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In the WordPress content management system, a featured image is one of the most important elements of a post. It allows you to easily attract readers' attention and increase engagement. Although WordPress gives us the ability to manually add featured images, we don't always have time for it or forget about it. Moreover, for many sites with high traffic or for sites generating a large amount of content, automating this process can significantly improve workflow. In this article, we will discuss several methods to automatically add featured images for new posts in WordPress.
1. Using the "Auto Post Thumbnail" plugin
One of the simplest solutions is to use a plugin that automatically generates featured images. “Auto Post Thumbnail” is one such plugin. It allows you to automatically create thumbnails from the first image added to the post.
After installing and activating this plugin, each new post will automatically receive a featured image based on the first image added to the post content. If there is no image in the post, the plugin does not add a thumbnail.
2. Using the "Quick Featured Images" plugin
Another plugin that can be used is “Quick Featured Images”. This plugin offers many advanced features such as setting featured images in bulk, setting default images for posts without images, as well as rules for automatically setting featured images.
After installing and activating the plugin, you need to go to 'Quick Featured Images > Settings' to configure the rules for featured images. This plugin allows you to set rules based on categories, tags, post types and many other criteria.
3. Using PHP code to add a default image
If you don't want to use a plugin, you can use PHP code that automatically adds a default image to any post that doesn't have a featured image set. Below is a simple snippet of code that can be added to the file functions.php in your theme:
add_action('the_post', 'auto_set_featured'); function auto_set_featured() { global $post; if(!has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) { $default_image_id = 123; // Default image ID set_post_thumbnail($post->ID, $default_image_id); } }Note: In the above code, variable $default_image_id should be changed to the image ID you want to set as the default image.
To summarize, there are many methods to automatically add featured images to posts in WordPress. Choosing the right method depends on the specific needs of your website. Remember that providing a good user experience is key here, so always try to choose images that are attractive and match the content of your post.