Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › No Need for Featured Image in Pro Themes?
- This topic has 30 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 6 months ago by Brad Dalton.
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October 14, 2013 at 11:55 pm #66762MealtogMember
I have always found it odd that when you made a post in many older SP themes, you would have to add the image say, at the beginning of the post (to get it to show in the post), then add the same image as a Featured Image so that widgets that pull recent posts, will show an image as well. Also, noticed there is even a function in the archive section as well to display the featured image.
Developing on a Pro theme and now noticed widgets pull the primary image that you add in your post so there is no need to attach a featured image anymore. In fact, if you choose to show a thumbnail of a featured image in the archive page (and you DO NOT have an attached image), the archive page will show a duplicate of the image (one from the featured image code and one for the actual image from the post itself).
So my question is, do we still have to attach a feature image anymore for each post?
October 15, 2013 at 3:49 am #66781Brad DaltonParticipantI tested this on the Sample and Lifestyle Pro themes and didn't add any featured images yet they still display on all archives if selected in the Genesis > Theme Settings > Content Archives.
October 15, 2013 at 10:32 pm #66941MealtogMemberExactly. With Pro themes, at least the ones that I tested, doing the right things without a featured image, do we still need to attach one moving forward. Just wondering if there is a requirement elsewhere for featured images.
October 16, 2013 at 10:29 am #67006MealtogMemberBrad, I should clarify the typo in my original post. What I meant to say was, even if you don't have a featured image attached, looks like all new widgets and archive pages will show an image properly if you insert it, say at the beginning of each post. If you enable the switch that you suggested and include an additional featured image with some newer Pro themes, you will actually get duplicate thumbnails in archive pages now.
So my question still stands. Does anyone else still attach a featured image in addition to an image at the beginning of a post anymore?
October 16, 2013 at 1:04 pm #67060SummerMemberYes, all the time.
I'm actually one of the few people annoyed with the fact that Genesis automatically takes the first image in a post and makes it the default "featured image". I've worked with several non-Genesis themes in the past that don't do that, so it seems like this "feature" is only a Genesis thing, and I for one hate that there doesn't seem to be a way for me to turn it off when I want to or need to.
Example: on two magazine sites my contributors need to create a separate image for the featured space that's used in the archives and widgets, which still causes problems now and again when they forget -- imagine if you will a post image that's a portrait oriented publicity photo of an actress, and how the automatic image resizing will so helpfully create a feature image from that photo that's just her cleavage, and that boob crop gets plastered on the website as either the first article you see, or even better, the featured slideshow image.... yeah, big help there. </sarcasm>
What really sucks is that I get alternate sizes of those post images that will never be used, so my uploads folders sometimes get ginormous, if you have 2 images in a post, and add a featured image, you end up with anywhere from 8-10 images of the varying sizes when all you really wanted was 3, or maybe just 2. It's gotten better recently, but in 2009 and 2010, the uploads folders for those years come in about about 150Mb of images each.
It's easier to control using the widgets on front page layouts to not display the featured image, which believe it or not some clients still want... less shiny, more copy is apparently a thing with some businesses.
What I'd love to see is an addition to the image uploader, where I can check a box and say "do not create other sizes", that way I get just the single image I want inside the post.
Maybe this is just one of those situations where no one realizes that making things easier for newbies actually ties the hands of the intermediate and advanced folks.
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkOctober 16, 2013 at 9:32 pm #67109Brad DaltonParticipantIt would be nice to have a switch to turn that on or off.
@Mealtog I do this on every post (add featured image) and never have any problems with duplicates but i do know some themes may. I'm sure its a very easy fix and even wrote about this some time ago.
October 16, 2013 at 10:59 pm #67126MealtogMemberWell, now I am wondering as I move forward, should I continue to import a featured image alongside the primary image in the post. Seems kind of duplicating your own work but if this tweak is only in Genesis, there may be a time in the future when we move away from Genesis that may cause issues then?
Brad, I don't think with Pro themes, there will be duplicate problems. I am still curious to know if anyone else out there (in addition to Brad and summer) that add a featured image alongside the primary image. btw, summer, that is a legit concern with the autocrop feature if you post lots of portrait images.
Still trying to decide the go ahead with a new site. Guess there really is no downside to using an "additional" featured image besides the time to create it and using more storage on the server itself.
