This week I came across a very intelligent plugin that I’d like to share with you.
Theia Smart Thumbnails for WordPress lets you customize the thumbnails for each of your images. Gone are the days when you had to manually crop or upload separate versions of your thumbnails. Now you can simply choose a point of interest for your image – e.g. a person’s face, an object, etc. – and all the thumbnails will be automatically updated to include them. Your pages will be much more aesthetically pleasing and your visitors will thank you for it.
Theia Smart Thumbnails was developed by Liviu Mirea from Romania, I reached out and asked him about how he become a WordPress developer, here’s what he had to say:
I delved into programming at the age of 11 and I kept my focus by participating every year at my country’s national informatics olympiad until I finished high school. At the moment I’m pursuing a master’s degree in computer science, I’m a self-taught web-developer and I’ve been freelancing for about 2 years. I’m not that much of a designer, although I really wish I were and I’m actively trying to improve my artistic skills. I’ve started developing on WordPress about 6 months ago, and I’ve made these two plugins out of personal necessities for me and some clients. I figured that their functionality would be of use to other developers as well, so I packaged and submitted them to the marketplace. So, that’s my little story.
More inspiration for all those of you out there who would also like to develop plugins for WordPress.
Let’s take a look at some of the salient features of Theia Smart Thumbnails…
Theia Smart Thumbnails Features
- Gain full control over your thumbnails
- Customize the cropping zone by choosing a point of interest (e.g. a person’s face, an object, etc.).
- Extremely easy-to-use with an intuitive and native admin interface.
- Works with your existing images.
- The admin panel comes with a Live Preview to easily customize your thumbnails.
- Works with virtually any WordPress theme.
- Receive support and free upgrades.
I think this is a very useful plugin, it’s something I’ve always missed when working with thumbnails, and now there is a convenient way for me to modify thumbnails the way I wish with minimum fuss. I highly recommend this plugin if you are using thumbnails on your blog.
Download Theia Smart Thumbnails
Liviu has also released another interesting plugin, and while I won’t be reviewing it today, you should still check it out. It is called Theia Post Slider and it transforms your posts with multiple pages into slideshows, making your posts much more engaging and easier to browse.
It works out-of-the-box without the need to edit your existing posts and it is compatible with virtually any WordPress theme. It has a user-friendly admin page where you can choose from over 25 slider themes and customize other settings.
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