Hidden and protected media functionality

There are three kinds of attributes any attachment can have:

• Attachment is Hidden
• Attachment is Hidden from listings and archives
• Attachment is in Protected folder

Hidden attachments can only be used:

• Inside article content
• As featured images

Hidden attachments will not be shown in:

• Galleries
• Content widgets, such as carousels
• Media Kit
• Homepage listings
• Archives
• Search
• Media Cart
• Attachment detail page

They will never automatically appear on homepage or in search. They cannot be discovered through search autosuggestion feature and it should not be possible to display them outside of article detail page.

The only exception is if Hidden attachment is set as a featured image of an article/post. In that case, this image will show up as a thumbnail wherever the article is visible (Homepage, Archives, search) but cannot be shown as a standalone image.

Such attachment cannot be downloaded through media cart or viewed as part of Media kit, galleries, carousels and such. If these attachments are added into media cart before they became Hidden, next visit of the media cart deletes these attachments from the user's selection.

Adding an attachment that is Hidden inside content widgets (such as galleries or carousels) and into Media kits will skip them until they are unhidden. Once they become unhidden, they will automatically show up in such places.

You can setup a date and time when the attachment becomes unhidden. This is essentially the same as opening the attachment at the given time and unchecking Hidden.

However, due to the nature of WordPress automatic scheduler, this time can vary from 0 to about 30 minutes after the specified time.

E.g. if you setup Hidden to UTC to 8:00 AM, the attachment can become unhidden any time between 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM with 99% of the attachments becoming unhidden in the first 10 minutes. Given the fact that Storyboard also uses a HTML caching mechanism that expires 30 minutes after it had been last accessed, it is possible that the attachment will show up at most 1 hour after it had been unhidden.

• 8:00 AM is specified as Hidden to UTC
• 8:29 AM cache is created for Media Room homepage (still without the attachment)
• 8:30 AM is the latest time the attachment can become unhidden
• 8:59 Media room homepage cache expires

This functionality has no effect on Hidden from listings and archives and will fail if the attachment is inside Protected folder.

Specifying an attachment as Hidden from listings and archives makes it usable inside article content without any restrictions, but hides it from the Media Room homepage, Archives and also search and search autosuggestions.

This allows editors to use the attachment freely inside Media Kits, inside galleries, but the user cannot find the attachment from outside the article (e.g. search for it).

Given the example with Hidden, this attribute follows the following rules.

Hidden from listings and archives attachments can be:

• Used inside article content
• Chosen as featured images
• Used in a gallery
• Used in content widgets, such as carousels
• Attached in Media kit
• Downloaded through Media Cart
• Viewed on attachment detail page

Hidden from listings and archives attachments will not be shown on:

• Homepage listings
• Archives
• Search

If Hidden is also specified, this attribute is overriden. However; it is possible to use both attributes in parallel if it is planned for the attachment to become unhidden in the future (or Hidden to UTC is used). Hidden will take precendence over Hidden from listings and archives as long as it is active, but once Hidden is removed, the attachment will still retain Hidden from listings and archives attribute.

This field is for informational purposes only. The editor can override it, however it is always automatically set when an attachment becomes unhidden. This goes for both unchecking the Hidden attribute and becoming unhidden automatically by using Hidden to UTC.

Instead of the upload date, frontend users will then see this date as the date of publication:

Protected folder restricts editors only. Attachments that are moved into this folder automatically become Hidden and cannot be unhidden by any means. Even if the editors checks off the Hidden attribute, or set up Hidden to UTC, as long as the attachment is in Protected folder, it will stay Hidden.

Protected folder can only be accessed by administrators and editors specified in the option Media - Protected folder.

Protected folder does not have any further implementation above the two described functionalities and attachments follow the rules of Hidden attribute.

All attachments are currently accessible through direct links (both CDN and object storage on AWS S3) even if they are hidden or in protected folder. Users are able to guess the name of the attachments, or send the link to someone else and download the attachment directly.

Hidden functionality was never meant as a means for full embargo, but rather as a way to hide attachments from some parts of the website.

Protected folder only builds on this functionlity and does not guarantee that such images will not leak from Storyboard.

ŠKODA HQ is aware of these limitations.