How Photo Dropper Works (Screenshots)
Once you upload and activate your plugin, you will see this panel below your “Write Post” Panel:
Whenever you need a photo for your post, just click and place the cursor inside your post where you want it to appear (works best when it’s in its own paragraph):
In the Photo Dropper Browse Photos panel, type in a keyword for the type of photo you are looking for (Ex: “boats”, “black cat”, “sunset”, etc.), then hit “Search” and the plugin will return photos matching your search from Flickr:
Under each photo you will see 4 links:
The first will popup the source Flickr page in a new window (so you can see it and double check the Creative Commons license). In this example the photos are from Trey Ratcliff’s (Stuck in Customs) Flickr photostream. The next 3 links (S for small, M for Medium, and L for Large) will drop that size photo into the post:
You can click “Save and Continue Editing,” then click “Preview” and see what the photo will look like in your post.
You can add as many photos are you want in your post.
To be safe, be sure to check the photo’s Flickr page (by opening it in a new window) and make sure you check the photo license to make certain it’s made available under Creative Commons (”Some rights reserved” and not “All rights reserved.)”
If you run a commercial blog, make sure that in your Wordpress control panel, Under options > Photo Dropper - that you have the “commercial” check box checked to exclude photos with a non-commercial license limitation. Remember, you’re responsible for making sure you adhere to all copyright laws on your blog so make sure you’re only posting photos that you are licensed to post.
For the sake of simplicity, the code that’s added is simply the photo and credits wrapped in a <small> tag. You can change or delete the link that points to photodropper, but please leave the attribution link to the author. If you want to float the image and the attribution link, go to Code view and wrap the entire photo and attribution part in a <span> tag. So something like <span style=”float:left;padding:5px;”>[whatever code photodropper gave you]</span> would do the trick.
I hope this post gives you a good idea how the plugin works. If you haven’t done so yet, download the plugin and have fun (photo) blogging!
Joel Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
It will be great if you can create the same plugin for Windows Live Writer as well….Just a suggestion…
Nick Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
I have disabled every plugin except for yours on Wordpress 2.3.2 and it still doesn’t work. I have reinstalled your plugin 3 times also. Any suggestions?
admin Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
@Nick: I’m getting a few reports of the plugin not working. I’ve tried it on a few different versions on my end and can’t figure out what might be causing it to fail. Since I can’t reproduce the problem I’m at a bit of a loss. Maybe someone else can figure out what might be causing this?
Bruce Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
@Nick: When I initially activated the plugin, it would search but never return any images.
I signed out of WordPress and signed back in, and now the plugin works fine. You might try that.
Good luck.
Funny Guy Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
Nice Job! I will give it a try.
palpalani Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:36 pm
This is great plugin! is there any option for including flickr photo set.
Peter Said,
February 22, 2008 @ 11:40 pm
@Nick: I was getting the same problem and had no luck. Then I found this and it seems to do everything I needed http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-flickr-manager/
Gary Allen Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 1:54 am
I really like the plug-in, especially that it takes advantage of Creative Commons. The interface for placing a photo is great, but I’m pondering how to easily format the photo for alignment and hspace. Most commonly I put the photo on the right (align=”right”) and give it some hspace. In that case, the credit would go at the end of the story entry text. Hmmmm.
TheBloggerTips Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 2:14 am
Thanks for the plugin. It really helps for the blog post.
His Master's Voice Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 2:32 am
Hi friends,
Hope my photos are of any help to you at some stage as you blog.
You can use them with PhotoDropper no problem.
Take care and keep up the blog!
His Master’s Voice
Nelson Medina Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 7:58 am
It works like a charm for me, yet the copyright notice (and link to Photo Dropper are still a bit intrusive. Thank you for your great work.
Lane Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 8:28 am
I had to disable the excellent Dean’s FCKEditor For Wordpress to get it to work. But that’s not a serious problem.
Ben Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 11:56 am
By using Photo Dropper, can I remove the link back to the photo owner like “photo credit: MumbleyJoe” above?
I am will to pay some kind of fee if I can do this.
Gregory Pittman Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
This is an excellent idea for a plugin! Not sure why it wasn’t thought of before. Giving it a run through now.
Ben (#13), removing the link to the photo owner would violate the creative commons license. You must retain the attribution. In essence you’re stealing the photo if you take it out. Don’t do it.
--Deb Said,
February 23, 2008 @ 5:46 pm
It looks like a great plug-in. Can it work with my OWN Flickr account, also?
