Media (In-Depth Guide)
Add Media Directly Into A Page Or Post.
If you want to add media into a page or post, the easiest way to do this is to simply drag an image from your desktop directly onto the editor.
Add Media
Clicking on the add media button will open a pop up dialog box that looks like this:
There are three locations you can choose to add an image from.
1. From your computer
2. Another webpage (From URL)
3. Media Library
Once you have added media to your page you can also add it to a gallery, which will display thumbnails of your media on the page and provide links to the individual files. This is handy if you’re using multiple images on the one page for example. This is covered in greater detail in the
Add Image To Gallery section.
Add Image From Computer
To add an image from your computer, you can either click on the Select Files button or drag the media inside the big dotted square.
After you have uploaded your images into the system you will be able to add titles and descriptions as well as set the size and alignment of the image on your page:
The uploader will now show you a thumbnail (small, cropped version) of the image you uploaded. Enter a title for your image as well as a caption and a description. Depending on the way your website has been developed, the caption and/or description may appear below the image on your page. Entering a title and caption for each image will help your webpage become more visible to search engines like Google and Yahoo!
If you want the image to link to another page, enter a URL in the Link URL field. You can also use the File URL button to have image link to itself (which will display the image on its own page) or the Post URL button to have the image link back to the same page we are already on. This may help people find your webpage who are searching the internet using an image search tool like Google Images for example.
The alignment setting allows you to align the image to the left of the text, in the center or to the right. Any of these settings will force the text to wrap around the image. A setting of none will place the image on its own line and the text will appear above and below it but not next to it.
The size of the image can also be set by choosing thumbnail, medium, large or full size. Be aware that choosing thumbnail may crop your image and display the center of your image so you may lose information towards the edges. The image will appear on your website very similar to the thumbnail that appears on this very screen.
When you are happy with your settings, click on the Insert into Post button to insert the image into your page.
| Hint: The Add Media functionality is identical for adding media to a page or a post. |
Add Media From URL
The Add Media From URL screen looks like this:
To add media from a URL, enter the full URL into the URL field, the media title into the Title field and a caption into the Image Caption field.
Then choose the alignment of the image as None, Left, Center or Right as previously explained.
Finally choose a link for the image and click on the Insert into Post button.
Add Media From Media Library
At the top right of this screen, a search bar allows you to search for specific media. At the top left your existing media is displayed by type, (All, Image, Video, Audio) to give you a quick reference as to how much media you have at your disposal.
Clicking on any image will bring up its properties to the right:
These options are identical to the options given when you Add Media From Computer. When you are happy with your settings, click on the Insert into Post button to insert your image inside your post or click to Use as Featured Image link to use the image as the main representation of your post. If you wish to make changes to the settings for the files in the media library without inserting any media into your page or post, click on the Save all changes button. This will remember the changes you have made for the next time you access the media library.
Alternatively, if you wish to delete the file from your media library, click on the Delete permanently link.
Add Image To Gallery
The Add Image To Gallery screen looks like this:
Any media you add to a page or post is automatically included in a Gallery for that page or post.
You can sort the order of media in the gallery by clicking on any media file, holding down the mouse button and dragging it to a new position in the list. You can also manually enter the order for each media file in the Order box.
Clicking on the Show link will show you the options as previously explained in the media library section.
The gallery settings on this page allow you to link the thumbnails of your media files to either the image file (displayed on its own in the web browser) or the attachment page which looks and feels like a normal post on your website but contains only the media file.
You can also choose to display the images by menu order (as they appear in the list above) by name or date. Choosing descending will reverse the order you have chosen. Gallery columns will organize the gallery into the number of columns you specify. For example, if you specify three columns and you have five images on the gallery, the gallery will display a row of three thumbnails followed by a second row of two.
Once you are happy with your settings, click on the Insert gallery button to insert the gallery into your page or post.
Create Audio Or Video Playlist
To create a audio or video playlist, simply start by adding audio files to your media files as explained above. Audio and Video files are treated in the same way as image files.
Click on Create Audio Playlist. Then select the audio files you want to be part of the playlist.
Then click on create a new playlist, and you can now reorder the tracks. After you are happy with the order of the tracks click insert audio playlist.
The playlist will appear when you publish your page.
Featured Image
Featured Image Panel looks like this:
To set a featured image for a post or page, scroll to the bottom right of the edit screen, and click featured image.
You can either, upload an image from your computer, from a URL, if you already have uploaded image to this page or post, then you can choose one from the Gallery, or you can choose from the Media Library.
Once you have chosen an image, you can edit the title, alternative text, caption and description.
Scroll down and click - Use as featured image.
Your Featured Panel will now look like this:
Then click update button to save all changes.
If your website has been set up to use this feature then this image will be used represent this page or post.
Adding Other Media
Adding other media (video, audio, pdf files, word documents) directly into a page or post will display a link on the page to the media you have added. If a user clicks on the link their browser will then display the media using the settings they have specified. Adding video, audio and other media content works exactly the same regardless of the type of media being added.
