Thank you for the kind words and for your question.
In the current MLA version you can select only one of the supported taxonomies to be the “List Filter” on the Media/Assistant submenu and in the Media Manager Modal Window (Add Media screen). I made that decision to avoid adding complexity and because the screen area in which the controls appear is limited, especially in the Modal Window.
If I added a second control I would have to decide whether to use “and” or “or” to join the two for search purposes. Someone would disagree with my choice and then I would have to add an option to let the user choose. Then, someone would ask for a third control, and so forth. The limit to one filter is definitely a compromise, but I believe the alternatives have their own problems.
On the Media/Assistant submenu you can display a column for any number of taxonomies. You can click on a term in the table column to filter the display by that taxonomy and term.
In the Media Manager Modal Window there are no easy alternatives. Display space is limited and the Media Manager code is written in a way that makes extending the toolbar a real challenge (at least for me).
I will keep this idea in mind for a future version, but I am marking this issue resolved for now because I have no specific plans to pursue it.
Thanks for your understanding and for your interest in the plugin. By the way, I really enjoyed your avatar!
Glad you liked the avatar David!
While I of course respect your decision if you don’t want to pursue this feature, I would just like to say it would really really be super useful if it were possible to have the option to filter on both in the popup modal.
I noticed this plugin https://github.com/Horttcore/Media-Taxonomies has the capabilities to have both, and it seems to work great. Would it be possible to adapt some of his code for this? Space wise it seems to fit, and it would be a great feature to have. Please consider it..? 🙂
Thanks for your update and for the link to Media Categories plugin. I am always on the lookout for useful plugins and good ideas. I downloaded Media Categories and activated it on my test system, with mixed results.
The plugin “ships with media-category and media-tag taxonomy”, but uses “Categories” and “Tags” for their labels. Since WordPress already has Categories and Tags, it seems confusing to use the same labels for two new and distinct taxonomies. Since MLA registers the existing WordPress Categories and Tags for attachments, both sets show up in the Media admin menu; confusing.
The plugin found the MLA Att. Categories and Att. Tags taxonomies and added dropdown filters for them to the Posts and Pages admin submenus. Since these taxonomies are not registered for posts and pages, the filters are useless (and confusing).
On my test system the Posts, Pages and Media Library submenus have seven dropdowns in the “Filter” area, and they wrap down to a second row of controls. It’s a bit messy, but if you need the multiple-taxonomy filter capability it’s reasonable, and adding just a second dropdown to the area wouldn’t be bad. Filtering on two (or more) taxonomies is joined by “AND”; all of the taxonomy filters must be satisfied for an item to appear.
In the Media Manager popup Modal Window the display area is more constricted. The two additional dropdowns look OK on a wide display, but if you narrow the width of the display they disappear behind the attachment thumbnails area. That’s the same problem I face with my additional controls, and it’s even more crowded when MLA enhancements are present. Unfortunately, the Modal Window does not handle the toolbar display very well and I haven’t been able to improve it much.
I noticed the checkbox-style taxonomy support in the ATTACHMENT DETAILS area. If you like that you will really like my upcoming MLA version, which does that and much more.
As I said, I’m always looking for good ideas, and I will give the multi-taxonomy filtering idea more attention based on this experience. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
This all sounds very promising David!
Certainly very interested in those other improvements your mentioning! Really the only thing that I’m looking for right now is to have a pulldown for categories and a pulldown for tags in the Add Media popup modal. If that would be possible to add that would be fantastic. Any indication on when the new version will be released?
I am working toward a next version before the end of March, but I’ll have to stop adding features and focus on testing to make that happen. I will give the multiple dropdown enhancement a shot but I can’t promise quick results.
If you’d like to test the improvements I make, please send me a note with your e-mail address and I will give you a copy by return e-mail. You can use the Contact Us page at our web site:
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Thanks for your interest, your understanding and your patience.
