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Struggling with setting a default the_post_thumbnail on your WordPress site? Thumbnails are a powerful feature of WordPress, reflecting the post’s content in a graphical way and enhancing the overall aesthetic. However, when a thumbnail is not set, it can tamper the uniformity of your design. In this article, we’ll show you how to set a default the_post_thumbnail in WordPress to maintain your site’s visual consistency and give it a more professional look, even when some posts lack a dedicated thumbnail.
function wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail( $html, $post_id, $post_thumbnail_id, $size, $attr ) {
if ( empty( $html ) ) {
$html = '<img src="'. get_template_directory_uri() . '/path_to_your_default_image.png" ' . $attr . '>';
}
return $html;
}
add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_html', 'wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail', 10, 5 );
The first step of this code snippet is defining the function wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail(). This function is going to check whether the analyzed post has a thumbnail. If it doesn’t, then the function will provide a default one.
The wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail function accepts five parameters:
$html: This is usually the HTML content of the featured image.$post_id: This is the ID of the post that the function will check.$post_thumbnail_id: This is the ID of the thumbnail that is attached to the post.$size: This is an array that specifies the width and height of the thumbnail.$attr: An array of attributes applied on the image tag.
if ( empty( $html ) ) {
$html = '<img src="'. get_template_directory_uri() . '/path_to_your_default_image.png" ' . $attr . '>';
}Inside the function, an if statement is used to check if $html is empty, meaning there is no thumbnail image for the post. If it is indeed empty, the img tag gets created with a src attribute pointing towards the default image you specified.
The get_template_directory_uri() function retrieves the URI of the current theme directory which is then concatenated with the relative path to your default image.
The $attr parameter is added to the img tag to apply any additional attributes that you’d want to pass to the image.
Finally, if the post already has a thumbnail, the function will simply return the original $html content.
return $html;At the end of the definition, we hook the wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail function to the post_thumbnail_html filter. The post_thumbnail_html filter allows you to modify the HTML of the post thumbnail, if it exists.
add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_html', 'wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail', 10, 5 );The parameters used with add_filter() are:
- Hook:
post_thumbnail_html– the name of the filter to hook the function to. - Callable:
wpturbo_default_post_thumbnail– the name of the function to be called when the filter is applied. - Priority:
10– this is the order in which functions hooked to a particular filter are executed. Lower numbers correspond with earlier execution. - Accepted args:
5– the number of arguments the function accepts.
All in all, this function allows you to set a default thumbnail for a given post, if it doesn’t have one set already. This can be particularly useful to ensure visual consistency in your WordPress site.