Author Topic: Featured images in RSS feed  (Read 2131 times)

Gamebits

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Featured images in RSS feed
« on: January 23, 2017, 03:51:02 pm »
Whenever I post a podcast, I use my theme's Featured Image field to add a headshot of the episode's guest. The headshot is the first image to appear in the post's body, and it shows up in the HTML source's meta:

meta itemprop="image"
meta property="og:image"
meta name="twitter:image"

It does not, however, show up in the podcast RSS feed.  Another site is using WP RSS Aggregator to import excerpts of my content (with my permission), but when they do so, every podcast episode has the same featured image: my album artwork.

I don't know much about WordPress's defaults or what RSS allows, especially when it comes to podcasts, which already have an MP3 file enclosure and iTunes album artwork tags.  Is it possible for the featured image's URL to be included in the RSS feed?  Would I need a separate plugin for that, such as this one?

https://wordpress.org/plugins/featured-images-for-rss-feeds/

-Ken

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #1 on: January 23, 2017, 07:16:03 pm »
The only way the image will wind up in your feed is if it's added to the bodies of your posts. I'm unfamiliar with the plugin you've linked to, so I can't say for sure how well it works. But, by default, WordPress only puts into feeds what appears in your posts. The featured image function, even tho it does technically display your chosen image within the posts on your site, doesn't add the images to the bodies of the posts themselves.

Gamebits

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2017, 07:29:59 pm »
Shawn,

Thanks for the quick reply!

You're correct that my theme, though it does display the image, does not actually put it in the body.  Also, I realized the plugin I linked to might work for my main feed, but probably not for Blubrry's feed.

I'm guessing the only ways to make this work are: a) include the image in the post's body; or b) for PowerPress to offer an option to include the featured image in the RSS feed.

-Ken

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2017, 07:36:40 pm »
Having PowerPress include it in the feed is unlikely, as that's not a feature that's been requested. Regardless, you are always welcome to submit feature requests to the dev team by e-mailing Angelo: cio@rawvoice.com

For now, yes - your best solution would be to add the image to the bodies of your WordPress posts.

Gamebits

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2017, 09:02:14 pm »
Thanks, Shawn! Done. This now is a feature that's been requested. :)

angelo

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2017, 02:55:24 pm »
Hello Gamebits,

I am researching this. Is the request to have PowerPress duplicate what the "Featured Images in RSS & Mailchimp Email" plugin already does? If that is the case, then I would recommend against that, I would simply that plugin along with PowerPress.

We do have an image per episode option currently in PowerPress tied to the iTunes image. Go to the PowerPress settings, Episodes tab. Check the box for the iTunes image. You can then upload a specific image for each episode that iTunes will then use. It is important to note that this image must be square and between 1400x1400 and 3000x3000 in size. Because of these specific requirements it would be hard to use the featured image for a blog post as you would more than likely want a different image width/height and/or size for web use. With that said, I am going to add an option to the feature TODO list to use the featured image as the itunes image as I could foresee podcasters simply uploading a 1400x1400 featured image for every episode that way both their website and iTunes can utilize it.

Gamebits

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2017, 03:40:24 pm »
Angelo,

Thank you for the response! I've started using the "Featured Images in RSS & Mailchimp Email" plugin, but it applies only to the main WordPress feed; it does not alter the podcast feed generated by PowerPress.

I'd like for my podcast feed to offer the featured image and the album artwork separately; I don't want to offer unique album artwork on a per-episode basis.  Providing the featured image in the RSS feed would allow RSS aggregators, RSS-to-mail campaigns in MailChimp, and other services to have a featured image to work with, instead of using my album artwork for each post.

The way the "Featured Images in RSS & Mailchimp Email" plugin does this is by prepending an <img> tag with the featured image to the post's body in the RSS feed. Maybe something similar could be an option in PowerPress?

That said, I could see using the featured image as album artwork would be useful, even if not in my exact scenario; that option would also be a welcome addition, as you suggested.

-Ken

angelo

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #7 on: January 30, 2017, 06:39:24 pm »
Unless you have the features enabled to prevent other plugins from modifying your feeds, the other plugin should be adding the appropriate tags to your feeds in addition to the ones powerpress adds. Do you have the do not allow programs to modify podcast feeds option enabled?

Gamebits

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #8 on: January 30, 2017, 11:42:24 pm »
… I was not aware of that setting. Having now unchecked it, this is indeed doing what I need, in conjunction with the "Featured Images in RSS & Mailchimp Email" plugin.

Thank you, Angelo!

Guillermo Perez Hernandez

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Re: Featured images in RSS feed
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2018, 12:53:44 pm »
Hi, can you mark thread as solved once the feature is added? I'm gonna give Featured Images in RSS & Mailchimp Email a try, but would rather do everything inside Powerpress.

Thanks a lot!