you might also like...

firstly, our problem is that by default, the feed that comes with wordpress does not include thumbnails, so when you auto-share your feed on facebook to keep all of your friends up to date with your goings on, there is no thumbnail attached to the article.

whereas when somebody shares a blogpost from say Flickr or Blogspot, they have a nice thumbnail image to accompany the article.
This brings me to the code.
the files you will need to hack up are as follows:wp-includes/feed-rss2.php

<side note> when i was testing changes to my rss feed, i did two things.

1. removed line 31 & 32 in “feed-rss2.php”

   <sy:updatePeriod><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_period', 'hourly' ); ?></sy:updatePeriod>

    <sy:updateFrequency><?php echo apply_filters( 'rss_update_frequency', '1' ); ?></sy:updateFrequency>

2. use a firefox plugin called "Cache Status"


   this add-on lets you quickly clear the FF cache so you can refresh your rss feed and see if the edits you just made too effect.

</side note>

below is the original code from “feed-rss2.php” (This begins around like 36)

and this is the modified code

and that’s all there is to it!

wait! I hear you say. Where the crap are you getting the info for the “pft_square” variable?

Good question, and i’ll answer you now.
to create thumbnails for my posts i use a great plugin called WP Post Thumbnail.
(as of the time of this post, it is in version: 0.2 Beta 2 ) When i first began using the WP Post Thumbnail Plugin by default it named the thumbnails “pft_square”, “pft_rectangle”, and something else. so since i had already begun using that variable, i kept it.

it can be whatever you like, and i plan to write a loop that checks for several different variables, but i don’t need to right now since i know how it works, so suck on that.

anyway, back to the thumbnail creation for the post.

then i followed these steps:

then you’re left with this:

which then gives you a new custom field (once you publish the post) of:

then your rss feed will include that thumbnail.

and that as they say, is that.

other helpful Info:

How to Format Images for Feed Readers

How To Insert Custom Image Thumbnail on Facebook Link Sharing

5 tips for optimizing your brands (on facebook)

you might also like...

To a page that looks like this:

What file to do you edit?

• in the wp-includes folder

• “post-template.php” file arount line 111 (See images below for reference)

Original Code Unedited:

Edited Code :

Full original code: begins Line 111
if ( !is_admin() ) {
if ( !empty($post->post_password) ) {
$protected_title_format = apply_filters('protected_title_format', __('Protected: %s'));
$title = sprintf($protected_title_format, $title);


Final Edited Code: begins Line 111
if ( !is_admin() ) {
if ( !empty($post->post_password) ) {
$protected_image_title = "<IMG SRC=http://www.yourdomain.com/img/padlock.gif id=no>";
$protected_title_format = apply_filters('protected_title_format', __('%s'));
$titles = sprintf($protected_title_format, $title);
$title = "$protected_image_title $titles";
// $protected_title_format = apply_filters('protected_title_format', __('Protected: %s'));
// $title = sprintf($protected_title_format, $title);

The same thing will work with the “Private:” pages, but i wasn’t concerned with those.

you might also like...

i get asked fairly frequently how to swap out the images in the gallery.

Note:  The image should be the proper size proportionally, or it’s going to look weird.

you might also like...