PhotoFetch

This plugin adds a “Photo Directory” search UI to wp-admin that talks to the

public Photo Directory REST API.

You can search, preview, and import photos directly into your own Media

Library, where the imported image behaves exactly like any regular upload

— usable as a featured image, inside blocks, in a gallery, etc.

Entry points:

• Media > Photo Directory — a dedicated search/browse admin page.

• “Photo Directory” button next to Add Media in the classic editor.

• “Photo Directory” tab inside the native WordPress media picker itself

(Set Featured Image, Add Media, an Image block’s Media Library button,

) — works in both the classic and block editor, since they share the

same underlying media picker.

Notes for developers

• This is an unofficial integration with a public but not formally

documented API. php::normalize_item() is where

the raw JSON from the Photo Directory gets mapped into predictable

sizes/ alt / author fields — it tries several plausible shapes

sizes, an embedded featured-media object, a bare

). org changes the API’s response shape,

this is the one function that should need updating.

• Title and alt text are sourced independently: alt text prefers a real

alt-text field if the API exposes one, otherwise falls back to the same

text used for the Description field (see PhotoFetch_API::normalize_item() for

the exact priority order). It’s never derived from the title. For title,

known upstream placeholder strings (currently “Photo Detail”, “Untitled”,

“Untitled Photo” — see photofetch_generic_title_placeholders filter) are

treated as no title at all, and a fallback title is derived from the

g. red-fox-in-snow → “Red fox in snow”). If

the slug itself isn’t usable, the title falls back to “Untitled photo”.

• The attachment’s Description field (post_content) and alt text both get

the photo’s full description text; its Caption field (post_excerpt) gets

g. “Photo by Jane Smith, via the

”), or is left empty if no author name is

available.

• The search/browse picker UI doesn’t display each photo’s title — many

photos on the Photo Directory only have a slug-derived fallback title

(see above), which isn’t meaningful to show while browsing. The title is

still set on the imported attachment; it’s just not shown in the grid.

• Imports are deduplicated: each imported attachment gets a

_photofetch_source_id meta value, and re-importing the same photo returns the

existing attachment instead of downloading it again.

• Image format conversion (Settings > Photo Directory,

PhotoFetch_Settings::get_format()) happens in

PhotoFetch_Importer::maybe_convert_image(), right after download and before

sideloading. It re-checks wp_image_editor_supports() at import time

rather than trusting the stored setting outright, and falls back to the

original file on any failure.

• Search results are cached for 5 minutes via transients to avoid hammering

the upstream API on repeat searches.

• All photos on the Photo Directory are released CC0 (no attribution

required), but the plugin stores the original photo URL and author name

(when available) as _photofetch_source_url / _photofetch_source_author attachment

meta for your own reference, in addition to the caption credit above.