Download external files to Media Library

[dougal]

The media uploader currently allows you to upload a file from your local computer or link to an external URL.

However, when linking to an external URL (in particular for an image), you don't get the same options as you would have when actually adding a resource to your site's media library.

It would be nice to be able to fetch a file from an external source, and add it to the library, just as with a regular file upload. Then the file could be included in a gallery, you could use the image editor to crop/resize, etc.

Primary use-case would be to fetch an external image into the library without having the extra steps of saving to your local computer, then re-uploading it to your WP site. However, it should work with any allowed content-type (audio, video, pdf, etc).

It may also be useful to save the original URL as attachment metadata.

I think there are plans for this. Press This already does some image sideloading that could be used.

Punting due to agreement that we not add any new features to 3.0 beyond the merge with MU, post types, new default theme, and better menu management. If someone works on a patch for this during the 3.0 cycle, it can be evaluated at the beginning of 3.1 for inclusion.

Just as a point of interest, plugin by @bbqiguana which implements some sideloading: ​http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-linked-images-to-gallery-v01/