The featured image function in WordPress is great. Because so many themes take advantage of it these days, you are missing an opportunity to spruce up your site if you don’t take advantage of it as well.
The problem is that sometimes it’s easy to forget to upload the featured image. This is especially true for many clients or site users who have publishing permission. It’s also one more thing for them to learn and have to remember.
The Auto Featured Image plugin makes this problem go away. It automatically inserts the first image from your post into your featured image spot.
It also has the ability to do this for posts that were published before the plugin was installed. You will just need to go to the settings page for the plugin and click the one and only button. (Settings > Auto Featured Image)
And that’s it. Everything else is taken care of behind the scenes.
Featured Plugin - WordPress Newsletter Plugin
Photo: Beautiful Sceneries in Photos on Green Field Background from BigStock
This looks perfect! Just last week I had user forget to add the featured image and it left a big blank spot in the slider! Thanks!
Argh, just looked at the comments on the WP plugin page, 8 say it is broken!
It wasn’t broken for me. You might try it.
Oh I will! Just hate seeing that, and I keep in mind most people only post if it is broke! :)
Unfortunately, it’s only interested in processing 22 posts for me which is a LONG shot from being all of them. It runs without error and says its done but 22 is absolutely not done. WP 3.3.1, Thesis 1.7.2 Continues to only process 22 when the site is put in maintenance mode and all other plugins than it are downed.
Kim
Kimberly – You might try marking it as not working on the WordPress plugin page, and then it will take you to the forums where you can post your issue. The plugin’s developer may be able to look into the problem for you if you do that.
Updated 81 posts from my own blog, each had an image in the gallery for the post – worked perfectly on WP v3.4.2 & 1.2 version of plugin – took minutes, saved me hours!
Ian – Glad it worked.
This plugin, nor the one it is forked with, is working for me.
Original:
http://www.sanisoft.com/blog/2010/04/19/wordpress-plugin-automatic-post-thumbnail/
It does create thumbnails for new posts, but will not add thumbnails for the posts that are already published.
This could have something to do with the new post_thumbnail (or whatever hook they are using), or it may have something to do with my web server settings. There’s a chance my wp-uploads folder is too restrictive, but I’m not having problems with attaching an image to a post- so that doesn’t seem likely.
Wish it did work though.
Update: This plugin will not work if the images are not located on your server. Have seen this problem with other methods/hacks, so perhaps the way to fix this would be to have the plugin author download the images and store them remotely, and then upload from this folder to attach as thumbnail.
Obviously, this is less than desirable, because it removes the efficiency provided by a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Currently, there is no way to include an external image as a featured post image in WordPress.
Thanks for the info, Seth.