When images are inserted into posts from the media library or media uploader, only the html of the <img> tag and the link around it (if any) are preserved. This means that themes which want to change the way images are marked up in content don’t have an easy way of doing this.
Image Shortcake is an attempt to solve this problem, by saving images in post content as shortcodes rather than HTML. The output of shortcodes can be easily filtered in themes, plugins and templates, and since the original attachment data is preseved as attributes on the shortcode, it becomes much easier for modify the way images are marked up in themes.
For best results, use this with the Shortcake (Shortcode UI) plugin. Shortcake offers an easy to use interface to manage shortcodes in post content.
What could you use this for? Well, at Fusion we use this shortcode for:
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Responsive Images. By filtering the output of the
[img]shortcode image tag, we’re able to insert thesrcsetattribute, so that all of
the images on our site are served responsively to browsers that support that. -
Inline sharing buttons. We’ve added share links to each of the images on our site. Because these are inserted through a filter on a shortcode and not in the post content, it’s easy to modify them on the fly. And having this logic in template files rather in on-page javascript that runs after page load makes it quicker for users.
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Photo credits. We’ve added “credit” as an image meta field, and we use a filter on ‘img_shortcode_output_after_linkify’ to display it on all images.
See the Installation section for more ideas and tips for custom image templates. Get involved with the project on Github.
Screenshots
This is the shortcode UI form as accessed from Insert Media > Insert Post Element. (Note that you can also insert images as usual, by inserting them in the Media Library - they will be transparently converted into shortcodes behind the scenes for you.)
Once inserted into a post, the image preview renders in the editor just as it normally would. The Shortcake plugin's edit/delete buttons are available to modify the shortcode through the provided UI.