Retrieve product custom media image label in magento - image

Question

I have a custom block loading products on my front page that loads the four newest products that have a custom product picture attribute set via:
$_helper = $this->helper('catalog/output');
$_productCollection = Mage::getModel("catalog/product")->getCollection();
$_productCollection->addAttributeToSelect('*');
$_productCollection->addAttributeToFilter("image_feature_front_right", array("notnull" => 1));
$_productCollection->addAttributeToFilter("image_feature_front_right", array("neq" => 'no_selection'));
$_productCollection->addAttributeToSort('updated_at', 'DESC');
$_productCollection->setPageSize(4);
What I am trying to do is grab the image_feature_front_right label as set in the back-end, but have been unable to do so. Here is my code for displaying the products on the front end:
<?php foreach($_productCollection as $_product) : ?>
<div class="fll frontSale">
<div class="productImageWrap">
<img src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'image_feature_front_right')->directResize(230,315,4) ?>" />
</div>
<div class="salesItemInfo">
<p class="caps"><?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName());?></p>
<p class="nocaps"><?php echo $this->getImageLabel($_product, 'image_feature_front_right') ?></p>
</div>
</div>
I read that $this->getImageLabel($_product, 'image_feature_front_right') was the way to do it, but produces nothing. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks!
Tre

Answer 1

It seems you asked this same question in another thread, so to help others who might be searching for an answer, I'll anser it here as well:
I imagine this is some sort of magento bug. The issue seems to be that the Magento core is not setting the custom_image_label attribute. Whereas for the default built-in images [image, small_image, thumbnail_image] it does set these attributes - so you could do something like:
$_product->getData('small_image_label');
If you look at Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract::getImageLabel() it just appends '_label' to the $mediaAttributeCode that you pass in as the 2nd param and calls $_product->getData().
If you call $_product->getData('media_gallery'); you'll see the custom image label is available. It's just nested in an array. So use this function:
function getImageLabel($_product, $key) {
$gallery = $_product->getData('media_gallery');
$file = $_product->getData($key);
if ($file && $gallery && array_key_exists('images', $gallery)) {
foreach ($gallery['images'] as $image) {
if ($image['file'] == $file)
return $image['label'];
}
}
return '';
}
It'd be prudent to extend the Magento core code (Ideally Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract, but I don't think Magento lets you override Abstract classes), but if you need a quick hack - just stick this function in your phtml file then call:
<?php echo getImageLabel($_product, 'image_feature_front_right')?>

Answer 2

Your custom block would need to inherit from Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract to give access to that method.
You could also use the code directly from the method in the template:
$label = $_product->getData('image_feature_front_right');
if (empty($label)) {
$label = $_product->getName();
}