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Travelogue Polaroid Images

Tuesday the 2nd of Feb, 2010

There have been many questions recently regarding how the random polaroid images in the Travelogue theme works, so I wanted to set the record straight.

Here’s the deal: the Travelogue theme was unfortunately not designed to be administered wholly from the WordPress Dashboard, and it requires a certain minimal level of computer expertise in order to use. I apologize to all users who are not familiar with their server’s folder structure, editing code, or the like, but let me say that you can definitely learn if you put your mind to it. Please search other resources as well, such as the WordPress Codex and the web to learn more about WordPress and other topics.

Question: Where is this “randimages” folder?

The randimages folder is located inside the travelogue theme folder. On a default WordPress installation, you will find this in wp/content/themes/travelogue/randimages. You cannot access this folder directly from the WordPress Dashboard, nor can you upload files to it from using the WordPress Media Uploader. Please use an FTP program to access your web host and upload files that way.

Question: How do I get my pictures to show up?

Stick them in the randimages folder. You cannot use images from a post’s gallery or from typical WordPress media uploads. Perhaps I might code this in the future, but professional obligations are keeping me away from it for the foreseeable future. Use an FTP application to connect to your web host, find the folder listed above, and put the images directly into that folder (not in any subfolders inside that folder).

Question: No images are showing up, but I know I have them in the right folder.

Some hosts don’t support the original image rotating script that it uses. Luckily, I’ve included two! Here’s what you’ll need to do. Go into the theme’s folder (wp-content/themes/travelogue) and open the header.php file. Note that you can also do this from the WordPress Dashboard by going to Appearance > Editor and find the header.php file on the side. Go to line 39, which reads like this:

<a href="#"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/randimages/rotator.php" width="202px" height="187px" alt="Polaroid Photo" /></a>

and add one letter to rotator.php to become rotatorm.php:

<a href="#"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/randimages/rotatorm.php" width="202px" height="187px" alt="Polaroid Photo" /></a>

Return to your site and do a refresh and the images should start rotating in. If not, double check that your images are in the correct folder. If this still hasn’t solved it, go directly to the rotating script and see if it coughs up an image by going to {yourblogurl}/wp-content/themes/travelogue/randimages/rotator.php or rotatorm.php. An image should show up on the screen. If not, go back and check that everything is in order.

Question: How big should my images be?

I have forced the images to size to fit inside the polaroid frame, but this may distort your images if they are not of the same dimensions. You can fix this by resizing the images with an image editing application to be 202 pixels in width and 187 pixels in height. No image editing application on your computer? (There probably is, with all the pre-installed junk these days.) Try any of the following free online photo editors: Aviary, Photoshop.com, or Picnik. Then place the correctly sized photos into the randimages folder.

Question: Where is this mythical readme.txt file everyone is talking about?

You have to look in the theme’s folder, located at wp-content/themes/travelogue, in order to read it. If you installed the theme directly from the WordPress repository, then you’ll have to log in to your web host to look at it. If you downloaded then uploaded it to your host, then you should have it on your hard drive and should probably know how to find it. Basically everything that I’m writing in this post are also in the readme.txt file.

Phew! I hope that helps out those with questions! Again, sorry that the theme isn’t super advanced or ridiculously easy to use, but hey, it can’t help to learn a bit about web development, right? Good luck to everyone, and if you still have questions, feel free to contact through the comments. Just make sure you’ve tried everything here and have looked around yourself to learn the necessary skills; you might surprise yourself and figure it out on your own! Carpe diem!