March 26, 2024

Fix Alt Text Plugin

Find issues with your image alt text easily and fix them faster with Fix Alt Text. You can even force users to use alt text when adding images in Gute …

It is increasingly important for you to make your images meet accessibility standards. Images must have alternative text (alt text) added so that the visually impaired can use screen readers to understand the purpose and context of the image displayed on the screen.

In addition to making your site more accessible, using alt text helps your site rank better in search engines. This is an added SEO benefit for marketers.

Unfortunately, as a site grows, it becomes difficult and time-consuming to edit and maintain image alt text. Fix Alt Text plugin can help you discover where alt text is needed, quickly fix issues, and even force users to input alt text as images are used throughout the site in the future.

Features:

Find Usage: Easily find all uses of alt text by scanning the site
Find keyword usage: Search for specific keywords used in alt text
Inline Editing: Instantly edit alt text without manually editing and searching through the content of a post, attachment, or custom post type
Detect Issues: Quickly identify issues with your alt text to assist you in ADA compliance
Toggle Features: Control which features are active for maximum flexibility
Tool Access: Control which user roles have access to the plugin
Settings Access: Control which user roles have access to changing settings
Global Settings: In a multisite setup, save time by using global settings and select which sites will inherit those settings
Fully Multisite Compatible: Force sites within the network to use global network settings for easy management

Bonus Features

Privacy: It does not use any 3rd-party tracking
No Sales Pitches: It does not sell or promote any pro plugins
Free: It’s currently and will continue to be a Free plugin!
No Littering: It cleans up after itself if uninstalled or when a blog is removed from a multisite network.

Compatible With

Multisite Installations
WP Gutenberg Editor
WP Classic Editor
PHP Versions 7.4, 8.0, 8.1
WhereUsed
Advanced Custom Fields – ACF
Network Media Library

Language Support

English (default)
Translate this plugin in your language.

Screenshots

Dashboard: Initial scan is needed
Site Settings: Overwritten by network settings
Network Settings: Edit network settings and see scan status of all sites
Dashboard: Running full scan
Dashboard: Scan complete. Displaying issues and notifications
Alt Text: Found references involving alt text
Alt Text: Preview image and inline editing
Gutenberg Editor: Forcing Alt Text
Media Library: Forcing Alt Text

Changelog

Versions Key (Major.Minor.Patch)

Major – 1.x.x increase involves major changes to the visual or functional aspects of the plugin, or removing functionality that has been previously deprecated. (higher risk of breaking changes)
Minor – x.1.x increase introduces new features, improvements to existing features, or introduces deprecations. (low risk of breaking changes)
Patch – x.x.1 increase is a bug fix, security fix, or minor improvement and does not introduce new features. (non-breaking changes)

NOTICE: Release detail should be arranged by category per this order: New Feature, Improvement, Minor Improvement, Bug Fix, Security, Note

Version 1.7.0

Release Date – 25 Mar 2024

New Feature: A Scan can be paused and resumed
Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.6.0
Minor Improvement: Added JPE file extension as a valid mime type
Bug Fix: While using the block editor in other languages, alt text was not validating and prompting the user to input alt text for images. Thank you @wmaas.
Bug Fix: File extensions were sometimes including GET variables during a scan (run a new full scan to fix)
Bug Fix: Dropdown file types filter contain invalid file types due to GET variables (run a new full scan to fix)
Bug Fix: Invalid file types in issues discovered due to GET variables (run a new full scan to fix)
Note: Tested up to: 6.4.3

Version 1.6.1

Release Date – 21 Sep 2023

Bug Fix: The scan was exceeding the default memory limit when running the background process causing the scan the stall until the user cancelled the scan. This was preventing the plugin to fully scan the site.
Note: Tested up to: 6.3.1

Version 1.6.0

Release Date – 28 Jul 2023

Improvement: Converted Helpers Library to be under the plugin’s namespace to prevent conflicts with other plugins using the same dependency
Minor Improvement: Optimized the uninstall cleanup script
Bug fix: custom db tables were not being removed when the plugin was deleted from the site.
Bug Fix: custom db tables were not being created in various scenarios

Version 1.5.0

Release Date – 13 Jul 2023

Improvement: Added compatibility with Network Media Library plugin for WordPress
Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.5.0
Bug Fix: Error encountered when inline editing alt text of an image in the media library. Only occurs in a multisite environment when using the Network Shared Media Library plugin and the image was uploaded from a non-primary site.

