PICS WordPress Plugin
PICS (Picture Increment Cron System) is a WordPress Plugin designed to allow you to automatically post pictures to your WordPress blog at a administrator determined timed interval.
Have a bunch of photos that you want to show on your blog one at a time but you don’t want to go through all the hassle of making a separate post for each picture? Then this is the WordPress Plugin you have been waiting for.
Requirements:
- WordPress 2.5+ (Could work on lower versions, but we will only support the WordPress 2.5+.)
- MySQL 5+ (Could work on 4.1.1 but we haven’t tested it on that.)
Current Version: 1.0 (June 16, 2008)
Download: PICS v 1.0
WordPress Compatibility: Tested on WordPress 2.5.1
History:
One of us runs a website where they post a new photo every day from a very large collection. However, that same one person is pretty lazy when it comes to creating a new post for each photo. So this WordPress Plugin was the solution for that one persons laziness.
Features / Benefits:
- User defined timed posting of images from a single directory.
- Optional incremented title (ex. Vacation Photo # 1, Vacation Photo #2, Vacation Photo #1,345, etc…)
- Increment starting number can be set to any numeric value.
- Posts can be added to the categories of your choice.
- Posts can have the tags of your choice.
- Images can have the ALT tag of your choice.
- Image directory can be set by user.
- Images are chosen at random.
- No image will be repeated. (Unless you have the same photo under different names.)
Installation Instructions:
- Upload
- Activate
- Go to Settings/PICS to set options
- That’s it.
PICS Options:
Image Directory:
This is where you can set which directory PICS will look at for images.
Post Title:
This is the post title that will be given to each image posted.
Show Increment:
If you want an increment shown after the post title (ex. Vacation Photo #1, Vacation Photo #2, etc…) then check this box.
Increment Start Number:
What number would you like to have as the starting point for the incrementation? (1 is the default.)
Image ALT Tag:
What would you like the image ALT tag to be? (The default is blank.)
Categories:
What Categories would you like the images to be placed under? (You can pick more than one.)
Tags:
What Tags would you like each image to have? (The default is none.)
Interval:
How long should PICS wait before posting the next image? (In seconds.)
Known Bugs:
- None.
Screen Shots:
Nag screen tells you to configure the plugin.
Settings screen. With obligatory plethora of options.
Settings Complete screen to let you know when you set it up, when it will go off next and how many times it has gone off total. Spiffy, yes?
Link Love:
At the bottom of every third image posted there will be a small link saying “Posted with PICS”. This link will have the style tag “PICS” attached to it so you can change the color if you wish to something that blends into your theme.
Some people may not like showing this type of link love, but we have put a lot of work into this WordPress Plugin and we sincerely hope that the value of this plugin will outweigh any inconvenience caused.
This is the first of what we hope will be many useful WordPress Plugins. We truly hope that you will find this WordPress Plugin useful. If you have any questions or comments, we invite you to leave them below in the comments section.
UPDATE (Jun-24, 2008):
I forgot to add a couple of features.
- Images are picked from the selected directory at random.
- Each image will only be posted once.
- When there are no more pictures to post, the plugin will stop posting images.
Thank you,
The TIAFO team.
Tags: Images, PICS, Plugins, WordPress, WordPress Plugins
Filed under WordPress Plugins :
Comments (20) :
Jun 14th, 2008
July 5th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
[...] Automated Picture Posting Plugin [...]
July 5th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
[...] Automated Picture Posting Plugin [...]
July 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
[...] Automated Picture Posting Plugin [...]
July 5th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
hi there.
thsi seems exactly what I was looking for, but I’ll first explain what I wnat it to do, maybe you can clarify if it does that?
I have a very old picture gallery implementation, meaning every picture is a single post. the posts are then put into categories, i.e. there is a category for each set of pictures.
Now I have a lot of pictures from past hollidays which I have to upload. BUt being lazy, I have no time to give them all an appropiate title, so I would be fine if I could use your plugin to do this.
will this plugin help? how does it input the pictures?
I would need to have the pictures loaded as an IMG tag into the content and as a A tag with the thumbnail linking to the main picture inside the excerpt.
check the needed format out here: http://pacura.ru/pictures/wine-tasting-pictures/at-the-beach-in-strand
July 5th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Hi Ovidiu,
The plugin doesn’t currently make thumbnails. But that is a very cool idea for the next version. Also, it does not make a contact sheet (a bunch of thumbnails in one post). (Another cool idea.)
What it will do is allow you to post any pictures in a given directory. You select the category you want them posted into, enter the alt tags and post tags and then set the time interval. Then it will post 1 random image in a individual post at the set interval. When it has posted all the images it will wait until you either turn it off or put more pictures in the chosen directory.
A user of this plugin has allowed us to use their site as an example of the results. The URL is http://blog.stonecamel.com (This link has PG pictures of girls as a forewarning.)
Thank you for the ideas. We will add them to the to-do list.
