Unattached files

[davidbankes]

I'm interested in the ability to have generic media library functionality where files could be uploaded to the library and then later associated with an arbitrary models. Are you interested in having such unassociated files at some point in the future? I’d love to contribute if that’s a feature you would consider.

Here’s the use case I want to build:
Client has uploaded an image in the past, either directly to the media library (unattached to a model) or to a e.g., blog story. Now, adding a new portfolio case study, instead of uploading a new image, the client would also have the ability to choose any image in the media library. Selecting such an image would make a copy in the background just for the case study, and attache the copy to the case study model.

For this to work best, I think it might be useful to have the media library be able to function as an independent set of files, rather than only as a set of attached files. The media Library in Wordpress, for example, displays this sort of behavior.

Thanks!

[freekmurze]

This package is build entirely on the idea of files being associated with models.

To create the behaviour that you want I'd create a table called MediaGroups or something similar. A MediaGroup has a name and can contain one or more Media-items. Think of it as a sort of directory. All uploaded media must be related to a MediaGroup.

To associate the media items with the real content you could use your own media model and use a polymorphic relation.

I think providing MediaGroups (or MediaTree would be a more appropriate name if nested set would be used) isn't a responsability of the package. But it could be a package in its own right.