The media library

Every picture, video, recording and download on the site lives in one place: Media library (Biblioteka mediów) in the panel. A lesson, a page or a course cover does not keep a copy of its own; it shows a file of the library. Put the same diagram in five lessons and it is still one file — fix a typo in it once, by replacing the file, and all five show the correction.

Public files and course material

Every file is one of two kinds of Visibility (Widoczność), and the difference decides who can open it:

Visibility	Who can open the file	Where it may be shown
Public (Publiczny)	Anybody who has its address	Pages, course covers and lessons
Course material (Materiał kursu)	Only somebody who may open a lesson that shows it	Lessons only

Course material is what you sell or give access to: a student reaches it only through a lesson of a course they have access to, by a link that stops working within the hour. Paste that link into a chat and it opens nothing for anybody else; a video’s link does not even open in the student’s own address bar, only in the lesson’s player.

A page or a course cover is read by anyone, so it can show public files only. When you pick a picture for a page, the library simply does not offer course material; if you try anyway, the field says that only a lesson can show that file.

A file you upload from a lesson becomes course material; one you upload from a page or a cover becomes public. A file uploaded in the library itself starts as course material, and you choose.

The list

Media library shows every file you may see as a card: a preview (the picture itself, or an icon for a video, a recording or a document), the title, what kind of file it is and who may open it, the size and who uploaded it, and how many places show it — Used once (Użyty raz), Used 3 times (Użyty 3 razy) or Not used (Nieużywany).

• Search looks at the title and the file’s name.
• With nothing to show — an empty library, or a search that found nothing — the page says Nie ma tu żadnych plików and where files come from: added here, or uploaded in a lesson, on a page or as a course cover.
• Filters: Kind (Rodzaj) — Image, Video, Audio, Document (Obraz, Wideo, Nagranie dźwiękowe, Dokument); Visibility (Widoczność); Tags (Tagi); Uploaded by (Przesłał(a)); and Not used anywhere (Nigdzie nieużywane), which is how you find what nothing needs any more.
• Newest first.

Uploading

Upload a file (Prześlij plik) at the top of the list opens a page with one field. Drop any file the library takes — a picture (JPEG, PNG, WebP), a video (MP4, WebM, QuickTime), a recording (MP3, M4A, OGG, WAV) or a document (PDF, ZIP, Office and OpenDocument files, text, CSV) — or press Add from a web address (Dodaj z adresu internetowego) and paste the https address of a file somewhere public: HiLMS downloads it and treats it exactly as if you had uploaded it.

• Title (Tytuł) — leave it empty to use the file’s name.
• Where it may be shown (Gdzie może się pojawić) — the visibility, course material unless you choose public — and Tags (Tagi) to find it by later.

HiLMS reads the file itself to decide what it is, rather than trusting its name. A text file called lecture.mp4 is refused with a sentence saying the name claims a video but the file is something else; a video must really play, and a recording too. Each kind has its own limit — pictures 8 MB, documents 50 MB, recordings 100 MB, videos 200 MB — and the server’s own limit, shown next to the field, can be lower than that. A video larger than that belongs on a video host (see Lessons and blocks).

You rarely need this page to upload, though: every field that shows a file has Upload new (Prześlij nowy) beside it, which puts the file in the library and chooses it in one go (below).

Editing a file

Open a card to edit the file. A card you may change opens the editor and shows Edit (Edytuj); a card you may only read opens the file’s page instead and shows View (Podgląd) — see What instructors see.

• Title (Tytuł).
• Alternative text (Tekst alternatywny), pictures only — what the picture shows, for somebody who cannot see it. One field per language the site speaks, each named after its language. Write it here once and every lesson and page showing the picture uses it, in the language that lesson or page is written in; a place that needs other words can say so in its own block (Lessons and blocks). A language left empty simply has no words yet.
• Description (Opis), again one per language — a note about the file, for you and your colleagues.
• Captions (Napisy), videos only — see below.

The sidebar shows the File (Plik): its kind, its name (click it to open the file), its size and who uploaded it, with Replace the file (Zastąp plik). Under it, Where it may be shown (Gdzie może się pojawić) holds the visibility and the tags. Delete (Usuń) sits at the very bottom.

