The Joomla plugin integrates media data from any Joomla 4 web site into the Joomla core media manager. It allows the admin to select images in articles and any other extension which uses the core media manager. Beside that it is possible to create folders, upload images, rename and delete the data directly from within Joomla on your remote Joomla site. It's possible to add unlimited different Joomla servers in the plugin.
Please read the Concept of image service provider integration article to get more information how to get started with the image service provider plugins from DPMedia.
Adding a Joomla account is rather straightforward. To do so, open the filesystem Joomla plugin in the plugin manager in the back end of your Joomla site. Click on the green "+" button in the plugin edit form. Copy your API token and the web site root path into the fields. The API token can be obtained from your user profile when you edit it. Click the "Save" button in the toolbar of the plugin.
Per imported account the admin can define that media files should be served locally. This helps to ensure that the site is compliant with the sites privacy policy and that the visitors are only fetching media data from the web site.
If activated, then the files are copied from the other Joomla site to the local filesystem on a path the admin defines. This happens when a media file is selected in an article or everywhere else from a media field. During the media list fetch, the files and thumbs are not stored locally. Each file will be saved with the last modification timestamp to ensure that the updates are immediately reflected locally.
If the file is an image it is also possible to define a custom width and height, so the local drive will not fill up quickly.
As Joomla doesn't support public links for thumbnails, DPMedia creates them on the fly for the media list, the thumbnails are not used anywhere else. It does it by downloading the original file and creates a thumbnail out of it while fetching the images list. In the options the admin can define per account where the thumbnails should be stored on the local filesystem.
DPMedia is fetching only 10 thumbnails per request, otherwise it it can reach the execution time on large Joomla folders. So if an image has no local thumbnail a default placeholder will be shown instead.
The plugin supports automatic resize when images are uploaded. The images are only scaled down, but not up. The admin can choose between the following four options when resizing should be applied:
When only a width or height is set, then a resize is performed and the aspect ratio is kept. Like that will all images have the same width or height. When both dimensions are set, then an option is shown which lets you define if the aspect ratio should be kept or not. If it is not kept, then each image has the same dimensions but the smaller side gets cropped. Here are some examples listed for a better understanding:
| Image dimensions | Force width | Force Height | Keep aspect ratio | Resized image dimensions | Crop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 x 3000 | 0 | 400 | 267 x 400 | No | |
| 2000 x 3000 | 400 | 0 | 400 x 750 | No | |
| 2000 x 3000 | 400 | 100 | No | 400 x 100 | Height is cropped from 750 to 100 |
| 2000 x 3000 | 400 | 100 | Yes | 67 x 100 | No |
| 2000 x 3000 | 100 | 400 | No | 100 x 400 | Width is cropped from 267 to 100 |
| 2000 x 3000 | 100 | 400 | Yes | 267 x 400 | No |
Per imported account the site administrator can define caching so images will be loaded much faster in the media manager. DPMedia uses the core Joomla cache, so it can be revoked at any time in the core Maintenance Manager. Additionally the admin can define a cache time so images will downloaded after a certain time automatically again from the Joomla server.
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