Most themes already pull the first image attachment from within a post and display it as a featured image thumbnail on all archive pages like your home, blog, category and author archives.
Example:
Some themes also display the image above all your single post titles and sometimes also above your archive titles. You can also add or remove featured images from displaying above your post titles as well depending on which theme you’re using.
If your theme doesn’t display a featured image in any location automatically, you may find this feature in your themes settings otherwise you’ll need to set a featured image on all single posts manually.
Another option is to add the function to your theme, of it isn’t already included.
Paste this code at the end of your child themes functions.php file.
All new posts will automatically use the attachment i.d for the image you have uploaded to your Media Library and entered into the code below (example ‘40370’).
function wpsites_auto_set_featured_image() {
global $post;
$featured_image_exists = has_post_thumbnail($post->ID);
if (!$featured_image_exists) {
$attached_image = get_children( "post_parent=$post->ID&post_type=attachment&post_mime_type=image&numberposts=1" );
if ($attached_image) {
foreach ($attached_image as $attachment_id => $attachment) {
set_post_thumbnail($post->ID, '40370');
wp_reset_query();
}
}
}
}
add_action('save_post', 'wpsites_auto_set_featured_image');Simply change this line of code
set_post_thumbnail($post->ID, '40370');to this to use a unique featured image:
set_post_thumbnail($post->ID, $attachment_id);Basically, this code uses post image attachment number and sets it as a featured image automatically if you forget to add it yourself manually.
You need to replace the attachment i.d number with your own which you can grab after uploading a default post thumbnail to your Media Library and clicking Edit to view the i.d/ Here’s an example of what it looks like:
If you don’t have a picture to display, here’s some excellent web design tools for creating your own featured images.
Auto Set Default Post Image
This code will pull an image named default-image.png from your child themes images folder and display it above all single post titles and above archive page titles.
add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_html', 'wpsites_default_post_image' );
function wpsites_default_post_image( $html ) {
if ( empty( $html ) )
$html = '<img src="' . trailingslashit( get_stylesheet_directory_uri() ) . 'images/default-image.png' . '" alt="enter your alt text here" />';
return $html;
}As previously mentioned, most of the default themes like Twenty Twelve and Twenty Thirteen already have this function built into the parent themes core files meaning this code won’t work if this is the case, nor is it needed.
Default Featured Image Plugin
This plugin will add a box to your Media settings where you can set a default featured image. The featured image will display above all single posts titles and above all archive page titles.
Unlike the block of code above, it will not pull an image from a single post or add the default image in your featured image module in all edit post screens.
You will also need to crop the image to the exact size you want displayed as there aren’t any settings to resize the image.
Auto Set Featured Image On Older Posts
Most of the plugins and code snippets already mentioned in this post, don’t auto set any images on older posts.
This plugin will set a featured image on all existing posts as long as at least one image has been uploaded/inserted and attached to your older posts.
Genesis Featured Images
If you’re using the Genesis Design Framework, you’ll know that there’s a section in the theme settings under Content Archives for choosing and displaying a featured image on all archive pages. This setting will not automatically pull any images from your posts and display them unless you add the code above or manually set your featured images on all single posts manually.
Genesis Default Featured Image Plugin
This plugin displays a featured image on all archive pages if one is Not set manually or if you haven’t inserted an image in the content area of the single post.
Check out some of the other Genesis plugins developed specifically for this excellent premium theme.
Conclusion
Most of these solutions don’t provide much flexibility as far as resizing featured images and post thumbnails.
However, Genesis do offer built in theme settings which enable you to choose from a range of sizes to display on your archive pages unlike the default WordPress themes. You can also add more sizes to choose from simply by adding a new line in your child themes functions.php file.
Example you can use and modify:
/** Add new image sizes */
add_image_size( 'featured', 300, 150, TRUE );
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