an image containing an image in the Media >> Library screen.
- View most-used tags for post, attachment, and gallery objects.
- Quick Edit image attachments.
- Adds a new drop-down menu to your existing WordPress Media Library. This menu will allow you to do bulk attachments to both attached and non-attached images.
- Detach a set of images from their post so that they revert back to their unattached state.
The Power of Galleries and Tags
Gallery objects are stored in the regular WordPress post database. In this way, you get to leverage almost all existing functions that are available for WordPress post objects including displaying your galleries using the WordPress gallery shortcode.
Galleries created with the Shiba Media Library Plugin should also work with other plugins that support the WordPress gallery shortcode.
This entire plugin operates within the current WordPress Media Library framework so any tag changes will automatically be reflected in your WordPress gallery shortcode results.
If you want to extract images with particular tags using PHP, just include the tags in your WordPress get_posts command.
$args = array( 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'tag' => 'tag-a,tag-b,tag-c' ); $attachments = get_posts( $args );
Why Can’t I Use Tags in the Gallery Shortcode?
The Shiba Media Library addresses the media library back-end and sets up tag links in the WordPress database. I.e., there is a link in the database saying that a particular image is linked to a given tag.
For tags to work in the gallery shortcode, it must also be supported on the gallery front-end – i.e., by the plugin that renders your images. The Shiba Gallery plugin, for example, supports image tags.
However, most gallery rendering plugins do not yet support this extension because it is currently not part of the native WordPress gallery shortcode and is therefore not a standard.
Shiba Media Library Updates
Shiba Media Library 3.9
May 2nd 2015
- Updated image search function (in the Media Manager interface) so that it works for attachment titles, alt text, as well as captions.
- Tested plugin on WordPress 4.2.
Shiba Media Library 3.8.2
September 17th 2014
- Updated the Add-Media templates and interface so that images can be properly selected and inserted.
- Updated the media table in the Edit Gallery screen so that it renders properly in WP 4.0.
- Updated some deprecated functions.
- Tested plugin on WordPress 4.0.
Shiba Media Library 3.8
April 22nd 2014
- Updated plugin directory and url paths to use standard functions instead of constants.
- Updated the Galleries >> Options screen to use the new wordpress update settings system (add_settings_error).
- Fixed a bug in the Media screen that occurs when expanded bulk operations are applied to an empty image set.
- Tested plugin on WordPress 3.9.
Shiba Media Library 3.7.2
Dec 24th 2013
- Fixed some warning messages and make sure post images show up when editing a gallery.
Shiba Media Library 3.7
Sept 26th 2013
- Posts, pages, and supporting custom post types can now be included in galleries from within the media manager interface.
- Expanded search for images to include title as well as alt text.
- Show number of posts that an image is included in (i.e. included in post content). Gallery images are not counted.
- New options page. You may now enable or disable the image quick edit, number of posts, and expanded media manager search functionalities.
- Fixed URL too long bug.
Shiba Media Library 3.6
Jan 7th 2013
- Updated for 3.5.
- Plugin gallery objects now use the id list system introduced in WordPress 3.5. Use the new media manager interface to upload and attach images to gallery objects.
- Fixed quick edit functions.
- Updated deprecated media functions.
- Encapsulated the plugin options page within an object class.
- Fixed gallery and attachment tag links in tag-metabox.
- Added an attachment_link filter so that %category% gallery-permalinks translate properly.
- Properly redirect bulk operations and delete permanently operation in the Edit Gallery screen.
Shiba Media Library 3.4
August 20th 2012
- Updated for WordPress 3.4.
- Added Quick Edit functionality to images. Quick Edit capability is accessible in the Media Library and Edit Gallery screens.
- Image ordering will now be saved in both draft and published modes.
- Updated old javascript functions to use jQuery.
Shiba Media Library 3.3
August 31st 2011
- Added ability to order images within Gallery objects.
- By going into Galleries >> Options, you may now change the gallery shortcode used for viewing a Gallery object.
- Gallery objects now have Shiba Widgets support.
- The “Insert into Post” button should now appear on custom post types.
- Removed image parallelization option. As outlined in Google Page Speed, new browsers now allow more than two concurrent connections per hostname. As such, the image parallelization option is no longer needed.
Shiba Media Library 3.2
February 16th, 2011
- Updated for WordPress 3.1, RC4. Tested on WP 3.0 and WP 3.1,RC4.
- Fixed bulk trash operation on Gallery screen.
- Permalinks now work properly on network activation and deactivation in WordPress Multisite.
- Columns from other plugins are now properly added in the Media Library screen.
Shiba Media Library 3.1
January 17th, 2011
- Updated for WordPress 3.1. Tested in WP 3.0 and WP 3.1,RC2.
- Fixed numerous bugs in the gallery query system. Gallery types should now work properly.