TIAFO Team
July 6th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Hi there, when I try to activate the plugin I get :
Zend Optimizer not installed
What can I do?
July 6th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Hello Øyvind,
Zend Optimizer needs to be installed on your web server for this plugin to work. Zend Optimizer is a free program that your web provider can put on your server. It helps the plugin run much faster and it also helps protect the code.
We apologize for not mentioning the need for Zend Optimizer. It is a very standard thing for web servers to have so we didn’t even think about it.
TIAFO Team
July 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hi! thanks for responding so quickly. I am very eager to try your plugin so I’m gonna try to install Zend Optimizer.
July 7th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hi great looking plugin I have lots of users who have blogs and this will be great for them. One thing that would be great for a future version is at least a small section where you can add some text or link to the posts. Say you have it set to post pics from your trip to France it could add the text Vegas trip 2008 and link to the full gallery for all the pics it posts from that directory.
July 7th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Hi Alan,
Thank you for the compliment. Your idea is a good one and it has been added to the to-do list for the next version.
Have a great day,
TIAFO Team
July 7th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Hmm plugin just is posting blank images does not seem to function correctly for me. Blank image X and editing post shows post is pointing to the directory but not to any picture
July 7th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Hi Alan,
I sent you a possible solution via email. But I will also post it here for other peoples benefit.
We think the problem is caused because your image names have a space in them. If you remove the space in the file names it should fix the issue.
We have added this issue to our to-do list for the next version of the plugin. It should be available in about a week.
Have a great day,
TIAFO Team
July 8th, 2008 at 12:03 am
another great idea would be if your plugin could ‘process’ the images from the respective folder, through the upload of wordpress and thus create thumbnails and resize images to the sizes I specified there…
maybe even work together with the flexible upload plugin?
July 14th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
[...] Automated Picture Posting Plugin [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
[...] Automated Picture Posting Plugin [...]
July 17th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Hi,
I have got the same problem as Alan – PICS posts no images, the image-tag only points to the directory.
I have checked and there is only one image in the directory with the filename “krco02111.jpg” – so no space in the name.
Any suggestions?
July 28th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
hey guys, i love the idea behind this plugin. a few small errors i’ve had:
1. same as people above, it created a post, but the img tag didn’t have any data related to the photo.
either
A. it errored and didn’t complete the post properly, or
B. it was reading from the wrong directory (or a non existant directory, and couldn’t find an image).
However, if B is the answer, it shouldn’t have created a post at all, since you said this plugin stops working if the directory is empty.
2. when i had an empty directory, it still spat out a post with an X picture.
3. wordpress ‘centre’ option doesn’t always centre images, due to theme scripting. your plugin doesn’t centre images either (refer to suggestion #3).
don’t get me wrong. your hard work is much appreciated. since i’m traveling next year, this is going to be a seriously useful plugin for me. so, if you don’t mind, i’d like to make some suggestions.
1. pause/resume button … rather than resetting the entire module every time, pausing would allow you to edit some settings, then resume the posts (ie, it remembers where you’re up to).
2. size options. wordpress now allows users to specify the displayed image size either in pixels or as a percentage. this would be useful.
3. more flexible positioning options. it’d be nice to be able to use html or code when positioning the picture. for some themes, wordpress’ default ‘centre’ option doesn’t always work.
4. perhaps an ajax script which can verify that the target directory exists and contains images.
5. change the interval options. posting daily requires entering a number like 86400 seconds. radio buttons with seconds, minutes, hours, days and the number box would give users easier options. 1 day is better than 86400 seconds
6. when the schedule is ‘on’ it’s impossible to view the current settings. it would be useful if more data was displayed to show what the settings are for the current schedule.
… like i said, great work on this plugin! kudos for coming up with the idea.
i haven’t contributed or donated to many plugins, but this plugin is one i will watch closely and definitely donate to if it becomes more useful.
i’m looking forward to the next version!
cheers
david smeaton
http://www.davidsmeaton.com
July 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Hi All,
I think the problem you are having may be a database issue. We originally designed this for MySQL 5+. However, we are looking into making it compatible with older versions now.
Also, keep an eye out here. We will be releasing a brand new version of this plugin very soon with a ton of features people have been asking for. Plus we have a companion plugin that will be making its debut at the same time.
TIAFO Team
August 8th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
[...] Picture Increment Cron System turns a collection of pics inside a directory into one post day Fun idea. Alas, the plugin is encrypted with Zen Guard, which makes its source completely obfuscated and unreadable, which is in itself enough reason for me not to install a plugin. By the way, I think this infringes the Plugin Competition guidelines, as well as the WordPress plugin repository, which requires plugin to be GPL compatible. Yuck. Sucks. [...]
September 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Is the new version nearing completion? This plugin would be perfect for a new site I’m working on but currently doesn’t work with 2.6.1 the categories section is blank and the posts are pictureless (url leading just to the directory as others have stated)