Help Automating Updating Wallpaper Designs to Website

macOS
1

So I have a workflow that I am convinced I can infuse some automation into, but I do not know where to start.

Background
As a hobby, I create “desktop wallpapers/backgrounds” for computers/devices and when they are done, I post them to my Wordpress site. For example, you can see some on my site here:

https://www.sgclark.com/sandbox/wallpapers/epl

They have gotten pretty popular as several folks make requests or look for new designs when logos, etc. change.

Many of them are sports related and often, logos or other elements change. For the soccer ones (like above), I try to mimic the designs of the team uniforms/kits and those designs invariably change every year.

So when the designs change, I create new versions of the Wallpapers with the new ‘kit’ designs in Photoshop and then locally 'replace/‘save over’ the old Wallpaper image file with the new image file (i.e. the file name does not change).

CURRENT WORKFLOW TO UPDATE SITE

  1. Create the new design in Photoshop and save the file (noted above).
  2. Save the file and put it in a folder (a Dropbox folder) on my desktop.
  3. In browser, go to my Wordpress Dashboard, then go to Media.
  4. Find the ‘old’ version of the Wallpaper within Wordpress and use a “Replace Media” plug in to basically upload and overwrite the ‘old’ version of the wallpaper on the server with the new version from my desktop/Dropbox folder.

CHALLENGE
What I would ideally want would be that once I create and save the new version of the Wallpaper on my Desktop, there would be a way to upload and overwrite the ‘old’ version on my server with the new Wallpaper version. Remember, the file name will be the same so I just need to upload and overwrite the old design/file with the new design/file.

POSSIBLE ISSUE
Not sure how to handle thumbnails on the server?
Is what I want to do even possible?

After listening to Automators #3, I am motivated and convinced that there is a way to do this but I am not 100% sure how to do it. Does the fact that I have all of these wallpapers in Dropbox offer any advantage from an Automation perspective? I’ve investigated plugins that would let me use Dropbox folder to ‘feed’ the galleries on my Wordpress site but have not found anything that meets my needs yet.

Hope this makes sense.

Any suggestions/thoughts, ideas from an automation perspective would be greatly appreciated!! Automating this could save me so much time and effort!! :smile:

Stephen

2

Not really an automation thing, but are you sure you want to completely displace the old designs on your website? Some users might appreciate the old ones too

3

I have debated that with myself (Self: Should you keep the old ones in an archive somewhere? :slight_smile: ) numerous times.

The ones I regularly overwrite are the soccer wallpapers (EPL, La Liga, MLS, etc.) that mimic the uniform/kit designs because the majority of top league uniforms/kits change every year and keeping an archive of so many gets overwhelming. As it is, the ‘collection’ I have, and have created, is pretty huge

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a request for an old/retro soccer wallpaper - most folks want the most updated kit design - and if I do, it is likely not that difficult to re-create it as a one off.

4

Have you ever looked at a WordPress plug-in that synchronizes a media folder?

Do you have FTP access to the server for uploading content?

Could you generate your own thumbnails and upload them to WordPress along with your original wallpaper?

5

Thanks for the link to that plug in. I have submitted a few questions to them to confirm they can do what I want. Also found a coupon on their site for 20% off. If it does what i hope it can, and I can use that coupon, that expense ($48 assuming coupon works) is totally worth it to me in terms of time saved.

Yes. I have FTP access. However, if I use the plug in, it has built in galleries so I am assuming the thumbnail thing would be solved for.

6

I purchased that plug in noted above - WP Media Folder. It is absolutely a powerful plug in and I still may continue using it, but it does not appear to go as far as I want/need in terms of Dropbox integration.

Basically, I just want to get to a point where I can add the images to Dropbox folder(s) and be done with it - they will automagically sync or upload to WordPress and and display in the front end page gallery similar to what I linked to previously.

I’ve found a few posts and apps online that appear to discuss this but if anyone has any further suggestions on how to automate this, I am all ears.

@RosemaryOrchard do you have any thoughts on this (may need to read the whole string of posts here for context)?

7

That’s where the FTP question comes in that I asked about. If you can FTP, you can have something like Hazel monitor a local folder on an always on Mac and run a script to FTP the files up to your WordPress system.

8

Ah, now I see what you are saying. Sorry, a little slow on the uptake here. LOL :smiley:

This is where my knowledge starts to falter. To do FTP of files to my websites, I use Coda By Panic Software. How would I handle the folder syncing via the desktop to sync the Dropbox folder to the FTP folder? Set it up like a remote disc?

I would probably also need to figure out a method to ensure that the WP Dashboard Media interface would be able to recognize when new images are added to the folder and that they would display in WP Media Dasboard.

9

I wouldn’t choose to automate the FTP through Coda. I’d probably use Hazel to trigger a command line script to upload any files. But you could use your favourite scheduling tool to do it periodically as an alternative.

Just search for “command line ftp script mac” to find many sites that explain how to do the FTP.

For the latter media dashboard part I don’t know for sure, but I wonder if it might just work. Is it not just reading the directory contents? If there’s a cache, then you would need to trigger a refresh of that, but I’m not sure why that would be in place on what is presumably a low traffic interface … unless the exoected media libraries are truly vast.