Images, thumbnails and custom fields in WordPress

I’ve learned a lot about custom fields since I posted about programming thumbnails into your WordPress theme with custom fields, thanks to everyone’s comments here and on weblog tools collection, who referred to my post. I decided to collect all the links posted in the comments here so that we all have easy access:

Custom Fields + Images

Lonewolf Online has a detailed tutorial about adding a string of thumbnail images to your post by inserting a comma-separated list of image URLs in a custom field called “pictures.”
Gate 303 also explains how he used custom fields to add thumbnails to his posts. Check out his blog (or Blogg as he calls it) homepage to see how nice it looks – he has mini-thumbnails there, and bigger images in the single post page.
Justin Tadlock wrote a whole series about using custom fields, which I’ve definitely got to take a closer look at when I have time, and one of these posts is about adding images with a custom field for greater flexibility.

Plugins + Images

Don’t want to mess with your code and custom fields? Justin also created a plugin for WordPress theme designers that allows them to easily display their themes with thumbnails, description, and demo and download links.
Yet Another Photoblog (YAPB) plugin takes your plain ol’ WP blog and extends it into a whopping photo blog with a ton of features, like easy image upload and on-the-fly thumbnail generation. I’ve never tried it, so if you have, I’d love to hear feedback.
Photopress is another image management plugin that says it adds a pop-up uploader and a pop-up image browser to the posting page, a random image function for your template, and a simple album to display the photos you’ve uploaded.
The Post Thumbs plugin claims it will also do the thumbnail thing for you. The reason I say claims is because I have a feeling I tried it out at some point without success. But maybe it will work for you.
MIA WordPress Plugin page is in Spanish (I think) so I don’t really know what it does, but after using Google Translator (thanks Ryan!) it seems that it places random images from your blog wherever you put the code in your template. It’s supposed to be a local FlickrRSS, I think.

Between custom fields and these plugins WordPress can really become a platform for eye-catching sites and blogs.

Pingback: Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page | WordPressGarage.com()
Pingback: A unique way to find WordPress themes at blog.biz | WordPressGarage.com()
Brady J. Frey

Post Thumb hasn’t worked for me yet, I’ve tried numerous times (and the post thumb revisited) – it’s not a coding or installation error, and I have the full GD library on my personal server, so it’s a confusing issue as to why not. http://guff.szub.net/2005/02/26/the_excerpt-reloaded/ also offers the image possibility… if you have an image in your post, you can call it in the excerpt and via CSS shrink the image down, float it, etc… though I can’t get the image tag to call in 2.3.2, so just a theory.Now YAPB is fantastic – that thing is a killer photo blog management tool. I looked everywhere for a quality wordpress driven gallery system as I’ve grown sick of the bloated Gallery2 – I used it back in September to create a friends wedding gallery: http://jeanand.russjang.comEasy to create thumbnails on the fly, organize galleries by tag, have comments on individual files, previews of upcoming photos, and more.
Brady J. Frey

Forgot to subscribe…
Ryan

Brady, the link to your site was incorrect … http://jeanand.russjang.com/

My gallery plugin of choice is NextGen by Alex Rabe … http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/wordpress-plugins/nextgen-gallery/

I’ve used NextGen in my latest photo album here … http://dunedinicehockey.co.nz/gallery/
Miriam Schwab

Ryan – your albums look really good on the Dunedin site. Are they easy to manage from the admin? What I mean is, could someone who is not very web savvy manage their photos?
Shabu Anower

Post Thumbs plugin, is not working for me too 🙁

Actually, I am looking for a plugin that will generate a thumbnail from the main image and shows the thumbnail at home page. And the bigger image will be show on at single page.

Is there any solution for this? I am searching a lot…
Pingback: Link notes del 4 2 2008 — Sapientone()
Ryan

Hmmm, it seems I never replied to this.

Yes, using NextGen gallery is quite idiot proof. There is no web design knowledge required at all.
Shabu Anower

Hello Ryan, I’ve solved my issue and released a theme already. Please check my URL 🙂
Ryan

Nice site. Although my answer was to Miriam’s question.

I went back to look at this post as someone offered me some cash to sort out their custom fields for them. So thanks for the post Miriam, you made me some pocket money 🙂
alialtugkoca

thanks for article, it answers all my questions.i will try plugins
Forensics

I like the idea of the YAPB plugin & I think it looks great, but I think NextGen is a bit higher quality.
Pingback: Customize your WordPress Theme | Neowster()
Phoat

I’ve been using Kaf Oseo’s post-image plugin for a while now. It retrieves image attachments for a post and allows you to specifiy all sorts of different options. Official development seems to have died off but there are a lot of users that have contributed and brought it up to date with the latest versions of WordPress.

I’ve also modified the plugin for my own use, so that you can chose which image attachment to retrieve. It’s not as complex as some other plugins, but its a simple solution to a common problem.
Pingback: Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page | Wordpress Garage()
Pingback: Images, thumbnails and custom fields in WordPress | Wordpress Garage | Squico()
Neil

Great post. How would I insert the thumbnails into the *archived* blog posts as well?
Pingback: Auto random thumbnails for Wordpress posts - WarriorForum - Internet Marketing Forums()
Cindy

I’m looking for a way to show a list of posts in a certain category. I would like to show the list as images using the first (and only) image in each post with its title. They should obviously be clickable (either the image or the post’s title).
Any help would be much appreciated.
Pingback: Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page : WP Garage()

Images, thumbnails and custom fields in WordPress

Author: Miriam Schwab

Read previous post:

Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page