Scaled Images in Display WordPress Posts Widget

Hi John, thanks for the report! Could you provide me with a link that shows this issue? Then I’d be happy to take a look.

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for touching base… I appreciate your help.

Go to https://LakePath.com
Scroll left column to PREVIEW FROM OUR “LE LAC BLOG”
See first post: “Wrap Your House Around This”
Note that HTML/CSS is re-sizing it to 122×69
Now right-click on the image and save it to disk
You’ll see the actual file size is 1.61MB and 3984×2241

Of course, I know we should be scaling those down a bit in the original blog/post ??

Now, check out our Lake Path Blog:
https://lakepath.com/buying-or-selling-a-vacation-home-in-southwest-michigan-part-2/

Scroll all the way to the bottom to see “Related” posts… See how you’re scaling down the images there, rather than allowing HTML/CSS to re-size?

So I’m wondering if JetPack Display WordPress Posts Widget could scale them down like it does in the Related Posts feature. (But just lock them in at 122×69, without cropping like Related Posts does)

Can you let me know if there is something I can try in CSS or by editing the Display WordPress Posts code to scale the images down?

Thanks,

John

Thanks for the info, John! I see what you mean. I’m afraid scaling down these images isn’t quite as simple as it is for Related Posts. For Related Posts, the images live on your site. So, Jetpack can easily scale those images as needed. However, the Display WordPress Posts widget pulls in images from a remote site. So, the widget can only fetch the Featured Images that are set on that remote site.

With that said, I’ve passed this suggestion along to our developers. You can follow along with our discussion and progress here:
https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/2151

I hope this helps to clear things up! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Hi Ryan,

I appreciate the follow up.

I wanted to present this as a possible idea:

Say JetPack is installed on a blog, we’ll call it the Origination Blog. JetPack creates a 122×69 image (from the featured image) for each new post at the time of posting (or upon updating a post), stores it on the Origination Blog and makes it accessible to Destination Blogs using JetPacks Display WordPress Posts Widget (rather than using the full-sized feature image).

Ideally, you’d need to create a function that seeks out prior posts and creates the 122×69 image for older posts, maybe upon enabling the widget or upon demand???

Hey… sounds simple right? Just kidding of course. But what do you expect when you guys do such amazing work and make every thing look so easy ??

Anyway, thanks again and I’ll follow the discussion link you provided.

John

Thanks for the suggestion, John!

You’re welcome.

If you could implement something, it would have a HUGE impact on Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix results.

With “Show Featured Image” enabled:
Mobile Speed 28/100
Desktop Speed 28/100
GTmetrix Page Speed Grade 61% (D)

With “Show Featured Image” disabled:
Mobile Speed 55/100
Desktop Speed 70/100
GTmetrix Page Speed Grade 90% (A)

Hi Ryan,

I noticed (in the https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/2151 link you provided) that Brandon Kraft stated:
“Reclassifying as a bug. We shouldn’t ever have been pulling down a 5000×5000 featured image to fit in a little box.”

Anyone using this feature has no control over the image sizes that an Originating Site uses, and probably has no idea the kind of impact the resulting slower page speeds could have on SEO.

Would it be appropriate… or even necessary… for me to share these thoughts on GitHub, or is that area intended more for you serious Guru types? ??

Thanks,

John

Hi John, I’ve added a link to this forum thread on that GitHub Issue. You can add any additional comments if you’d like!