Under the form, Where used (Gdzie użyto) lists every lesson, page and course cover showing the file — a lesson as “Course › Lesson” — each a link to its editor when you may change that lesson, page or course, and plain text when you may not.

Captions on a video

A video’s captions belong to the video, not to a lesson, so every lesson that shows it offers the same tracks.

Add captions (Dodaj napisy) adds a row: choose the Language (Język) and upload its WebVTT file (Plik WebVTT). One row per language; the first one is the one the player turns on by itself. HiLMS checks that the file really is a caption file — a .txt renamed to .vtt is refused — and the language list offers every language there is, not only the ones the site speaks, because a recording may be subtitled in a language nobody here teaches in. Remove a row and its track goes when you save.

The Video block’s settings say this too, and link straight to the video in the library once a video is chosen: Edit the captions in the library (Edytuj napisy w bibliotece) when you may change the file, See the captions in the library (Zobacz napisy w bibliotece) when you may only read it.

Replacing a file

Replace the file (Zastąp plik) takes a new file of the same kind — a picture for a picture, a video for a video — and puts it in the old one’s place everywhere it is shown. Nothing else changes: the title, the words, the captions and every lesson, page and cover showing it stay as they are. It also takes a web address.

Changing who can open it

Change Visibility (Widoczność) and save, and the file moves to where files of that kind are kept; students keep seeing it while it moves.

• Public → course material is refused while a page or a course cover shows the file, and the message names them. Those are read by anyone, so the file would simply stop showing there: take it off them first.
• Course material → public asks you to tick I understand that anyone will be able to open this file (Rozumiem, że każdy będzie mógł otworzyć ten plik). After that its address works for anybody who has it.

Deleting

A file can be deleted only while nothing shows it. The Delete button on a card and at the bottom of the editor is hidden while the file is used, and if somebody puts it on a page while you are looking, the delete is refused with This file is still shown somewhere (Ten plik jest nadal gdzieś pokazywany). Take it out of the blocks or the cover that show it first — Where used tells you which — then delete it.

To tidy up, filter by Not used anywhere, tick the cards and choose Delete the unused ones (Usuń nieużywane): it deletes only what you may delete and nothing shows, and says how many it kept.

Removing a block from a lesson or a page never deletes its file: the file stays in the library, unused, until you decide.

Choosing a file in a block or a cover

Every place that shows a file — the Image, Gallery, Video (uploaded), Audio, Download and page banner blocks, and a course’s Cover (Okładka) — has the same field:

• It shows what is chosen: the preview, the title and what kind of file it is.
• Choose from the library (Wybierz z biblioteki) opens the library beside the form. It offers only what fits: files of the right kind, and on a page or a cover public files only. Search by title, then press a card to choose it.
• Upload new (Prześlij nowy), beside the field’s label, uploads a file straight into the library — with its title and, for a picture, its alternative text in the language of the lesson or page — and chooses it. From a lesson it becomes course material, from a page or a cover a public file. It takes a web address as well.
• Clear (Wyczyść) empties the field. The file stays in the library.

Nothing is saved until you save the lesson, page or course. Only then does the library count the new place under Where used.

What instructors see

Administrators and editors see the whole library and may change anything in it.

An instructor sees two kinds of file: the ones they uploaded, and every file a course they teach uses — in its lessons or as its cover. They may upload, and they may edit, replace and delete their own uploads. A file somebody else uploaded that their course uses appears on their list too, and opens read-only: the file itself (the picture, or a player for a video with its captions, or a recording), its title, its alternative text and description in every language, its caption tracks, what kind of file it is, its size, who uploaded it, who may open it, its tags and Where used. Nothing on that page changes the file — there is no Save, no Replace the file and no Delete, and its editor refuses them — so a change is the uploader’s, an editor’s or an administrator’s to make. A file outside what they see simply does not exist for them.

Where the files are kept

That is the administrator’s choice under Settings → Media and storage (Ustawienia → Media i przechowywanie): on this server, or in a storage bucket with a provider such as Cloudflare R2 (Administration). Nothing in this chapter changes with it: a course material link still goes through HiLMS, which checks access before handing the file over.