New Instagram Format

Hey fakruljamil,

Thanks for your question. I’ve been looking into this and it looks like it depends on how the photo was uploaded. Some non-square photos when uploaded to Instagram will have white space automatically added to the sides (example) and some will be cropped to a square (example). Our plugin will display whatever the Instagram API provides in the image source field for that photo, so it looks like it depends how the photo is processed when it’s uploaded. Instagram doesn’t have any documentation on this at the moment as it’s such a new addition, but we’ll definitely update the plugin to accommodate any changes if needed. Currently there’s not much we can do in the plugin itself though as we’re only able to display the photos that Instagram provides in their API.

If you have any other questions at all then just let me know, and I hope you’re having a good weekend!

John

Hi smashballoon,

Is there a way around the images displaying, by playing with the image resolution, such as below:

imageres The resolution/size of the photos. ‘auto’, full’, ‘medium’ or ‘thumb’. [instagram-feed imageres=full]

or will this not remedy the fact that Instagram is adding white background to non-square images?

Looking to resolve the same issue on my feed.

Thanks,

Alex

Hey Alex,

Changing the resolution won’t make any difference at this point. I’ve been doing some more research and it may be possible for me to work around this and produce a square cropped version of the images with no white borders. It sounds like if the photo is uploaded as a “square” image then Instagram automatically adds white spaces to images which aren’t actually square in order to make them square, in this case there’s nothing we can do about it as the images are sent to the plugin with the white spaces in the image files themselves. However, if the photo is uploaded as “landscape” or “portrait” then there’s a way for us to access those original sized photos, without white spaces added to them. In this situation we can then use some JavaScript magic to crop the images into squares in the feed. I’m going to experiment with this a little bit to make sure it works reliably, but in theory it should solve the problem. It might take me a little while to get it released (as my wife is about to have a baby!) but I’ll try to get it figured out as soon as possible.

John

Hi Smashballoon,

Thanks fort the prompt response and congrats on the baby on the way. Question though you’re saying if the photo is uploaded as landscape or profile, then your remedy could work. However, isn’t Instagram automatically adding white space like you said? For example I’m uploading landscape and profile images (not adding any borders, background or white spaces) to IG, and when it saves the photo back to my camera roll I don’t see any white space. Do you think then my photos would work with your fix? I really hope so.

Best of luck with the new baby!

Alexandra

Hey Alexandra,

It sounds like it should work for your photos. It wouldn’t work on any existing photos which Instagram has already added white space to, only the new ones which don’t have the white space. From what I’ve read, Instagram has been rolling out the update to certain platforms at different times so some users are able to upload them without the white space but for some users it’s still added. If you send me either the User ID or a link to your Instagram account then I can test with it during development to see whether it works successfully for your photos.

Thanks, I’m gonna need all the luck I can get! ??

John

Hi Smashballoon.

Thanks for the great plugin. I’m also looking for the same feature as mentioned above.

Enjoy being a parent!

Thanks! ??

Just as an update; I did some testing and was able to add a workaround for this into the Pro version of the plugin last night. I’ll be working on adding it into the free version as soon as I’m able to.

John

That’s awesome, I came here with the same question. Using the free version of the plugin.
In the meantime if I ask my client to re-upload their landscape and portrait photos while selecting the correct format, will that work?
Thanks!

Hey tnightingale,

You can ask them to try it with a couple of photos but I don’t think it will make any different until I’ve added the workaround until the free version of the plugin.

John

Hey guys,

Just to let you know that I just pushed out an update which should now display square-cropped photos for all users of the free version! If you update to version 1.3.8 then it should display the photos in a nice square cropped format.

Please let me know whether it works for you all, and thanks for using the plugin ??

John

Awesome, thanks!! I won’t be able to tell if it works yet because in the meantime we asked the client to re-upload their images square as a fix. I’ll let them know that they can try non-square images next time, and will let you know how that goes.

Thanks John!

I’m seeing some changes, but not seeing square cropped. Wish I could send you a screenshot, but you can see what’s on at the footer of our homepage (www.bookitlyst.com) or the side bar of our blog (www.bookitlyst.com/blog).

Thanks!

Hey alexandra,

It doesn’t look like either of the Instagram feeds on those sites are using our plugin. It looks like they’re using a widget called ‘mk-instagram-feeds’. Our plugin doesn’t come with a built-in widget and so to display it in a widget you’d need to add our [instagram-feed] shortcode to a default WordPress ‘Text’ widget. Could you do that and let me know whether the square-cropped photos are displayed?

Many thanks,

John

Thanks John. It’s working perfectly for me.

Thank you for your speedy update!

Deborah
https://www.puresweetjoy.com

Awesome, glad to hear that Deborah, thanks for letting me know!

John