Today’s Question: What’s the use of Wordpress 2.9’s new ‘post thumbnail’ feature if I’m using an older theme with its own thumbnail hack?
Answer: If you’re a user (as opposed to a theme developer) there’s a big upside to Wordpress’ new thumbnail feature — that is, if you care about people visiting your site from an iPhone or other Web-enabled smartphones.
It’s quite possible you’re already using a Wordpress theme that automatically generates a thumbnail from images you upload to accompany a blog post or page (check out how I’ve implemented it on the home page of Blue Seraph Productions). So why should you care if your theme already takes care of thumbnails?
A HACK Wordpress themes that created thumbnails for you did so courtesy of a hack concocted by your theme’s developer; thumbnails weren’t a built-in feature of Wordpress up til now. As of version 2.9, Wordpress includes thumbnails as part of its core functions. Great, right? It is for developers of new themes, or those who update their old themes, to take advantage of it.
Where this makes a difference for a regular Wordpress user like you and me is what smartphone visitors to our sites see. Thanks to the amazing plugin, WPtouch, your site becomes smartphone-friendly without you having to write a lick of code. A recent revision to WPtouch took advantage of the post-thumbnail feature, allowing you to replace calendar icons on your mobile-version homepage with a thumbnail image. The result: a less generic-looking version of your mobile Web site.
BEFORE AND AFTER The combination of Wordpress 2.9’s thumbnail feature and WPtouch gives your mobile Web site a brighter, more individualized look.
