The media library

The Media screen holds every file you have uploaded. Pictures, video, audio and documents all live there, and the editor takes what it places from the same library.

Uploading a file

Open Media in the menu and choose a file with Add media. You can also drop a file straight onto the library. Either way the upload starts at once, and the file appears in the grid when the server has stored it.

Gophenberg accepts JPEG, PNG, GIF and WebP pictures, MP4 and WebM video, MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG and FLAC audio, PDF documents and ZIP archives. Anything else is refused, and the refusal says why.

A file is checked before it is stored, so a refusal never leaves anything behind. An upload is turned away when its type is not on that list, when its contents do not match its name, when it is larger than the upload limit, or when it is a picture the server cannot read.

What happens to a picture

Every picture you upload is stored twice over: the file exactly as you sent it, and a set of smaller copies the editor can choose from. The copies are named Thumbnail, Medium, Large and Full Size, which is what the editor’s Resolution setting lists.

Two things are corrected on the way in. A photo taken sideways is turned upright, so it is stored the way you saw it on the camera. A very large photo also gains a display copy bounded to 2560 pixels, and that copy is what a post shows. Your original stays on disk either way.

An animated GIF is the exception. It is stored exactly as uploaded and gains no smaller copies, because making them would throw the animation away.

Finding and describing

The library opens as a grid of thumbnails. The Layout control switches it to a table, which adds the file name, type and date. Search matches titles and file names, and the filter narrows the list to images or to plain files.

Every item carries four descriptions, all editable through Describe:

• Title names the item in the library.
• Alt text describes a picture to someone who cannot see it. Leave it empty when the picture is decorative.
• Caption is the line shown under a picture in a post.
• Description is a longer note for your own use.

If someone else changes an item while you are describing it, your save is refused rather than quietly overwriting theirs. Reload and make the change again.

Placing media in a post

In the editor, any media block offers two ways to fill itself. Upload takes a file from your computer and adds it to the library on the way in. Media Library opens the same library you see on the Media screen, so you can place a file you already uploaded without uploading it twice.

The inserter also has a Media tab listing your images, video and audio, which places an item with a single click.

A picture placed in a post keeps pointing at the library. Deleting it from the library does not repair the post, so check where a file is used before removing it.

Deleting

Delete Permanently removes an item and every copy of it from disk. There is no media trash, so the confirmation is the only step between you and a deleted file. You can select several items and delete them together.