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More of the Greatness of the WordPress Community

 I had a great time at this year’s WordCamp NYC, hanging out with the other CUNY WordPress folks, and talking WordPress in education to a (larger than expected) and very interested crowd.  We tried to pitch for broad appeal, and I think we hit it, and not have too much inside baseball (not too much) or too much CUNY-carping (not too much).  That was all enjoyable as always.  Even better, though, was a little moment towards the end of the day.

One of the folks in the audience (I didn’t catch where he was from) asked a question about how we explain to students how to use the WordPress media uploader (the many clicks required, the necessity to “insert into post” even after it might seem like they’re done).  We none of us had a great way to provide those instructions. We all agreed that it’s a bit of struggle in a world where we (especially those of us who are used to using Macs), just would like to grab an image from our desktop, drag it into a post, and plop it right in.  True, the media uploader as of 3.3 or so is better than it used to be.  True, it’s one of the oldest parts of WordPress, and not easy to modify, but it just doesn’t feel so smooth.

Well, we complained and agreed that we were right to complain, but then someone else in the audience spoke up and said she thought she remembered a plugin that made this better and she would look through her notes and find it.

Wow! Today I got an email–she didn’t find the plugin, but she did a lot better.  She figured out a relatively easy (relatively) way to make media uploading easier and better, and she wrote up this great, clear, step-by-step instruction set.  A generous, community-minded act.  A tool that we will definitely find useful.  And shared freely, and quickly, too!  Thanks, Margarete Koenen!


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