WordPress 2.5 will be the first release with more than a rudimentary image and media experience right out of the box. There are now add media buttons in the editor, the manage menu includes media library, and there is a gallery.
Andy and Alex have been hard at work on it for some time. It’s really impressive and I’ve only started to play with it — it being searchable is a huge enough leap for me. I don’t use a lot of images and other media, so I’m eager to see what you experts think of the experience.
Lorelle describes it as hot. And Matt is eagerly waiting for it to be ready:
My pictures are ready to go, I’m just waiting for certain features within WordPress to start working and creating intermediate sizes so I can upload them to my blog instead of Gallery.
On wp-testers mailing list, A Food Dude asks about importing his other images and media files. Ones that he didn’t create in WordPress.
Andy responded
The Media Library only knows about files that have a record in the posts table with post_type = ‘attachment’. These records are created when you upload a file via WordPress. Uploading via FTP, etc., has no effect on the WordPress database.
We do not scan your upload directories and that is not now planned. I would like to see a plugin do this.
So Andy has dropped the gauntlet. Which plugin developer among you will rise to the challenge? You will garner much fame and admiration from your fellow WordPress participants!
Update: Less than 9 hrs since I published this, the amazing Dion Hulse, or as we know him, DD32, has created Add From Server:
A WordPress plugin which allows you to browse the filesystem on the webserver and copy any files into the WordPress uploads system, Once imported it’ll be treated as any other uploaded file, and you can access it via the Media Library.
On wp-testers list Dion adds:
While it doesnt scan the directories for new files, I just wrote up a plugin to allow importing files from the web servers filesystem into the WordPress uploads system.
It simply allows you to select files, and then import them into the uploads folder(They’re copied).
It needs more work obviously, And i’ll have to add some logic to detect that its adding a file from within the uploads folder to prevent duplication i guess.. Another function that i’d like to add is a watch-directory, Any files which get uploaded into that folder, get imported automatically (and optionally deleted from the source dir afterwards), But thats all for the next release in another week or so most likely.
It is a work in progress, as all great things are. Already this is going to make a lot of people happy!
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Tried this plugin but although ‘active’ in wordpress, activating the plugin just gives me a WPress failure message. Any other solutions for large media files (above the 64M WP restriction) which have been ftp’d to a site but invisible to WPress?