Sasha Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 10:25 am
I agree with Joel. The same plugin for Windows Live Writer would be VERY cool!
sprouty Said,
February 25, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Can the link to the author be nofollowed to retain link juice? All outgoing flickr links are now nofollowed. Only seems right.
simplekin Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 4:21 am
Great plug-in!
Any chance to have more compatible layout functionality? It seems that whenever I try to make it align left or right of the text, everything goes haywire (the credits interfere with the text)
Thanks!
dupola Said,
February 26, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Great plug-in.But only English support? Let me have a try on my Chinese Blog.
marco Said,
February 27, 2008 @ 8:47 am
i try this plugin with wp 2.0.10.
i click on “search” but the result is like i click on “save”.
i don’t see any photos?
marge Said,
March 1, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
@marco
im having the same exact problem… any help would be appreciated
Matt Said,
March 3, 2008 @ 9:59 pm
I ran into the same problem as some of the others - clicking search would save the post as a draft. I wonder if it has anything to do with the version number I’m running? Its version 2.0.2
Ankit Said,
March 7, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
Wonderful plugin, thanks! I too would like to see a Windows Live Writer version of this. An existing one does not differentiate between the license types.
For others having problems getting this plugin to work, I too had problems initially. It was because I had renamed the directory to “Photo_Dropper” from the default “photo_dropper”. It worked after I reverted my directory name to the default all lower case. As a first time WP user, I didn’t know that case mattered…
LatFoto Said,
March 7, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Great tool for Blogers ;-).
Santaum Said,
March 8, 2008 @ 10:19 am
Hey dude!
This is amazing. Very useful for me!
Thank you so much.
Dave Said,
March 8, 2008 @ 11:05 pm
Hi,
I installed Photo Dropper earlier today, tried it out, and was very pleased with the results. I did notice, however, that the screen went blank when I activated the plug-in, as well as whenever I inserted a photo into a post using the plugin. But I learned to resolve that problem by simply hitting the “back” button, then “refresh”. I tried uninstalling and re-installing the plug-in, but same problem — one I decided I could live with. Then I signed out of the WordPress admin panel, and tried to sign in again later. HELP! I’m no longer able to sign into the admin panel. Something occurred during activation of the plugin that is now preventing me from signing in. FYI: I’m using WordPress version 2.3.1. Any ideas??
Dave Said,
March 9, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
A follow-up from my message last night:
Please disregard. I have resolved the issue, and after restoring my site from a backup today I now believe that your plug-in had NOT crashed the site….even though the crash occurred just after I activated your plug-in. Now it appears that the problem instead was caused by a simple update of another plug-in I had installed earlier in the day. Very odd. Am very sorry for the confusion; please forgive.
Steven Lohrenz Said,
March 11, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
I have to add in what is going on with mine too.
I had to disable the Wysiwyg Editor from Denis de Bernardy and Mike Koepke for the user in order to get the PhotoDropper to work.
I find it very unfortunate to do so, because I am adding media all the time. Do you have any idea on a timeline for a fix for this?
Clif Said,
March 13, 2008 @ 9:06 am
This plugin has a simple and clean installation. I also appreciate how easy it is to use.
Dan Said,
March 15, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
I’ve used this several times, and it’s quite good. Today I tried it and it no longer worked. Instead of getting the wheel that turns while it does the search, it saves the post. Any suggestions?
admin Said,
March 15, 2008 @ 10:13 pm
@Dan: Instead of hitting enter after typing in your keywords, click on the search button with your mouse.
We tried to address the problem to get it to focus on search rather than save post upon hitting enter, but the current solution is not 100%
Sven Said,
March 19, 2008 @ 7:09 am
Hey, i installed it and get this everytime i try to search a pic:
Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /var/www/web8/html/wp-content/plugins/photo_dropper/flickr-functions.php on line 33
What’s wrong?
Simon Said,
March 22, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
Are you working on a version for WP 2.5?
admin Said,
March 23, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
@Sven. I haven’t encountered that so I’m not sure. Does it happen every time or sporadically?
@Simon: I just tested it with WP 2.5 and it looks like there’s some work to be done to make it compatible. Thanks for the heads up.
cvallejo Said,
March 25, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
Nice… really good plugin, thanks !!
Sammy123 Said,
April 5, 2008 @ 6:47 am
I look forward to seeing this working with WORDPRESS 2.5. From the specs, look really useful!
Jan Said,
April 8, 2008 @ 7:20 am
Thanks for this really great plugin!
Michael Miles Said,
April 27, 2008 @ 1:14 am
What a wonderful plugin! Thanks so much for providing this. It’s really excellent.