This is a screenshot of an update to WP Post Thumbnail WordPress plugin I’ve been working on lately. I’m in the process of testing it and hope to wrap it up before the end of the month.
Besides bringing WP Post Thumbnail up to WordPress 2.7, some major changes includes:
- Uploading images are now through WordPress own built-in media library. WP Post Thumbnail v0.2 scans through the media library for supported image type files and list them out. Bloggers then choose an image to crop. By retaining each thumbnails source image in media library, bloggers can easily go back, find source images and recrop thumbnails.
- Uses DeepLiquid’s “jCrop” jQuery javascript cropping plugin (Michal Wojciechowski’s “imgAreaSelect” was used in the current WP Post Thumbnail 0.1.8). This is to take advantage of jCrop’s Explicit Sizing Method to handle large images. In WP Post Thumbnail 0.1.8, large images are simply resized to fit the container but the cropping mechanism is not scaled according. With jCrop’s Explicit Sizing Method in WP Post Thumbnail v0.2, we are able to resize large images smaller and the cropping mechanism scales according.
- Bloggers are given a few options to configure their default thumbnail. In the WP Post Thumbnail v0.2 settings page, you can configure jpeg_quality, default thumbnail’s width and height. In the “Edit Post” section, bloggers can override the default width and height as well as float left or right options for each post. Therefore unlike the current WP Post Thumbnail 0.1.8, bloggers can choose to display default thumbnail in various ways …
More updates soon …
One major problem I’ve yet to rectify is cropping very large images. For instance, when cropping huge images shot using a Nikon D80 SLR (10 megapixel, 2MB or greater filesizes) I had to tweak php.ini to increase memory_limit to 64M. Currently, I’m using GD to resize images. Would ImageMagick be better and more memory efficient compared to GD? Also is ImageMagick installed in your web hosting? Please advice!
Looks good. Any ETA on this? Would be so useful in a project I’m doing currently but some bugs in the old one are making it unusable
Hi Stanley!
I must say that I read this post with a great deal of happiness as I was really hoping for an upgrade of this great plugin! As you obviously know a few problems came up due to WP 2.7 and I’ve been burning midnight oil to get the plugin working again
… unfortunately still unsuccessful :/.
Anyways in responce to your question I think that introducing very large image cropping and via this compromising the compatibility with many web hosting services would be a bad idea. I think it’ll be easier for users to make the images smaller (in basic photo editing software) and upload them without any issues rather than have to ask a webhosting company to add ImageMagik. Honestly I don’t think that large image cropping is that necessary and the 2MB limit is big enough.
If you need beta testers, I’ll be the first in line! Once again thanks for developing this plugin!
Dear Stanley,
I would like to know where can I download this plugin version 0.2, the wordpress plugin page only shows the link to download v. 0.18. Could you pls elaborate? Thanks for the good work, really like it.
Rgds,
Allan.
Hi Stanley, I think this is one of the best plugin out there congratulations, Does version 0.2 will work with 2.6.5 or only with 2.7? Also when do you think you will launch the new version?. Let me know if you would like me to do the spanish translation for it.
But i still want to upload images with the upload form like previous. Its very useful for my muliti author blog site. And it is also very painful to upload with media and then crop. So, please & please dont remove the old upload option from the plugin.
how can i get 1.8 to work atleast for now or when with this be released im having major headaches
Oh man I’m dying for this, I hope you can get it done soon! Also please make it work on pages as well as posts.
I like everything you’ve said so far about the newest version and it looks like you’re headed in the right direction.
For my use, having the option to adjust setting like image quality is huge and is my only complaint for the current version.
While a previous commenter dislikes the move to using the built-in media library for image management, for me, it is going to streamline and make my work-flow a lot faster.
Not sure about using GD or ImageMagick. I would suggest using whatever is available to the greatest number of users.
Anyway, really really looking forward to 0.2 and keep up the good work.
I have a site in development QA that desperate needs this plugin. Send me and email if you would like for me to test for you. I can start tomorrow.
Same with me as Matthew, site’s ready apart from this plugin
I hear ya… the previous version is working fine for me, even with WP 2.7.1 which seems to be causing problems for others, but I’m dying to get my hands on 0.2… I must check this page at least twice a day to see if it has been released.
Christopher,
Did you have to hack the previous version or did it just work straight off. I am finding all kinds of issues with 2.7.1 (media functionality is general is totally screwy) so maybe it’s not the plug in after all.
the previous version 0.1.8, running on WP 2.7.1, godaddy hosting – works fine for me.
I did tweak a few things but nothing major… For security reasons I removed the meta information that is inserted by the plug-in. I do this for all plug-ins and wordpress itself to avoid snooping and potential hacking problems.
I don’t remember changing anything else but this was several months ago. I’ll think about it and report back if I remember something else I changed.
I also ran into some problems with wordpress running on my desktop (for theme design) but it was xampp not allowing the plug-in to create the folder where it stores all of the images. I just created the folder myself and that took care of the problem.