October 17, 2013 at 3:44 am #67135brianliddellMemberI’m actually one of the few people annoyed with the fact that Genesis automatically takes the first image in a post and makes it the default “featured image”. I’ve worked with several non-Genesis themes in the past that don’t do that, so it seems like this “feature” is only a Genesis thing, and I for one hate that there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to turn it off when I want to or need to.
I'm also one of those 'few people' and I strongly agree with this sentiment.
If 'Display post excerpts' and 'Include the Featured Image?' are selected in Theme Settings, then for every post that hasn't got a WP Featured image, the archive page randomly selects an image (apparently the first image, but effectively random in my book) from the post and displays it at the top of the excerpt.
This is counter intuitive, and surely not how the WP featured image is intended to behave.
There are plenty of posts that I want to display only text on the archive page, and certainly not a randomly selected image, which can even be a tiny graphic icon never intended or big enough to work as a featured image.
I think this is a bug in the Genesis parent framework, and it should be fixed!
Images should be added to a page only where the writer or designer intended, where they add to the reader's understanding, and not randomly just to fill space.
In the meantime, and allowing for the possibility that this unwanted, counterintuitive, and effectively random behaviour gets left in permanently, can anyone help me to turn it off using a Child function, or even by hacking into the Genesis parent theme's php?
Many thanks to anyone who can help.
October 17, 2013 at 8:39 am #67156SummerMemberAt this point, I'd settle for someone making a plugin called "Genesis Featured Image Behavior Repair".
Long time ago when support was done in the old forums, I mentioned that this was unwanted behavior, and was told that because it wasn't a bug, it wasn't a problem as they saw it, so they weren't going to do anything about it.
That brush off, plus another brush off a month or so ago about unwanted behavior from the new automatically generated custom post archives added to 2.0 has started to make me rethink some of the arguments of the Genesis haters crowd that I'd previously pooh-poohed.
I still love Genesis, but choosing to alter default WP behaviors and calling it a feature and not a boneheaded experiment that other people have to work around to get the job done is either self-indulgence or arrogance beyond the point of sense.
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkOctober 17, 2013 at 12:16 pm #67169MealtogMemberSounds like this feature image issue bugs a few die hard genesis users. Perhaps it is trill best to add a featured image to every post just in case for future proofing?
October 20, 2013 at 6:35 am #67794brianliddellMemberI sent in a support ticket on October 17 complaining of this behaviour. Disappointingly, I've had no response so far.
In the meantime, I've found a temporary solution by hacking into the Genesis > lib > functions > image.php file at line 80, and changing the 'fallback' setting from 'first-attached' to ' '
This seems to have the desired effect on my development local site, but I've not properly tested to see whether it affects other situations where image.php is called.
I don't really understand what I'm doing here, so, again, I'm hoping that someone will ship in with a more elegant and safer way of achieving the same result.
October 20, 2013 at 6:43 am #67796brianliddellMemberIn reply to Mealtog:
I don't think this is a good solution. What should happen is that Genesis should obey the user's WP post input:
1. by displaying a featured image when the user has added a featured image to the post,
and
2. by NOT displaying a featured image when the user has NOT added a featured image to the post.October 20, 2013 at 8:18 am #67815Gary JonesMemberI’ve worked with several non-Genesis themes in the past that don’t do that, so it seems like this “feature” is only a Genesis thing, and I for one hate that there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to turn it off when I want to or need to.
There is a way, added in Genesis 2.0.
If you have a featured image explicitly set, then this will be used.
By default (for backwards compatibility with older Genesis experiences), it then checks to see if a certain filterable argument is "fallback". If so, then it grabs the first image that was attached to this post (which might not be the first image uploaded, or the first image within the post).
If the arg is not "fallback", but an array containing keys of
'html'
and'url'
, then those values are used.Otherwise, no image is returned.
The genesis_get_image() function allows a context arg as well, which means you can limit the filtering of "fallback" to only certain instances. In the case of displaying a post image, that context is
'archive'
.https://gist.github.com/GaryJones/7070243
WordPress Engineer, and key contributor the Genesis Framework | @GaryJ
October 20, 2013 at 9:31 am #67834Brad DaltonParticipantOctober 20, 2013 at 10:10 am #67839SummerMemberGary, I just tried it out on Gensis 2.0, and the image behavior that I occasionally grumble about is still present.
The problem is that if I add an image inside the post, Genesis chooses to make that image the fallback Featured Image every single time. This is behavior that no other theme or framework chooses to do, overriding the default expected behavior of the post image and featured image by combining the two.