- Cleaned up the plugin so that gallery objects are now always custom post types. As a result the plugin requires WP 3.0 and above. If you are using WP 2.9, then please download Shiba Media Library 3.0.
Shiba Media Library 3.0.3
November 25th, 2010
- Fixed bulk operations in the Google Chrome browser. Shiba Media Library now has its own menu in the media screen.
- Cleaned up the gallery tagging system so that tagged gallery images can now be properly ordered with order, orderby, numberposts, and offset arguments. This makes it much easier to enable gallery paging.
Shiba Media Library 3.0
August 13th 2010
- Added ability to append image tags in bulk as requested by Peder.
- Re-enabled Insert into Post button even for images that are already attached.
Shiba Media Library 2.9
- Shiba Media Library is now updated for WordPress 3.0. It should work in 3.0 and 2.9+.
- All your previous gallery objects should still work seamlessly in the new update.
- Expanded image attachment and detachment functions are now better integrated into the standard WordPress Media Library interface.
- You may set your gallery permalink structure by going into Settings >> Permalinks
- Fixed PHP notices. Thanks to Writemcodeboy for alerting me to this issue.
Media Library Plugin 2.7
- Added in the ability to parallelize your image links. This enables more images to be downloaded simultaneously, and improves page speed.
- Also fixed some bugs associated with the permalink creation function. In particular, I refined the regular expression for gallery attachment images and added more rules for validating the gallery permalink structure.
Media Library Plugin 2.6
- As requested by Keoshi, I have added in the ability to edit your entire gallery permalink structure.
Media Library Plugin 2.5
- I just finished making some large changes to the permalink redirect code. If you are having permalink redirect issues, in particular with your feeds, then please download the latest version.
Media Library Plugin 2.4
- Added most-used attachment and gallery tag views.
- Permalink support and customization for gallery objects.
- Expanded media and gallery search.
- Plugin is cleaner and more secure.
Thanks to A.M. for making many of the great suggestions that went into this plugin update.
Media Library Plugin 2.3
- Expanded gallery objects so that they may contain posts, pages, and other gallery objects; in addition to image attachments.
- You may now assign thumbnails to galleries. This uses the Post Thumbnail system introduced in WordPress 2.9, so you will need at least version 2.9 and a gallery front-end that knows how to render posts to fully realize the power of this feature.
- You can now navigate to gallery objects, just like you do with attachments. Gallery object pages are rendered using the gallery shortcode.
** Thanks to Keoshi for making many of the great suggestions that went into this plugin update.
Media Library Plugin 2.2
- Fixed a bug in Release 2.1 where Trash links for posts and pages no longer work properly. This is an important bug fix so please download the latest version of the plugin.
Media Library Plugin 2.1
- Added bulk-actions, search, and date filter to the Manage Gallery screen. Now you can perform the same menu view operations on galleries as you can with posts and pages.
- Integrated the Manage Gallery menu with the WordPress Trash system. Now you can move galleries to the trash, untrash, or delete them permanently.
- Fixed various bugs with gallery links, trash links, as well as image tags. The gallery and tag system should now work a lot more smoothly.
Media Library Plugin 2.0
- Allows you to tag your images. Through tagging, you can include the same image into multiple galleries.
Media Library Plugin 1.0
- Allows you to re-attach multiple images to any post from the Media Library panel.
- Enables bulk image detachments.
- Works on WordPress 2.8
ShibaShake says
A.M., Thanks for your very good suggestions.
You bring up a really good general point which is that tags can be really powerful if it gets greater support in the WordPress backend.
Yeah – this is something that I have been thinking about. In the latest release of the plugin I have expanded galleries so that it can also include posts, and other galleries. This makes it more natural to have the same tagging system propagate to all the objects.
However, you bring up a good point which is that most of the time, gallery grouping tags will be different from non-gallery grouping tags.
I will look into generating a tag cloud that just contains tags associated with attachments and galleries.
That would be a very good functionality to have.
I will also look into expanding Search Media so that it operates both on the title and on tags.
I am currently working on another plugin, but will get back to Media Library once I am done with it. Thanks for your great feedback!
ShibaShake says
Hello V8,
It has to do with some of the new features I put in to the new version of the plugin.
If you are using WP 2.8, it may be best to download Media Library Plugin version 2.2.
Let me know if you run into anymore problems. I will also update the article above to include this information. Thanks!
V8 says
Cool mate!
Version 2.2 runs great!
Thanks for your prompt help!
V8 says
Hi,
I’m having trouble activating your plugin.
I get the following error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function register_post_type() in /public_html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/media-library-plus/media-library-plus.php on line 264
I’m using NextGen Gallery and Autofocus theme.
What to do? Thanks.
V8 says
By the way, I’m using WP 2.8.4 and I’m also using your plugin on another website of mine with the same version and that works great! Just not this one 🙁
A.M. says
I would like to mention some disadvantages of this super plugin.