Version 1.4.4

Release Date – 31 May 2023

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.4.1
Bug fix: Javascript error occurs when selecting a PDF in media libary modal
Note: Tested up to: 6.2.2

Version 1.4.3

Release Date – 17 May 2023

Improvement: switch the keyup listener to use input for detecting changes of alt text input fields to be more reliable
Bug Fix: After sending a post to the trash, references associated with the post still appear in References table
Bug Fix: Attachment references were not getting removed from references table when deleted.
Bug Fix: Force alt text alert was causing false positives when the media library modal is accessed, closed, then accessed again on the post edit screen int he admin.

Version 1.4.2

Release Date – 21 Apr 2023

Bug Fix: Inline editing was encountering an error in specific scenarios: image_url_mismatch

Version 1.4.1

Release Date – 14 Apr 2023

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.4.0
Security: Improved sanitation of data

Version 1.4.0

Release Date – 05 Apr 2023

Improvement: Search now includes the title of the attachment or post in the “from” column
Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.3.7
Bug Fix: Deprecated PHP notice – PHP 8.2 deprecated sending null to trim()
Bug Fix: PHP Fatal error occurred if mbstring non-default extension was not installed. Fallback implemented.
Note: Tested up to: 6.2.0

Version 1.3.9

Release Date – 10 Mar 2023

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.3.6
Bug Fix: The plugin directory constant values were incorrect if site_url() and admin_url() do not have the same HTTP protocol.
Bug Fix: Prevent update of plugin if it is under local git control

Version 1.3.8

Release Date – 9 Mar 2023

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library 1.3.5
Bug Fix: Fixed fatal error related to multisite installations. Issue occurs when a previous blog has been deleted and a new blog is created. The new blog’s IDs increments and no longer matches the assumed corresponding index within the full array of blogs.
Bug Fix: The database tables were not getting created on plugin activation for a multisite.

Version 1.3.7

Release Date – 3 Mar 2023

Bug Fix: JavaScript error when the issues chart attempts to display when there are no issues found.
Bug Fix: Inline editing did not work for images directly located in the media library
Bug Fix: When uploading an attachment, the attachment was not automatically scanned into the system

Version 1.3.6

Release Date – 3 Mar 2023

Bug Fix: Activating plugin on a multisite caused fatal error

Version 1.3.5

Release Date – 19 Jan 2023

Bug Fix: Inline edit feature was not compatible with post meta that was stored as an array or an object.
Bug Fix: Sometimes alt text would be marked as having code in it if a quote mark was in the alt text.

Version 1.3.4

Release Date – 29 Nov 2022

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library dependency
Bug Fix: Scan duration details should not display 0 days, 0 hours, etc.
Bug Fix: Scan is showing a message that a scan is needed when it is actually not
Note: Tested up to: 6.1.1

Version 1.3.3

Release Date – 09 Nov 2022

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library dependency
Bug Fix: Migration script wasn’t single site compatible
Bug Fix: When scan menus option changed in settings, the user was not being notified that a new scan was needed.
Bug Fix: Headers sent prematurely when displaying admin notice if updating plugin while another plugin is using an older version of Helpers Library
Bug Fix: Scans involving thousands of users, or terms would run out of memory due to meta caching
Bug Fix: There was a rare possibility that a post gets queued and then the post is deleted before the background scan processes it, which could cause the progress bar to stall on the dashboard.
Note: Tested up to: 6.1.0

