As I understand, media is only created in the ‘media’ folder once they are requested via HTTP.
Is there a way to immediately copy files or create thumbs?
Or better: can the media manager be replaced with a plugin?
I would prefer to take care of URL generation by myself again.
Yes, you could auto-publish files via hooks.
Yes, via the File Urls component: File URLs | Kirby CMS
I ended up replacing the components for ‘file::url’, ‘file::version’ and ‘thumb’. Media/thumbs get instantly created, path format was changed, images can be converted to webp and everything seems to work so far. The panel is still doing its own thing, but I doubt that can be changed.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction! Took me a while to figure out what exactly the file components do or when they get called. I hope documentation here can be improved in the future