These should always be treated as two separate images; if I add an image to a post, and do not use one in the Featured Image meta box, then when I look at a archive or category listing where I specify that Featured Images should be displayed, then I should see articles without Featured Images on posts where I purposefully chose to not have one, no exceptions.
Instead, Genesis chooses to ignore the fact that I chose to not have a Featured Image, and pulls the first one out of the article to use as the Featured Image, thereby overriding the behavior that I want to have on my site.
It's bad form to have one image magically become the other, superceding the default WordPress functionality, and doing so without the designer, developer, or admin users having the ability to turn that added Genesis behavior on or off when they choose to.
So for some of us, it's the fallback behavior that's the problem here, and after so many years of Genesis doing it wrong, the users should finally be able to have a way to enable or disable that behavior at their choosing.
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkOctober 20, 2013 at 10:25 am #67842brianliddellMemberMy hack solution above still seems to work OK:
– In Genesis > lib > functions > image.php file at line 80, change the ‘fallback’ setting from ‘first-attached’ to ‘ ‘
But for those of us old enough to remember the happy days of table-based layout and spacer.gifs, I've thought of another solution:
– Just set the featured image to a one-pixel transparent spacer.gif and the job's done!
I've not tested it out, but the idea makes me smile anyway.
October 20, 2013 at 10:38 am #67843SummerMemberThe conditional in Gary's snippet is throwing a hissy fit, but when I removed that part and used the rest of it, voila! The right image behavior is back!
That conditional seems like it would keep the behavior I'm trying to get rid of in place, anyway.
Now, the only thing more perfect would be a checkbox under Theme Settings that says "Turn off fallback image behavior" 🙂
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkOctober 20, 2013 at 5:24 pm #67910MealtogMember@brianliddell, I am not sure what you are referring to as I never provided a solution to any of the tech issues discussed in this thread. I am the original poster and wanted to get feedback from others on how the Featured Image was handled in the new Pro themes.
As an update, it is much more clear as to how I will personally handle the Featured Image issues. Here is how and why:
1. Featured Image is a WordPress feature so I am going to move forward and include a Featured Images in every post that I create. Not sure other users requirements but in every post, I want a featured image attached.
2. For those who does not like how Genesis handles Featured Image, I think there has to be an easy solution for future releases. Like a check box to opt out of the auto show feature for a featured image is one is not selected. It makes sense for those who need it. For most, I assume an auto grab is actually a good thing.
3. Because the RSS feed as it stands requires an featured image to able attached or it wil not display an image. Because I want an image in my feed, I will need to attach a featured image.
4. As I mentioned, there is not really a big downside to adding an extra step in attaching a featured image when I make a post. Yes, there is server storage space and others who require to not use a featured image but considering the long term, if we were to move away from Genesis, WordPress itself has a featured image issue and if you ever want this again, it would be a nightmare to go back to every post and re-add the featured image.
This is my conclusion on how I want my blog to be set up. I will use a Featured Image from here on out.
October 21, 2013 at 2:52 am #67969Gary JonesMemberI think that code needs checking Gary.
Code fixed - that's what I get for editing in an improvement in the Gist, instead of my editor.
Gary, I just tried it out on Gensis 2.0, and the image behavior that I occasionally grumble about is still present.
Other uses within Genesis use different contexts, so if you want the change of fallback to affect them, you'll need to edit the code (such as removing the conditional entirely).
So for some of us, it’s the fallback behavior that’s the problem here, and after so many years of Genesis doing it wrong, the users should finally be able to have a way to enable or disable that behavior at their choosing.
I fully understand the problem. I'm the one who insisted that a way to turn it off be included. For backwards compatibility, we MUST keep with the default experience, and have to add a snippet of code to turn that feature off, if it's not what you want.
WordPress Engineer, and key contributor the Genesis Framework | @GaryJ
October 21, 2013 at 2:54 am #67970Gary JonesMemberMy hack solution above still seems to work OK:
– In Genesis > lib > functions > image.php file at line 80, change the ‘fallback’ setting from ‘first-attached’ to ‘ ‘
Hacking Genesis is NOT a solution. When Genesis auto-updates, you'll forget to go and do that change again (or Genesis might do something else with those values), and you'll be back to the beginning. My code snippet makes the same change of value, but with a filter.
WordPress Engineer, and key contributor the Genesis Framework | @GaryJ
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