add image above the loop? Function?

If the widget route is the direction you want to go, first you need to register a new widget in your themes function.php:

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'Post Image Widget',
'before_widget' => '',
'after_widget' => '',
'before_title' => '',
'after_title' => '',
));
?>

Then you simply need to add the widget to your themes post.php before The Loop:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Post Image Widget') ) : ?>

Post Image Widget being whatever you want to name the widget. You can then add a text widget with with your <img /> tag in the body. If you’re looking for a more user friendly route, add the above code to your theme and install the Image Widget.

There’s a good “widgetizing” tutorial here.

Thanks BODA82. I’ll try it out! Really just getting into PHP and making WP do stuff outside of the box. Hadn’t realized creating a widget was so simple.

Indeed, adding widgets are easy. And I apologize because I misspoke before. You said you only wanted it on the homepage, so you’ll want to utilize the is_home conditional or you can depend on a plugin. If you don’t want to depend on a plugin you can do something like this:

<?php if ( is_home()) {
    <?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Post Image Widget') ) : ?>
} else {
  // don't display the widget
} ?>

I’ve not actually tired this, so if it doesn’t work give me a shout and I’ll do some testing myself.

hehe…after popping it in above the loop and added the <?php endif; ?> it needed to let the page load, I realized it needed to be conditional. I’ve been trying to work it in just as you show above, in place of the hard coded banner that I had in the conditional.

But it creates a syntax issue that I haven’t gotten past. I did find that there is a plugin called Widget Logic which add conditional fields to all widgets. Pretty nifty. But I was still trying to see if it would work without that extra plugin.

This should work:

<?php if ( is_home()) { ?>
    <?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar("Post Image Widget") ) : ?><?php endif; ?>
<?php } else { ?>
    <!-- Not The Homepage -->
<?php } ?>

You’ll have to style it accordingly. I suggest something like:

<?php
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'Post Image Widget',
'before_widget' => '<div id="home-widget">',
'after_widget' => '</div>',
'before_title' => '',
'after_title' => '',
));
?>

Then give your stylesheet #home-widget with the appropriate styles depending on your theme.

Perfect! Thank man. It was the syntax of the function itself.