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WordPress Image Handling Sucks (WP Wednesday)

Colin Carmichael — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:12:04 +0000

WARNING: Today's WordPress Wednesday post is a selfish rant - and two days early. So much for Christmas spirit. ;)

Yes, I said it. The words "WordPress" and "sucks" in the same breath. It's a rare thing for a WP fanboy like me to do, but today, the Automattic folks deserve it.

This week's release of WP 2.9 brought some awesome image editing tools to WordPress users - but the entire image handling system is still broken. It's a kludge.

When you upload an image to WP, it "crunches" it - creating up to 4 versions of the image at various sizes (thumbnail, medium, large and original) on the server. These are now the ONLY sizes available to you in your posts. In addition, with the exception of gallery-generated pages, references to these images inserted into posts are specific to the pixel size (150, 300, etc.) rather than the relative size (thumbnail, medium, large, etc). Yes, you can change the pixel sizes of the relative sizes - but once an image is uploaded, you're stuck with the settings of the day.

This wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't know that there was an alternative. Why can't WP resize images on-the-fly at the server?

Example:

This image is located at http://colincarmichael.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/SDC11443-300x199.jpg. See those pixel references in there? This image physically exists on the server. Very limiting.

In contrast, look at these: (from a Drupal site I run, the tech isn't Drupal-specific)

URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/600

URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/300

URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/150

URL: http://www.presbyterian.ca/photoresize/4398/news

See those pixel references in the URLs? There are no images on the server in those specific sizes - the server resizes the original image on the fly as required. See that last one with a relative size of "news"? The server resizes that to a size specified in the settings, in this case 250px.

There's no reason that WordPress' image handling could work the same way. You'd only need to store the original of the image on the server, and you could insert images of any size in your posts. Additionally, if you had "virtual" sizes defined such as full=600px, half=300px, thumb=150, etc, you could have images that would resize gracefully if your theme changes and you now need full to be 400px and half to be 200px.

So, Automattic, how 'bout it? Now that you've given us image-editing tools in 2.9, can you address the broken image-handling problem?

SalvationArmy.ca – a great WordPress example (WP Wednesday)

Colin Carmichael — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:20:04 +0000

Welcome to WordPress Wednesdays where I will be highlighting some fantastic WordPress installations, passing on important news, and generally gushing about the best web publishing platform on the planet. :)

I wanted to give the folks behind SalvationArmy.ca a nod for one of the finest institutional WordPress installs I've seen.

While I'm not a fan of the drop-down menus on the main navbar, everything else is very well executed. The site is clearly the centre of a well thought-out social media strategy that includes every available media type and platform. The church and non-profit communities would do well to learn from this example.

Your Fave WordPress Theme?

Colin Carmichael — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:36:37 +0000

I'm thinking about changing the look of things around here... I'm not really digging the 3-column layout anymore and I think I'd like something a little lighter...

What's your Fave (free) WordPress Theme?

The Commute – 5 Mar 2008

Colin Carmichael — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:26:32 +0000

I talk about my newest favourite site: LiveNewsCameras.com and it's use of Twitter. I also briefly mention Automattic's foray into the social networking space with the acquisition of BuddyPress.
Mobile post sent by ccarmichael using Utterz. Replies. mp3

AddThis.com – Please Help Me!

Colin Carmichael — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:38:16 +0000

As you can see on my main page, I'm having a little difficulty with the AddThis plugin for WordPress... I've sent multiple requests for support to AddThis and have received no response... Sigh.

Maybe one of my readers can help me?

The issue:

The plugin has no options functionality and the button just appears automagically. The problem is that it appears when on calls to the_content() as well as the_excerpt()... on very short posts, this means that the addthis code is added, but then stripped (poorly) by WP's excerpt process...

The solution:

Only fire the plugin calls are made to the_content() and not the_excerpt(). I think, however, that WordPress' plugin hook doesn't distinguish between them. Am I out of luck here?

AddThis.com WordPress Plugin

Colin Carmichael — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:24:26 +0000

This is the coolest little plugin I'd never heard of. Last month, AddThis.com released a new plugin for WordPress allows your users to bookmark blog posts at any of about a dozen different social bookmarking services with just one little button.

Cool.

UPDATE: I've temporarily disabled the plugin until I've resolved a couple issues...

UPDATE 2: I've re-enabled the plugin while I troubleshoot the issues... you may see some weird text at the end of post excerpts... AddThis has been completely unresponsive to my support requests - so I'm trying to figure this out on my own - any help would be appreciated.