media library search does not work

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  removearticle · Member · Jul 18, 2015 at 2:08 pm

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  ok – well, I have a work around for finding my files. Luckily it seems that when I uploaded images to the media library it automatically added alt text using the file name. So my image with this file name 002.jpg has an alt ext of 002, so if I search for 002 in the media library that file comes up. Also, I did not add titles or caption to files in the media library but I did add some alt text in the page editor, so it seems I should be able to find all my files in the media library using the alt text.

  wheew! That’s going to help.

  I can see there is a lot of pre-planning that should occur before uploading any images!

  So moving forward I’m good! Now to clean up my mess!

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  musicdoc1 · Member · Jul 18, 2015 at 2:21 pm

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  @ removearticle,

  So my image with this file name 002.jpg has an alt ext of 002, so if I search for 002 in the media library that file comes up…

  Great! Glad you discovered this on your own. I just thought of that before I read your latest post.
  Remember I said that using hyphenated titles in the search does find the correct images? On my sites I have many images with hyphenated titles which were automatically generated from the image file names because for a long time I was careless in creating proper unhyphenated titles in my image files, and did not routinely add proper titles to images when I uploaded them. Since I began creating unhyphenated titles in my image files this hasn’t been an issue, but many images created prior to that change are still hyphenated.

  So, in your example “anisette-cookie-mid-banner.jpg,” if you haven’t given the image a proper unhyphenated title, the only edit necessary to get a media library search to produce the correct image is to remove the file type, leaving “anisette-cookie-mid-banner.” That worked in my tests.

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  musicdoc1 · Member · Jul 18, 2015 at 2:23 pm

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  I mean “edit” of the search term, not the image title or file name.

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  auxclass · Member · Jul 18, 2015 at 2:28 pm

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  When I am adding captions or editing the caption / description etc. I go to the Post / Page the image appears in then edit the image from the Edit Post / Page – that way I have the context of how the image is used

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  removearticle · Member · Jul 18, 2015 at 5:14 pm

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  Well, what I have found that I like better is you can add a long paragraph caption while editing the image in the media library and that text only shows up while you are viewing the image attachment page. If you add a caption on the post or page image edit then that caption text shows up under the photo on the main page. I don’t always want that but I do want the added descriptive text to show up on the attached image page.

  Also, you can have two different image caption this way as well which will help with search engines. You can have a image caption that shows up under the photo on the main page or post and a different caption that shows up on the image attachment page.

  Example:

  On this page:
  http://spaghettisauceandmeatballs.com/anthonys-anisette-cookie-recipe/

  You see I have a main photo for he anisette cookies just under ingredients. I do have a little bit of caption text there under the photo.

  Then click on that image to view the image attachment page.

  Which takes you here:

  

  You will see a longer caption text here under the photo. That is the caption text I added while editing in the media library.