Webtropic

From time to time, I like to write a kind of how-to or tip post, usually a result of tweaking the tools and services that I use. Here is a little one for wordpress.

If you have used before an open source CMS, what you probably are missing in wordpress is the media manager functionality that the likes of  Joomla have for ages now.

Well, the truth is that you shouldn’t,  because it is there, only not too obvious.

First of all you have the Media Library under the Manage Tab in the WP Administration, but, guess what, this is only for viewing the media you have uploaded, and, despite the name of the file executed to show the library (= /wp-admin/upload.php), there is no way to upload from this screen, which I find kinda odd.

So, the only place to go when you want to upload something, is the Write tab, which displays the editor.

On top of the editor there are these little buttons that allow you to insert images, audios or videos in a post. Which is all we need, one might think, unless you want to do some mass uploading of, say, images that you might use later in a series of posts or different pages without risking  of posting things accidentally.

Paying a little attention to the URLs underneath these buttons, we see that ‘workhorse’ there is a file called  media-upload.php, residing in the wp-admin directory:

http://yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php

This url can take some extra parameters, the most important being the type one, e.g.

http://yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php?type=image

But if we use the plain url, without any arguments, in a browser address bar of another window or tab, we open the familiar upload pop up as a separate page.

Bookmark this address to have it handy. You can use it as a media manager, which is what we were looking for in the first place.

For mass uploading select the media files from your disk (Ctlr + right click for each pick), as in the picture below,  hit the button and..

one by one, the media find their way in you library.

You can’t use this separate page to insert media directly in a post though, which is a safeguard from accidental posting. It is also needless, since  you have the media buttons on top of the editor, anyway.