Overwhelmed. Help my shortcode out? :)

Ben,

Thanks for the good words about MLA.

I do not have any experience with rtMedia Pro. It is a “premium” plugin, and I hope you understand that I cannot afford to purchase plugins just to check compatibility.

I have downloaded and activated the free rtMedia plugin from the WordPress repository. I don’t see the attributes and sub-attributes you mentioned; is this a premium feature?

I designed MLA to be as WordPress-like as possible, using WP_Query for database access, supporting WordPress taxonomies and so forth. It looks like rtMedia adds tables to the database and uses its own approach to features like “attributes”. I don’t know if there’s any way MLA can help you, but I will do more investigating in the next few days and report my findings here.

If you can convince the rtCamp people to send me a copy of rtMedia Pro I can be more helpful. I understand that may not be possible.

I will leave this topic unresolved until I have a more complete answer for you. Thanks for your patience and your interest in MLA.

Lucky for us it’s GPL and free to share. Shoot me an email and I’ll send it to you: [ email redacted, please do not post emails in these forums ]

@tweakben

What it doesnt allow you to do, is view media by the taxonomy, which is where my problem comes in and I’m looking to your plugin to resolve.

This is under-development and will be released before month-end.

@david

Your plugin is nice. ??

This particular issue will be taken care from our end only. But if you still like to try rtMedia-PRO, please email me at [ email redacted ].

I will send you a copy of PRO version directly. ??

Side note: Please do not post email addresses in these forums. That’s actively discouraged.

@rahil286 As you’re the author of the rtMedia plugin can you instead post your contact URL? Or if David is interested he can post his contact URL.

@jan

Thanks for info. I thought multiple times before posting email.

I was not sure how URL to contact page will be treated. I also tried opening his link (which is linked from David’s username before).

@david

We can be reached via https://rtcamp.com/contact/

I was not sure how URL to contact page will be treated.

Better than posting an email. ??

As you’re the author of that rtMedia plugin it’s fine but generally speaking contacting people off forums is also frowned upon too.

As you’re the author of that rtMedia plugin it’s fine but generally speaking contacting people off forums is also frowned upon too.

I am aware of this. ??

That is why I wasn’t sure how to go about providing details.

I will be more careful next time.

@jan

Thank you for your moderation and help. I’ve contacted Rahul using the link he posted.

@rahul286

I just used the Contact form at the link you posted above to send a note. Thank you for your generous offer to share a copy of rtMedia Pro.

@tweakben

I will continue investigating and post my progress here. Thanks for your update and all your help.

Thanks for the boatload of support from all of you. ??

@jan normally I wouldnt post an email here, but as David doesnt have a website and developed this plugin on behalf of a non-profit, I didnt see another way. Understood, and appreciated. ??

@rahul286 We’ve spoken on the rtMedia boards before, and I had mentioned a bunch that this should be a core feature of the plugin. It really should be. What is the point of allowing media to be categorized if you cant display them by category? ?? Can you imagine a grocery store without things being organized by category? Holy smokes, that’s insane! ?? I appreciate you looking into it.

@david Lingren Thanks so much, look forward to your replies.

Ben

The developers of rtMedia Pro have responded to my request and generously given me a copy of their plugin for my testing.

I have done some experimenting and can offer you a solution that may give you what you need.

You describe your example as a “Houses” taxonomy with “sub-taxonomy” values of “Mobile Homes”, “Mansions”, etc. If I am following you, my experiments show that “Houses” is indeed a WordPress taxonomy with a name/slug of “rt_houses”. What you call sub-taxonomies are actually the terms in the Houses taxonomy.

You can use the [mla_gallery] shortcode to show media in the Houses taxonomy. Because the taxonomy name contains an underscore (“_”) character the simple taxonomy parameter ( rt_houses=mansions ) will not work; it generates an error. You can use the more general tax_query parameter to get what you need. The syntax is a bit tricky, but here is an example what will show you all the images assigned to the term “Mansions”:

[mla_gallery tax_query="array( array( 'taxonomy' => 'rt_houses', 'field' => 'slug', 'terms' => 'mansions' ) )"]

This works because the default MIME type is “image” (pictures). If you want to show all the videos, you can try adding post_mime_type='video', so the shortcode becomes:

[mla_gallery tax_query="array( array( 'taxonomy' => 'rt_houses', 'field' => 'slug', 'terms' => 'mansions' ) ) post_mime_type='video'"]

Make sure you use the “Text” tab of the editor to enter these shortcodes; do not use the “Visual” tab. You can other parameters as needed to get the results you want. If you want to see the “Houses” term assignments in the Media/Assistant submenu table you can go to the Settings/Media Library Assistant General tab and scroll down to the Taxonomy Support section. There you can check the “Support” box (and “Inline Edit” box to add this taxonomy to the Quick Edit and Bulk Edit areas). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes” to save your work.