1. Attachment Tags window on Media part shows tagcloud taken only from posts, not from attachments tags.
2. i would like to have posibility to edit tags like is in Posts part, but included tags assigned to attachments.
3. Can Search media search also in tags?
My tags assigned to attachments are mostly different from those assigned to posts.
I hope i know what i am talking about,
Kind regards!
A. Majewski.
ShibaShake says
Hi Keoshi,
Yeah you are right the get_posts command is the way to go. Here is some information on the get_posts and query_posts commands. They can be a bit confusing initially.
http://www.shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/wordpress-query_posts-and-get_posts
How are you creating your galleries? If you are just creating them as posts, then doing the gallery category thing that you describe sounds like it will work well.
If you are creating galleries with the Media Library Plugin, then just specify ‘post_type’ as ‘gallery’ in your get_posts call.
ShibaShake says
Hello Mike,
That is indeed a strange error. I tried duplicating it on 2.9.1 but was unable to do so.
If you deactivate the plugin, does the regular Media Library attachment function work? If so, it may be some kind of conflict with another plugin.
To fix it (only if attachment works when you deactivate the plugin), edit the Media Library Plugin. In particular go into the media-library-plus.php file. Search for –
Replace it with –
This will limit attachments to just regular posts and pages, but it should work.
Meanwhile – if you can let me know what other plugins you are using, I will look into the conflict issue in greater detail. Thanks!
Mike says
Hi,
There seems to be a bug in the “Attach” feature. I was able to detach an image from a page but when I go to re-attach it I’m only able to search for posts to attach it to. Regardless of what radio button is checked the search feature continues to display “No Matches found” for names and post ids that are not actual blog posts. I’m using WP 2.9 if that’s any help.
Mike says
Sorry, I’m using WP 2.9.1
keoshi says
I think this is what I was a looking for
I can to do this? http://i47.tinypic.com/1zzs1u0.jpg
best explained: (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/356333)
First, sorry for my english. however I need some help
I need to put in my homepage something like this http://i47.tinypic.com/1zzs1u0.jpg
I’ve tried with nggallery plugin, but it isn’t adjust to my needs.
I need something simple, using if posible Internal WordPress functions or API.
with a widget is posible to do this?, with only wordpress gallery integration?
If the gallery is attached to a entry isn’t problem, so I could modify to display only the gallery attached to post.
I don’t need to teach to me the coding this, only a clue.
I am versed with PHP but I’m a really newbie with wordpress.
Thanks in advance!
ShibaShake says
Hello Keoshi,
The approach I would take is to write a gallery plugin that displays WordPress galleries in the way that you describe above. Then you can link your new gallery display function to the WordPress gallery shortcode.
If you look at the code of my WordPress Gallery Plugin (which links a variety of javascript galleries to WordPress) – you can see examples of how I did this.
http://www.shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/super-wordpress-gallery-plugin
ShibaShake says
I just wrote a tutorial on this that may help –
http://www.shibashake.com/wordpress-theme/how-to-render-your-own-wordpress-photo-gallery
keoshi says
hi, thanks so much for the help,
How I can get directly from my template, the latest galleries created?
and then make a loop and display in list with a thumbnail ?
I though doing it with a ‘query’ to get all posts with category “gallery”.
What is the best way?
thanks! (I’m reading the fully wordpress documentation 🙂 )
*sorry for my english
keoshi says
i just playing with your code, and the result is almost what I want, thank you!
Your plugin is a quite simple and so powerful at the same time, in fact it would be for me the best gallery for wordpress available out there.
I’m wondering if You have plans to make a extend your plugin.
It will be amazing if you make a gallery page (http://www.engadget.com/galleries/) and widget like engadget (see Galerias Destacadas section: http://es.engadget.com/)
I’ve been thinking to modify your plugin to get something like that. (custom page for galleries, get by categories, tags, etc, and custom page for single albums)
well, I’ll be waiting for updates.
Thanks
PS.
I think just found a bug, when clicked “set thumbnail”: nothing happens.
ShibaShake says
Glad everything worked out well and thanks for your great suggestions!
I will definitely have to code something up that does that and it will fit in really well with making the thumbnail system work on gallery objects.
I think what will work well is to create a new gallery type that will contain posts instead of attachments. Then you can display the gallery of posts/attachment-galleries using the same front-end gallery system. However, with the post_gallery you will be linking to posts instead of to an attachment.
It will be very cool! That is a very awesome idea! 😀
If you want to extend the plugin please feel free to do so.
Thanks Keoshi!
Btw. send me a link of your new gallery when it is up. Would love to check it out.
mmtrav says
Is this plugin on the WordPress plugin database?
ShibaShake says
Unfortunately no. I did not have a good early experience and have not tried since.
Alexander says
DO a clearly visible Download Link, be human!
ShibaShake says
Sorry for your troubles.
Hope it is better now and thanks for letting me know.