Thanks to a major WordPress upgrade, adding pictures and other media to your posts is now much, much easier. My previous, carefully-written instructions are now moot. Hooray.

Now, when you are in the Write Posts screen, there’s an area below the main text entry box where you can upload files or browse previously-uploaded files. The uploading process is self-explanatory and easy to use. If a picture is above a certain size, WordPress will automatically create a thumbnail.

My old method of flowing text around an image does not work in this version of WordPress, so for now, we’ll have to dispense with this handy item.

 

PICTURES

Once a picture is uploaded, click on its thumbnail in the Browse All area. You’ll see a set of options. In an interface nightmare, some of the options toggle, while some of them perform actions. Oops! Bad WordPress!

In the options, you can choose whether to post the original pic (Using Original) or, if WordPress created one, the thumbnail (Using Thumbnail). If you want to post the thumbnail but have it link to the original, toggle the next item to Linked to Image. If you don’t want to link the thumbnail or are using the originally-sized item, choose Not Linked. Linked to Page is an strange option that lets you link the item to a page where the item and its description are displayed the same as a normal post, including comments. Interesting, but I don’t know how handy that is. Not for The Wren Forum, anyway.

 

MOVIES

You upload a movie the same way you do a picture, but once it’s uploaded, the options are slightly different. Linked to File is the best option, but it seems to be broken in this version of WordPress. Using this option leads to an error page. If you are good at coding, you can figure out how to fix the post so the link opens the movie. If you really want to post a movie, choose Link to Page. Then, when people click on the link in your post, they will be taken to the file’s page (same as mentioned above, where comments are allowed). Then clicking that link brings up the movie properly. A pain in the ass.