Embed Media
You can easily embed video, images, and other content into your WordPress site from the following sites:
· YouTube
· Vimeo
· blip.tv
· Flickr (both videos and images)
· Viddler
· Hulu
· Qik
· Revision3
· Scribd
· Photobucket
· PollDaddy
· Google Video
· WordPress.tv (only VideoPress-type videos for the time being)
There are three simple ways to do it.
First is by placing the cursor of the mouse to whichever part of the post or page you want the embedded video to appear. Then click Add Media and choosing From URL tab.
Paste in the URL of the video and put a title in which you wanted that URL to be link in.
And click Insert into Post button, the result of this will be a link leading to the video URL you have just entered.
The second is by using the Embed tag. It supports videos, images, text, and more.
To do it, just copy and paste in the URL of the video that you want to embed and wrap that URL in the [embed] shortcode
Lastly, you can simply paste in the URL of the video on its own line.
The system will automatically convert this URL to an image, video, slideshow, or status update depending on the type of media it is.
Remember to copy only the video or image URL with no links attached.
The end result of this is the actual video embedded in your page or post.
When done editing you may hit Update, to save the changes you have done.
The Media Library
The Media Library can be accessed from the Media widget:
By default, the Media Library lists all the media that has been uploaded into the system in a Grid View.
You can toggle between the view options from Grid View to List view by clicking the icons above
The Media Library lists all the media that have been uploaded into the system. Whether you upload media directly into pages or posts or into the media library, once any media has been uploaded into the system it will be available for you to use in the media library. Once the media is in the media library it can be used on any page or post throughout the site.
At the top left of the Media Library screen, your media is sorted into type and tallied to give you a quick reference as to how much media, and what type of media, are available for you to use. Clicking on any of these headings will filter the list to media of that type only. At the top right of the screen there is a handy Search bar allowing you to search the Media Library for any files containing particular words. Underneath the Search bar is the number of Items the Media Library currently have.
| Technical: This search function will search the file names, titles and descriptions of all files in the library. |
Directly beneath the media type headings and search bar is the Bulk Actions drop down menu, which essentially allows you to delete multiple files at once as previously explained. Next to the Bulk Actions menu is a date filter that allows you to filter the media list to media uploaded in a certain month. Simply choose the date you require from the drop down list and click on the Filter button.
Below the bulk actions and filter tools is the list of media. The list displays a thumbnail of the media file, the file name and type, the author who uploaded the media, any pages or posts the media file is currently attached to, any comments on those pages or posts, and the date the media were uploaded. Media that are not an image will show a generic thumbnail for that media type. For example, Audio will show a thumbnail of musical notes, and Video will show a thumbnail of a clapperboard with a play button.
Clicking on the page or post in the "Attached to" column will take you to the Edit screen for that page or post.
Clicking on the comments icon will take you to the Edit screen, which is covered in more detail later.
Placing the mouse over the media file thumbnail or name will display the Options menu, allowing you to Edit or Delete Permanently the media file or View the media file as its own post.
Edit
Clicking on Edit, or in fact the media file name or thumbnail, will take you to the Edit Media screen, which looks like this:
At the top of the Edit Media screen, you will find a larger thumbnail of the media file, the file name, type, and the date when it was uploaded.
Click on the Edit Image button (button shown below), and it will lead you to an image editor. This section is further explained when you click on the Next link below.
The fields you can edit are the Title, Caption and Description.
Once you are happy with your changes, click on the Update Media button.
Cropping Or Scaling An Image
The Edit Media Toolbar
| Crop |
| Rotate Counter Clockwise |
| Rotate Clockwise |
| Flip Vertically |
| Flip Horizontally |
| Undo |
| Redo |
To crop an image, click and drag the mouse to the image to select the desired part. If satisfied with the desired part, click the crop icon in the Edit Media toolbar.
You may click the help link beside the image crop title to help you with cropping the image.
When you wish to scale an image, click Scale Image on the right part of the page.
Change dimensions according to your desired size and hit the Scale button.
When done editing, you may hit Save and Update Media, to save the changes you have made.
Other Editing Image Icons
Other editing icons for images include rotating counter-clockwise and clockwise, flipping vertically and horizontally, undo and redo.
You may rotate an image, either counter-clockwise or clockwise, with the help of the second and the third icon from the left of the editing image toolbar.
And you may flip an image, either vertically or horizontally, with the help of the fourth and fifth icon from the left of the editing image toolbar.
While the two other icons left were helpful, if you wish to undo or redo an editing action that you have just made.
Thumbnail Settings gives you an option on where do you want to apply the changes you made with the image.
When done editing, you may hit Save and Update Media, to save the changes you have done.
Delete
Clicking on the Delete Permanently option under any media file title will delete the media file permanently.
| Caution: Once a media file has been deleted, you cannot get it back. |
View
Clicking on View will show you the media file as its own post on your website.
Add New
You can add new media directly to the media library by clicking on Add New in the Media widget:
The Add New Media, or Upload New Media screen looks like this:
To add new media either click on the Select Files button or drag and drop the media file that you wanted to upload. This functions exactly the same as adding media directly to a page or post.
Once you have uploaded your file you will be able to set the Title, Caption and Description for the file:
Enter the Title, Caption and Description into the appropriate fields and click on the Save all changes button to save your changes in the media library.