Wishing for Easier Ability to Add Photos in Word Press

I don’t know how could it be “easier”… maybe you can describe what your wish is (although no guarantee it will ever happen).
Did you have a chance to read this Using_Image_and_File_Attachments

Thanks for the article reference. It’s helping me figure this out. However your comment “I don’t know how it could be easier” is very strange. It ain’t easy by any stretch. I’m more than computer literate and this process is difficult at best. Yes, since you know how it’s done it seems easy but for a novice it’s extremely difficult. Word Press needs to update how adding images works to make it much more simple.

I guess we don’t understand how it could be any easier. Could you be more clear?

I mean, all you do is to scroll down while writing a post, find the Upload tab, upload your photo there (which does mean finding the file and hitting the upload button), then selecting the thumbnail of the photo you just uploaded, choosing how you want it to be in the post, and clicking the Send to Editor button to put it in the post.

What’s difficult, exactly, about that? Every step is a simple one, and a necessary one. You choose the photo, put it on the site, then put it into the post. How could it be simplified any?

Saying that you find it difficult is not helpful. What, exactly, is difficult about it? Which part are you having trouble with?

The problem most people have is not uploading the photos, but sizing and formatting them properly for the template they’re using. Having to figure out the proper size for their template’s main content column, then resizing each photo manually before uploading, is a time consuming pain. Then you have to enter the right style calls into your <img> tag, so the photo will be positioned and styled properly.

I haven’t decided myself what the best way to handle all of this is. Flickr and a companion plugin? Some other plugin, or combination of plugin and photo service?

I can figure something out, but I’m not sure about non-technical users.

As a lover and tester of the WordPress platform I’ll agree that although the built-in editor functions reasonably well, it definitely has a learning curve for those new to using it. Most folks are used to using the image insert function via a toolbar button such as any popular word processing program or even email client would have. May not sound like a reasonable excuse to some but in my experience working with WordPress users, this is a common complaint. The built-in editor has never been a “be all, end all” blog writer and does have it’s limitations.

A couple solutions are available though. The first is immediate for Windows users and that’s “Windows Live Writer” which is a local blog editor you install on your computer (just Google it). It requires .Net Framework 2.0 to work but that’s easily downloaded from MS also. It’s an excellent and very popular blog editor. For Apple users I there’s the popular “MarsEdit” program.

The second solution, if you don’t mind waiting that is, is the new TinyMCE editor in WP 2.5 is much improved especially in regards to image uploading, insertion and manipulation. Unfortunately you won’t be seeing this until the release in March of this year but either way, I highly recommend Widows Live Writer irregardless. WordPress now directly supports Writer since version 2.3.1.

Hope this helps.

KirkM — I’m using 2.5 now and while the new editor is slicker, I can’t say it’s much easier, just different.

The easiest way to put photos into your site is with flickr/Picasa plugins. You may be limited in your display and styling options, but if you accept how they do it you won’t have to worry about how everything looks if you change templates.

I just wish template makers would document their templates, and let us know how many pixels wide their columns are.