Media

Media allows you to browse, search, and embed photos and videos stored on configured folders. Media files are indexed automatically — the GeoHazardWatch reads EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata from each file to populate titles, descriptions, keywords, camera details, and GPS coordinates.

The Media feature is opt-in and must be enabled by an administrator before it is available.

Browsing

Navigate to /media to open the Media home page, which shows a grid of available years. Click a year to see all photos and videos from that year as a thumbnail grid.

Click any thumbnail to open the item detail page, where you can:

View the full image or play the video
See EXIF metadata (camera, date, GPS, keywords)
Navigate to the previous or next item in the year (or album)
Copy a ready-to-use [{MediaPlugin}] snippet for embedding the item's albums in a page

Keyword Albums

If your photos have EXIF or XMP keywords, you can browse by keyword at /media/keyword/{keyword}. The keyword match is exact and case-sensitive, matching how the data is stored in the file's metadata.

Links to keyword albums are available on item detail pages under Media Information.

Searching

Use the search page at /media/search to find media across all years and folders. Enter one or more words — all words must match somewhere in the filename, title, description, or keywords for an item to appear in the results.

Embedding a Single Photo in a Page

Use media:// with Using ImagePlugin or Using AttachPlugin to embed a single media library photo directly in page content — no upload required:

[{Image src='media://IMG_1234.jpg' caption='Family Trip 2024' align='center'}]
[{Image src='media://DSC_0042.jpg' align='left' display='float'}]
[{ATTACH src='media://vacation.jpg' caption='Summer 2024'}]

The file is served via the /media/file/:id route. Items linked to Private Pages are only visible to authorised users. See Attachments for a full comparison of embedding options.

Embedding Albums, Lists, and Counts in Pages

Use the Using MediaPlugin in any page to embed a live count, list, or thumbnail album of media items.

Count — show the number of items matching a filter:

[{MediaPlugin}]
[{MediaPlugin format='count' keyword='current'}]

List — show a linked list of item filenames:

[{MediaPlugin format='list' year='2023' max='10'}]
[{MediaPlugin format='list' keyword='Vacation'}]
[{MediaPlugin format='list' page='current'}]

Album — show a grid of thumbnails linking to item detail pages:

[{MediaPlugin format='album' keyword='current'}]
[{MediaPlugin format='album' year='2024' max='30'}]

Album link — show a button linking to the keyword album page:

[{MediaPlugin format='album-link' keyword='current'}]

The keyword='current' shorthand resolves to the current page's name, so a page named Summer 2023 will automatically show items tagged with that keyword.

For keywords containing an apostrophe, use double quotes around the value:

[{MediaPlugin format='album' keyword="Molly's Cooking"}]

Excluding Files from the Media Index

Two ways to prevent a file from appearing in Media:

.ngdpbaseignore pattern file — place a file named .ngdpbaseignore in any media folder. Add one glob pattern per line. Lines starting with # are comments. A trailing / makes a pattern match directories only.

# skip all Windows Media Video files
*.wmv

# skip the outtakes subfolder
outtakes/

# skip a specific file
IMG_0001.jpg

Patterns apply to the folder containing the .ngdpbaseignore file. Place additional files in subfolders as needed. This approach works for all file types including videos.

ngdpbaseignore EXIF keyword — for photos that support EXIF or XMP metadata, add the keyword ngdpbaseignore using a photo management tool such as Lightroom, Capture One, or Bridge. On the next scan the file is excluded and removed from the index if it was previously indexed. The keyword travels with the file if it is moved.

Privacy

Media items linked to a Private Pages page are only visible to the page owner and administrators. Items with no page association are visible to all users.

Administration

Administrators can view media statistics and trigger a manual rescan from the Admin panel under Media. The index is also rebuilt automatically in the background at a configurable interval.