Version 1.3.1

Release Date – 27 Oct 2022

Minor Improvement: Updated Helpers Library dependency
Security: Removed usernames from the scan users queue file

Version 1.3.0

Release Date – 26 Oct 2022

New Feature: Filter “fixalttext_excluded_post_types” has been added to allow modification of post types excluded from scans
New Feature: Filter “fixalttext_excluded_taxonomies” has been added to allow modification of post types excluded from scans
Improvement: Debug logging is more efficient
Improvement: Scan was revised to now handle very large databases and use less resources
Improvement: Updated recommended taxonomies and post types to scan. Please review your settings.
Bug Fix: Uninstall script fixed
Bug Fix: The plugin was initializing on the init hook, but activation hooks do not work on the init hook and were causing loading issues when plugin was activated.
Bug Fix: Retrieving settings in a single site install were failing
Bug Fix: Scan would run out of memory when trying to queue 400K posts
Bug Fix: Post was not getting rescanned after it has been updated
Security: Minor XSS Escaping within a user protected area

Version 1.2.0

Release Date – 20 Oct 2022

New Feature: Debug area for troubleshooting scan issues. Debug mode must be turned on in settings before it will appear.
New Feature: Detects invalid image src URLs and invalid image types
New Feature: Records plugin version history to assist troubleshooting issues
New Feature: Detects image alt text located in post excerpts
Improvement: Converted all AJAX requests to JSON responses
Improvement: Upgraded to Chart.js v3.8.0
Improvement: Implemented standard security class to handle consistent sanitization
Improvement: Styling and code standardization to make maintenance easier
Improvement: Added Helpers_Library 1.1.0 dependency
Improvement: Added upgrade migration scripts
Improvement: On multisite, you can now navigate to the network settings from the site settings tab
Improvement: DB table columns tuned for performance
Improvement: Renamed issue names to be more descriptive (rescan required on update)
Improvement: Moved filters into the column headings and now applied automatically on change
Improvement: Filters are highlighted blue when applied
Improvement: Converted inline edit text input to a textarea field for better ease of editing. Thanks Rick Barley!
Improvement: Added auto focus on the inline edit field to save a click. Thanks Rick Barley!
Minor Improvement: Refactored compatibility checks
Bug Fix: Uninstall script didn’t remove scheduled crons
Bug Fix: Conditional empty checks did not exist before iterating over various settings. Could result in PHP error.
Bug Fix: Plugin options cache was not being cleared properly
Bug Fix: Missing tag in settings DOM
Bug Fix: WP Crons did not have a consistent prefix
Bug Fix: Updated links to # to include an actual target to stop jumping to the top of the screen
Bug Fix: JS and CSS assets had a double slash in the URL. Thanks @amundsan
Bug Fix: Scan complete notification had a broken link to scan details
Bug Fix: Scan was picking up attachments in the Media Library that were not images
Bug Fix: When uninstalling the plugin it threw an error
Bug Fix: Could not start a new scan if a previous scan was interrupted by deactivating the plugin or some other unexpected action.
Note: Increased Minimum WP Version to 5.3
Note: Tested up to: 6.0.3

Version 1.1.4

Release Date – 15 Sep 2022

Minor Improvement: Added consistency with how constants were defined
Minor Improvement: Updated version release key in changelog
Minor Improvement: Code formatting
Bug Fix: User could save draft without being prompted to add alt text
Bug Fix: hardcoded wp-admin references were breaking Bedrock compatibility. Thanks @amundsan
Note: Tested up to 6.0.2

Version 1.1.3

Release Date – 09 Aug 2022

Minor Improvement: Added versions key to Changelog
Bug Fix: JS assets were not loaded when adding a new post.

Version 1.1.2

Release Date – 25 Mar 2022

Bug Fix: non-static function called statically caused a fatal error

Version 1.1.1