I hope this gets you started on composing the gallery displays you need. I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any problems or further questions about using [mla_gallery] with the rtMedia Pro Attributes. Thanks for you interest in the plugin.

Thanks as well to Rahul and Avadhoot from rtCamp for making a copy of rtMedia Pro available for my testing.

Thanks David! This solution mostly works, here are the few issues I can see:

1.) Adding post_mime_type=’video’ returns the error:

ERROR: Invalid mla_gallery tax_query = 'array( array( \'taxonomy\' => \'rt_houses\', \'field\' => \'slug\', \'terms\' => \'mansions\' ) ) post_mime_type=\'video\''

2.) Without the video post mime it shows the images gallery perfectly. However when you click an image, the file is not found. It looks like the wrong URL to take you to the image.

Instead of the image taking you to:

https://www.DOMAIN.com/members/alexa/media/4/

It is trying to take you to:

https://www.DOMAIN.com/album/profile-pictures/greenb1/

….which results in a not found error message.

3.) For the video galleries, is the plugin sophisticated enough to grab the child image as the preview image for the video? rtMedia makes a thumbnail for each video and that thumbnail is a child media of the video.

Thank you so very much! You can expect a donation to your charity on behalf of my site.

Thanks for your progress report and the generous donation offer.

Regarding your point 1), the “video” shortcode, please accept my apologies for confusing you with a silly syntax mistake. The post_mime_type='video' parameter should not be a part of the tax_query. The correct syntax is:

[mla_gallery tax_query="array( array( 'taxonomy' => 'rt_houses', 'field' => 'slug', 'terms' => 'mansions' ) )" post_mime_type='video']

I had the closing double-quote in the wrong place.

Regarding your point 2), wrong URL, there are two possible answers:

1. If you want the link to go straight to the image itself you can add “link=file” to the shortcode.
2. If not, you must tell me more about how the https://www.DOMAIN.com/members/alexa/media/4/ URL is generated. The default URL for gallery items is the “attachment page”, and the URL is returned from a WordPress function, not from [mla_gallery] itself.

If you can give me more information I can be more helpful. There’s probably some rtMedia logic that I don’t understand.

I will investigate your points 2) and 3) more deeply. Thanks for your patience.

Thanks David…….

With the correct syntax, the video mime type now properly displays.

1.) Adding link=file does work, however it creates a few problems in that it doesnt load the rtmedia page where people can comment star or favorite the image.

2.) I’m really unsure of how the https://www.DOMAIN.com/members/alexa/media/4/ URL is generated. It’s certainly a rtMedia thing.

I see in phpmyadmin that in the table “wp_rt_rtm_media” the actual image/videos are refereneced to their media library post number. Which also shows me that if its a video there is a reference to the videos thumbnail.

With the post mime set to video, instead of a gallery, it is indeed just a link of the title of the video. Using the thumbnail image would greatly improve upon its appearance.

Remember my offer too, if there is any custom coding fees for your services in getting all this working, I’m more than happy to support that. Once these are wrapped up the site is ready to go live! We’re all pretty excited over here. ??

Thanks!

Ben

I should have asked this earlier; are you running a BuddyPress site? Up to this point all my experiments have been with rtMedia only, and I can’t replicate the URLs you give. It looks like “members/alexa” might be a BuddyPress thing. It might take me a while to get BuddyPress up and running…

Oh yes, Buddypress. ?? rtMedia started out as BuddyMedia and then made the plugin a standalone plugin not too long ago. Most rtMedia customers are Buddypress users. It’s pretty much the only good social users tool for WordPress and extremely popular.

Buddypress is pretty easy to install, there’s very few configuration options that you’d even want to bother with. It works out of the box and works on all themes as well.

If you like, my Skype username is [ redacted ] Text chat is always easy.

Thanks David!