Disabling unused features and improving settings

The reason I was asking about disabling the features was also becuase “Map Custom Field metadata” and “Map IPTC/EXIF metadata” buttons are showing in the bulk edit box when I have deactivated both features.

Thanks for the kind words and for your comments regarding feature disabling. It’s true that MLA has grown over the years to include many features, but I’m still a long way from the size and scope of Jetpack. Of course, Jetpack has a much larger development team.

Thanks as well for your update specifying the mapping links on the Media/Edit Media screen. In the current MLA version you can disable mapping when adding new items or updating their metadata but the mapping features as a whole are not disabled. They still appear on the Edit/Edit Media screen and in the Media/Assistant Bulk Edit area.

In your exploration of the various Settings/Media Library Assistant tabs I hope you have found the other features that can be disabled.

On the General Tab:

• Where-used database access tuning
• Taxonomy Support
• Display Media/Library, Display Media/Assistant list/grid view switcher
• Display Search Controls
• Media/Edit Media Enhancements
• Media/Add New Enhancements
• Media Manager/Media Grid Enhancements
• Attachment Display Settings

Enable View and Post MIME Type Support (Views Tab)
Enable Upload MIME Type Support, Enable MLA File Type Icons Support (Uploads tab)

More complete disabling of the Custom Fields and IPTC/EXIF mapping features is a reasonable idea. I will investigate adding this to a future MLA release. I will leave this topic unresolved and post an update when I have progress to report.

If you have any other specific disabling ideas, post an update here so I can consider them. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.
??

Thank you for your reply.

The comparison to Jetpack was a joke. ??

I am wondering if it is possible to simplify the settings page. If I get some time in the next few days I will try to work on a suggestion.

My remark about the size of our development teams was a joke as well.

I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20171102 that contains new option settings to disable the Custom Field and IPTC/EXIF mapping features. If you disable them it will remove the “Map” buttons/links from the Media/Edit Media screen and the Bulk Edit area of the Media/Assistant admin submenu. No mapping rules will be executed, but if you have defined any they will be preserved in case you want to re-enable the feature(s) at a future date.

If you want to further simplify the Settings/Media Library Assistant screen you can use the MLA mla_get_options_tablist hook to completely remove one or more tabs from the list.

To get the Development Version you can follow the instructions in this earlier topic:

PHP Warning on media upload with Polylang

It would be great if you can install and test the Development Version. I look forward to your feedback and any other suggestions you have for simplifications. Thanks for your help.

Hi David

Thank you for making these changes, it look great.

I struggle with the general settings page. For me it is not clear when one section ends and the other starts.

Maybe a tabbed interface would help with that.

I did not fully understand the table of checkboxes under Taxonomy Support. For me it would be more logical to have the Taxonomy name on the left hand side.

Maybe have the list filter as a dropdown or separate option instead of with the checkboxes as that confused me. My first thought was that radio box meant that only that row of checkboxes was active.

I know it is difficult to structure settings especially if the plugin has grown gradually.

Thank you for your hard work!

Thanks for positive feedback on the new “disable” option settings and for your thoughtful comments on the General tab, which is the most complex tab in the settings screen.

You wrote “ it is not clear when one section ends and the other starts.” The sections are delimited by headings with HTML H2 and H3 tags, but the differences are subtle. I will look at a more visible way to divide the sections.

You wrote “Maybe a tabbed interface would help” I am not sure multiple levels of tabs would be an improvement.

You wrote “For me it would be more logical to have the Taxonomy name on the left hand side.” The WordPress convention is checkboxes on the left, labels on the right. I am reluctant to depart from convention.

You wrote “Maybe have the list filter as a dropdown” That’s an interesting alternative. I will investigate it.

I appreciate your comments. Thanks for inspiring improvements in the plugin!

Thank you for your help. Look forward to seeing the changes. ??

I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20171113 that contains revised heading tags for the sections and subsections of the Settings/Media Library Assistant General tab. The new tags make it much easier to see the division between major and minor sections on this tab.

I also looked at changing the list filter to a dropdown control but that proved to be more complicated than I expected. I have left it alone for now.

The improvements will be in my next MLA version, which is due out shortly. I hope you will find them helpful.