I have run into the infinite loop problem a couple of times but the biggest reason I found causing this was uploading/cropping a new image before deleting the previous image… appears to confuse the plug-in and once you reach that point there is no recovery, just delete that post and start over.
could it be another plug-in that isn’t playing nice with wp post thunbnail?
Yeah !!! Hope this will be released soon ! Can’t wait !!
This update looks great! Any chance you’d let some of us beta test it for you? If not, any idea when the plugin will be available?
As for choking on 10 megapixel files? Those are MASSIVE and in my opinion, probably out of the scope of a plugin like this. Although direct image use is convenient, what happens when 16, 24, 32 megapixel images are the norm? It’s like being on vacation and dragging your entire suitcase into the washroom so you can ultimately use your toothbrush.
When do you think this will be ready for a stable release? Would donation speed up the development? Let me know
Is there a way you can have the base url of the image link use the wordpress blog url so if you change website addresses it won’t break the image locations?
Stanley: Thanks, Mark. That’s a really great suggestion. I’ll look into it for the next plugin update.
I second Mehedi’s request to keep the current method of upload – possibly somehow alongside with browsing the media library.
I can see how many people will benefit from using the media library, but for those of us who don’t, (it seems like) the new feature will hinder the usability of the plugin a lot.
Eagerly awaiting…
Eagerly awaiting as well. Again, will donations help speed this up?
Sean – as a general rule of thumb, you should donate to any theme/plugin developers who provide you a product you rely on. On Chewru, we’ve got over 30 plugins running. Honestly? I can’t pull more than a few of them before I really lose functionality. I don’t have a lot of money, but I’ve gotten a lot of very nice emails even after sending as little as one dollar to some of the authors out there. =)
I ran into some issues with the 1.8 version simply not uploading thumbs anymore after we migrated to 2.71. Hopefully that stuff is taken care of now. Can’t wait to see it in action!
I can’t wait!!!!!
Awesome plugin, allthrough ver. 0.18 had some issues. Since i discovered the plugin, most of my works rely on this plugin. In a week or two will my latest project go online and the most of the functions rely on WP Post Thumbnail.
Stan GJ and hope ver. 0.2 will come out soon.
Man, I really need this to be released soon!
I’m building a new version of my website that has a slider on the frontpage with images that are 760×360 px and the old version won’t do this!
@Chewru – Being a Wordpress Plugin and theme Developer, I am fully aware of this, and donate to plugin authors on a regular basis. I was basically offering to pitch in a bit more than usual to promote a speedy update, whilst an attempt to fund the last leg of development. And yes, 2.7.1 breaks the plugin due to changes on the post-edit screen in core. Everyone should note, although the features are not as interactive, Flutter offers very in-depth image processing features, and can be used as a temporary, permanent replacement to this plugin.
Not being pushy in any way, mostly curious for a status report … What timeframe could be expected for a release? Appreciate your efforts and will gladly donate if I use the plugin.
Looking forward to this release as well. I need just this plugin and I can’t get the ‘old’ WP Post Thumbnail to work properly on my 2.7.1 installation. Will gladly donate as well!
Please hurry hurry hurry! This seems like it’s going to be such an amazing plugin and will solve a lot of technical problems I’m having plus save me so much time in writing. Please email me when the the new plugin is available and I will gladly donate! Thanks!
Any update on the eta?
Really handy plugin this is. Stuck using custom fields for the time being.
<3
GD Library is the way to go. It’s standard.
When might the plugin be ready?
Stanley: I am preparing WP Post Thumbnail 0.2 Beta 1 for download in a few days times. Thanks for asking.
You rock! i was thinking about doing something similar but you basically pwned my original concept.
sweet, looking forward to it
on Feb 21st, Christopher left a reply mentioning a problem with xampp. Well, I tried to manyally add the storing folder but… it didn’t fix the problem.
If anyone can help… thanks a lot!
hi i’m trying to use your plugin still getting the error “the plugin doesn’t have a valid header” tks
Nice Plugin…..but one question.
Does it work with Windows Live Writer? means can we configure it with Windows Live Writer
Sick Plugin!
I had your 1.8 version and almost gave up because it did not use the media library… then found this. Absolutely perfect for any magazine style site… bravo! I will let you know when i roll this out on an upcoming event site. Using the media library is so great. I can’t wait until this gets out of beta so keep us up to date.
I had some problems with the cropping spinning forever and also sometimes I would load the admin page and the thumbnail module would never load… I had to uninstall and reinstall the plugin several times and now it seems stable… maybe there was a clash with the old version?
thanks for the great plugin.
Hi,
A client of me use WP Post Thumbnail v0.2
It works great but last day’s it doesn’t goes further then “Loading original image for cropping … ”
Could you tell me what the problem is?
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Pieter de Vries
The Netherlands
I may be confused but I’m only getting the option of the widescreen image. Do I have to do something to get the other sizes?
Thanks for the template. After long hours of searching for the right template for my blog, I have finally found the best one.
Again, thank you!