WordPress Auto Blog WP O Matic Thumbnail Solutions

Hi,

I am working on a white hat Wordpress auto-blogging project for the purpose of building a strong news hub catered to a specific industry. To do this I am testing out a prototype using the Gabfire Advanced Newspaper Theme with the WP-O-Matic and Get the Image plugins. Everything has been going well so far, but I have hit 4 snags when it comes to adding thumbnail custom fields for which I am working to find a path to a solution.

Snag 1: The Gabfire Advanced Newspaper Theme utilizes images extensively, but fails to detect images embedded in post content automatically. This requires that a post contain a custom field designated as "thumbnail" in order for the theme to use the image.

Snag 2: WP-O-Matic does not automatically or have an option available for inserting custom fields, but it does store images locally with its cache feature.

Snag 3: Get the Image adds thumbnails from images Cached by WP-O-Matic, but they are of poor quality.

Snag 4: I code primarily in VB and C#. I am new to PHP and barely familiar with the WordPress CMS, so I find myself feeling like a foreigner wandering maze of code like an illegal alien in the desert.


Paths to Solution

Part 1:

I want to add thumbnail custom fields to my posts on insert and I have isolated the function in WP-O-Matic (line 652) that builds the post, but I don't know what file calls that function or the best way to add in the meta data. I've found the location where the $content variable is built (line 575), but have not determined the best place to search the field for an image and build the custom field.

Part 2:

After locating the best place to search for an image in the post content I want to integrate the code from the image scan function used by Get the Image to add a thumbnail to the post if it has an image. The Get the Image code uses a regular expression to detect image html tags. I tried to post the code, but it triggered the moderation system.

Sounds like a good plan but you won't be able to post links or code until your post count reaches a certain amount. If you try to circumvent that you might get banned.

So if I were you I would try to reach that number by making relevant posts in different threads.

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure what the number is so I guess I'll just have to hold out hope for someone who knows what I'm talking about to post them or something. I only wanted to post 2 links to WordPress and 1 to the theme, so people don't have to Google them to know what I am talking about.

Black Hat should have an option for these type of scenarios. For instance I run user generated content (UGC) sites in my spare time and I find you can keep good users happy and your site link spam free simply by using Microsoft's LinkButton controls and redirecting people by grabbing the URL out of a database when the button is clicked.

ReliableNewsNow said:

Paths to Solution

Part 1:

I want to add thumbnail custom fields to my posts on insert and I have isolated the function in WP-O-Matic (line 652) that builds the post, but I don't know what file calls that function or the best way to add in the meta data. I've found the location where the $content variable is built (line 575), but have not determined the best place to search the field for an image and build the custom field.

Part 2:

After locating the best place to search for an image in the post content I want to integrate the code from the image scan function used by Get the Image to add a thumbnail to the post if it has an image. The Get the Image code uses a regular expression to detect image html tags. I tried to post the code, but it triggered the moderation system.

Click to expand...

I've been looking for this exact type of solution for this exact problem for WEEKS now. Did you ever find the solution?

My endgame is to trigger the 'scrubbing' for IMG tags when WP-O-Matic crons RSS feeds to Posts. Then makes that first IMG tag that post's thumbnail. More or less, exactly what you wanted as well.