thumbnails of most recent pictures

i’m trying to figure this out too. unsuccessfully, but.

one way i thought of doing it was using the ‘add custom fields’ option in the posting page- and using it to include an image. so i added custom field ‘postimage’ and pasted an <img src=… there.

then i edited the template to include this custom field using apparently the only template tag that displays this info. the_meta();

This is what I tried in my template, using this as a link to the post, instead of title and excerpt:

"><?php the_meta(); ?>

unfortunately, the derned the_meta function adds in tags: ul, li and span. so it’s quite aggravating. not sure where to go next- looking for the_meta, but it’s not in functions.php… and the other functions like get_post_meta don’t apparently display anything in templates.

any other ideas out there??

<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_meta(); ?></a>

ug.

Put the link to the thumbnail as the excerpt and then use the customisable post listings plugin to call the excerpt where you want? (This assumes that your pics are in a category of their own). – This is the method I used on my site.

Updated: Just remembered that doing this wraps the img in a paragraph tags, which (if you use the thumbnail as a link) will result in invalid xhtml. I use the wpauto plugin (with the_content bit taken out) to strip the tags from the excerpt.

that will fix everything, where the excerpt would be just an <img src= tag

this is the plug-in, btw:

https://dev.wp-plugins.org/file/disable-wpautop/trunk/disable-wpautop.php

as you say above, remove the line:

remove_filter('the_content', 'wpautop');

next, upload this to plugins folder, then activate it in admin > plugins.

then- edit your template, and where you want to list excerpts (images) with links to posts, use this in your template:

<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_excerpt(); ?></a>

nearlythere: this would work without the plugin:

<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_excerpt_rss(); ?></a>

the_excerpt_rss() doesn’t wrap the excerpt in a paragraph tag (or anything else).

wow that would be much easier. thank you, Kafkaesqui.

oi vay.

i actually have bruises from bashing my head against the wall trying to get WP to play nice. mainly it’s the aggravation of not knowing how to find answers to simple questions- with useful demonstrative exaamples.

i’m flipping putting this in the codex.

If you do, make sure to provide a caveat that using the excerpt this way *may* affect ones rss feed.

noted, thank you. i assume because you mean it will include an img tag, instead of excerpted text. this really isn’t a perfect solution then. how irrigating. but better than the other options.

I am adding images to the <<previous & next>> buttons. Those images are thumbnails of the images that are in the previous & next posts.
Will this work for that type of treatment as well?

I see. This will work just fine for associating a small image with each post,. but is there a way to call either the post_meta or post_excerpt from a previous post? Like for attaching to the <<previous & next>> buttons?

I just tried this:
<?php next_posts_link($format='%link »', $link='%title', $link='%excerpt') ?>

thinking that it would pull the exerpt ( the small thumb image) from the next post.
I fee like I am on the right track.