Thumbnails missing and not automatically generating (like they did in EE1) when we updated to EE2

Question

We had a client whose site auto-updated to EE2 which caused it to break. One problem we're having difficulty fixing is getting images to show. Issue is not at the template level. The problem is on an entry/post level. An example is the main image on the site and in order to make it show, we had to update the field holding the filename value.

Used to be multiple filenames stored together to keep different file sizes: 3REIDenverSkylineMasthead.jpg 3REIDenverSkylineMasthead_Thumb.jpg

Now to show masthead image we had to remove thumbnail image reference and update this field to: {filedir2}3REIDenverSkyline_Masthead.jpg

We’re not sure how this was done before but by uploading an image in EE1, a thumbnail was generated for it automatically in EE1. Both images were displayed when looking at the entry/post in the UI. This doesn't seem to be the case in EE2 and even when we synched our upload destinations we continued to have the problem.

So our question is how can we get the images working in EE2 the way they were before on EE1. We don’t know how to get the filenames stored together to keep the different file sizes (main image, thumbnail etc.) like it was done before. We want to avoid trying to retrofit and make sure we’re making the images work the way they are designed to in EE2

Answer 1

There are a few ways to do this:

1. In file upload preferences you can create "image manipulations", these create resized/scaled images from the original uploaded file, useful for creating thumbs. When you upload a new image EE will create whatever variations you set up.

To call a variation into your template the syntax is {cf_my_image_field:my_variation_name}, so if you have an manipulation called "thumb" it would be {cf_my_image_field:thumb}

1. Use CEimage - http://www.causingeffect.com/software/expressionengine/ce-image This is an addon which creates sized images in your templates

2. Use two fil field on your publish page

   • one field for the small/thumb image
   • one field for the large image