Quick Edit Fields Are Blank

Wow – that’s really odd! No, there isn’t anything in the MLA settings you’ve missed. It must be a bug or perhaps an interaction with another plugin on your site. I tried downloading and activating the Enable Media Replace plugin, but it seems to work fine and doesn’t interfere with MLA on my test system. Do you have other plugins in place?

The quick edit function is done with a combination of server-based logic and JavaScript on the client side. The problem could be on either side. If you’re comfortable doing some investigation you might be able to give me a clue.

There are two places to start looking for the cause. First, is the data getting from the server to your browser. If you look through the HTML source for the Media/Assistant submenu page you should be able to find the data for each attachment. It will look something like this:

<div class="hidden" id="inline_7">
	<div class="post_title">David Lingren Blue Background Title Keyword</div>
	<div class="post_name">david_lingren</div>
	<div class="post_excerpt">David Lingren Blue Background CaptionKeyword</div>
	<div class="image_alt">David Lingren Blue Background AltKeyword</div>
	<div class="post_parent">70</div>
	<div class="menu_order">0</div>
	<div class="post_author">2</div>
	<div class="c_quick-edit-test"></div>
	<div class="c_bulk-edit-test"></div>
	<div class="mla_category" id="category_7">5,1</div>
	<div class="mla_tags" id="post_tag_7">Test Tag</div>
	<div class="mla_category" id="attachment_category_7">33</div>
</div>

If the data’s there, the JavaScript should be using it to populate the quick edit area.

Second, do you know how to see which JavaScript files are loaded in your browser? If so, look for something like mla-inline-edit-scripts.min.js in the list. If it’s not there, that’s a problem.

The other experiment you can try is to make a change or two, click on “Update” and see if the changes make it back to the server and get recorded with the attachment. Try this on a test attachment of some sort so you don’t break anything on your site.

You can also try the quick edit feature on a post or page and verify that the normal WordPress feature is working for you.

Finally, can you tell me what browser you’re using and whether you have a Mac or Windows system? Since the browser is involved, I want to make sure I’m testing in your environment.

I am sorry you’re having this issue and I’d like to resolve it. If you can give me more information it would be most helpful.

Thanks for this report, for your interest in the plugin and your patience.

Thanks for the prompt response and the excellent data-gathering report. It appears that the most likely cause of this issue is some bug in the JavaScript code that supports the quick edit function on the client (browser) side. The JavaScript in mla-inline-edit-scripts.min.js is based on similar code WordPress uses for quick editing posts and pages, but since that’s working there must be some difference…

When you say:

right up until I click on quick edit when it all goes away for that particular item

does that mean that the table listing is affected, or only the quick edit area? If you hit “Cancel” from the quick edit area, is the table listing still correct?

If you pull up the debugger (F12 in IE 9) before you click quick edit, do any JavaScript error messages appear in the debugger? If you are comfortable working in the debugger you could try adding define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true); to your wp-config.php file to load the uncompressed version of the JavaScript files; that might give a clearer indication of the issue and might even fix it (unlikely).

I will download and install the other plugins in your list and see if I can reproduce the issue. If I cannot reproduce the problem on my system, the only other thing I can think of is to continue investigating it on your system. Either you can do that, or you could set up an temporary “author” account for me and I can give it a try. The “author” level account would let me upload an image of my own and edit my image, but I couldn’t edit any other attachments (or posts, pages, etc.) on the site. I know that’s a lot to ask and it’s entirely up to you on how you’d like to proceed.

Give me a day to set up my system and run some tests. I will report my progress here. Thanks for your help and your patience.

Another update. “Excerpt Editor” is the only plugin in your list that caused the MLA problem. I activated all the other plugins in you list and MLA still works.

However, you should know that “PJW Query Child Of” 1.10 was released in 2011 and is listed as “Compatible up to: 3.1.4”. WordPress notes:

“This plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.”

Portfolio Slideshow Pro costs money, so I downloaded the free version, Portfolio Slideshow 1.5.1. I got a number of errors displaying the Settings page for this plugin, but no MLA problems.

If you’re using the [portfolio_slideshow] shortcode to compose your galleries there’s no way MLA can know which attachments are used in those galleries. That’s probably why:

Many of my media items are indicated as (ORPHAN?) (BAD PARENT?) as well with many having no “Inserted In” data.

MLA looks for HTML ‘<img src=’ tags to get the “Inserted in” data. It looks for the _thumbnail_id meta tag to get the “Featured in” data. MLA executes the [gallery] and [mla_gallery] shortcodes to get the other where-used data. It doesn’t execute the [portfolio_slideshow] shortcodes, or the shortcodes used by other gallery-making plugins.

Thank you for your investigation, this update and your persistence!

If you feel comfortable with setting up an temporary “author” account for me, I can give it a try (assuming it’s accessible over the Internet). The “author” level account would let me upload an image of my own and edit my image, but I couldn’t edit any other attachments (or posts, pages, etc.) on the site. I know that’s a lot to ask and it’s entirely up to you on how you’d like to proceed.

If you do give me access, leave the define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true); in place so I can work with the uncompressed scripts.

You can send me the user id and password information privately, using the “Contact Us” page at our web site:

Fair Trade Judaica/Contact Us

Let me know what you’d like to do. Thanks for your help and your understanding.

David

Well, if this were Star Trek and I was Spock, This is where I’d say “Fascinating…”. If I was McCoy, I’d say “D**n it Jim – I’m a developer, not a magician…”

Have you tried creating a completely new Administrator account and uploading, etc? How about an “Editor” account? How about upgrading the Author account you created to Administrator and re-testing?

If you can create some temporary account that has the problem and you can send me the user ID and password, I can keep investigating. I’ll limit my testing to uploading an image and working only with what I upload. That’s all I can think to try at this point.

Thanks for hanging in there; I’m sorry this is such a hassle. I’ll do whatever I can – let me know how you’d like to proceed.