Posted: Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 at 5:17 am. Filed in Customization, Themes, WordPress.com.
Connections and Header Images
Last week while Matt was in Austin, we spent a few hours working on the Connections theme. It got an overdue update and something even more exciting: custom header images. Custom header images! Yes!
But that's not all! We have cobbled together an online photo cropping tool for your cropping pleasure. Now you don't have to load up Photoshop or even know the exact dimensions of the header image. Just upload, crop, jump for joy.
Here's how it works: under Presentation, select the Connections theme and go to the new Custom Header Image screen. Upload a photo with the simple form. On the next screen, use the mouse to mark out the area you want to use as your header image. (Don't worry, the width/height ratio is fixed so the picture won't be squeezed.) When you have it just the way you like it, hit Save. You can then change the header font color for contrast and coordination. Jumping for joy is optional.
We know there will be requests to add this functionality to all themes, so here's a peek at the game plan: limit the fun to Connections users until we have seen plenty of success and squashed any bugs, then roll it into some of the other themes. Ready? Try it!
Update: If you've done an extra-cool header image, be sure to let us know in the comments.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:32 am
wow! spectacular… can’t wait for customisation to other teams.
i’m sure you guys heard it so often, but you guys are really great!! *thumbs up*
June 13th, 2006 at 6:03 am
exactly what i was waiting for.. now i got the push to use connections..
brilliant job guys!
June 13th, 2006 at 6:26 am
Finally! I am waiting for this to be available for all the themes.
June 13th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Nice job Andy.
June 13th, 2006 at 6:50 am
amazing guys!!!…. esp the crop function!!
yep! can’t wait for other themes to add custom headers too
can we just have a little note added somwhere for the header size?? just like… 800 X 50… or something like that
great job!!
June 13th, 2006 at 7:10 am
Good Feature that. Hope that it will be rolled onto other themes as well. But what about themes where there is no Header-Image? For E.g. Theme Thirteen has a Flowery-kinda image to the left side. Would that qualify as a header image and be open to customization?
June 13th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Great Feature! Can you do the same for the Default Theme?!
June 13th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Nice, but you had something similar already in Regulus. The problem with Connections is that you can’t customize the Sidebar Widgets. So add that feature as well to Connections and then the success will be garanted.
June 13th, 2006 at 7:55 am
Cool, can’t wait till it goes to andreas theme, gonna try it now anyways
June 13th, 2006 at 7:59 am
Fantastic! I so wish this could happen to the old, great WordPress Default 1.5 (Kubric) theme too!
June 13th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Just for folks who are asking, we’re planning to roll this functionality to all themes it makes sense for after we work any bugs out with Connections.
This is different from the functionality in Regulus because that requires you to use something like Photoshop to resize an image manually before uploading it, and doesn’t let you change things like text color on the image.
June 13th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Wow! This is amazing functionality, especially the crop tool!
(I thought that the XML import/export was good, but this rocks!)
Keep up the good work Andy (and the rest of the WP Team – of course)!
June 13th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Unfortunately there is no way to configure the sidebar in this theme … so I’m waiting. Would love it with “contempt”, “pool” or “default”
This feature is absolutly cool!!!
June 13th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Nice one. Looking forward for this feature in other themes to
June 13th, 2006 at 9:26 am
Can’t wait to to see this running on all themes!
June 13th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Jump for joy? Yes please!
June 13th, 2006 at 10:22 am
good work …
June 13th, 2006 at 11:14 am
That’s great – but Connections doesn’t let the widgets work as well….it pushes them all down the page.
How about letting us customize the greatest of all themes, the theme of themes you might say – ‘Contempt 1.0′
Thanks,
Dave
June 13th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
This is soo cool!!
June 13th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
I just switched over so that I could use this feature. I’d prefer to do it in another theme, so please let us know when we can. Either way, I really like the tool. Tell me what you think about my header…
http://morethanright.wordpress.com/
June 13th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
That’s a nice feature. Hope you incorporate it in the rest of the themes as well, esp. Dusk that I use!
June 13th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
i’m dying for a change in my blog’s layout but i can’t use it because the text widget titles run when it’s longer than one line, which is a real pain because regulus text widgets can adjust to titles longer than one line. =( otherwise, it’s excellent! i will use it when i can think of one-line title text widgets.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Oh my gosh!!!
I used the Connections theme in the beginning but switched because I couldn’t organize the sibebar. Now I see that I can access and organize the sidebar! And customize the header, too!! I love the crop tool.
Threadbears ‘n Yarntails
Thank you!! *skippity*
June 13th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
This is one feature worth waiting for! You guys are great!
June 13th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
eeeek.
just a note, your automagical cropper has the default behaviour (no pixels selected) of giving you no image (black header). it shouldn’t be a 3 step process just to get an image. no selection should result in displaying the entire image.
June 13th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
love the idea of custom headers and have been using Regulus on one of my blogs to do just that. went off like an eager beaver to check this one out too. i loved the design but had a problem. the sidebar was getting pushed down so i’ve switched back to regulus.
Also i had a suggestion for the photo cropping option which btw is a fantastic idea – there should be a way to automatically reduce the size of the file being uploaded and the option of putting a url of an image already hosted elsewhere on the web.
i was really excited to see 3 announcements. keep up the good work! i really do enjoy using wordpress.com
June 13th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Excellent! Just what I’ve been waiting for!
Check it out! Sea Creatures & Me Uh-oh…I just went back to my site and tthe header image is gone! Right clicked to view background and got 404 Not Found for the cropped image. 
Where did my fishy go?? Browsed images and it looks like the full image is still there. Oh, well…I still really like this feature. Perhaps the cropped image will pop back up tomorrow. ? 
June 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
And my html was stripped from the comment form.
I’ll try again to post the URL: http://nanoreef.wordpress.com/
June 13th, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Thank you!! This is a wonderful new feature! I have it on my blog now-
http://www.watershed.wordpress.com
My only suggestion would be to bring back the sidebar in the single-post pages (below the archived entry box). Now, when people click on a single post (like through an RSS feed) they don’t get your sidebar at all. If that was added back in, it would be all PERFECT.
Thanks! I love wordpress!
June 13th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I gave it a go. It would be good to know what the maximum size of the jpg to upload could be. Thanks.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I’ve been pretty happy with my theme since I settled on one, but it never felt totally “me” until I switched this afternoon.
NOW I feel close to home.
Nifty work guys. Then again, I don’t recall a time where I wasn’t impressed. Thanks.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
It would be more useful if, as in Regulus, users were able to hide the blog title text.
June 14th, 2006 at 4:14 am
I nominate myself for snarkiest custom header:
http://theocracy.wordpress.com
And while I’m not crazy about the drab green on Connections, I do like the clarity of the type in the blog space.
I swear, on half the other themes, you have to squint to read the faint type.
June 14th, 2006 at 4:52 am
I really like this feature, but it’s a bit difficult to find pictures that match the green color scheme. It would be nice if you guys added this to a more neutral theme. WP.com needs more classy, simple, “professional”-esque themes.
June 14th, 2006 at 5:28 am
PLEASE DO THE SAME FOR THE DEFAULT THEME, LIKE YOU COULD DO WITH THE ORIGINAL KUBRICK! PLEEEEEASE!!
June 14th, 2006 at 8:34 am
“Just for folks who are asking, we’re planning to roll this functionality to all themes it makes sense for after we work any bugs out with Connections.”
That’s great Matt. However I played it on my other blog using the crop image and it actually helped me create a nice crop size on my Regulus Theme.
How sweet. Thank you.
June 14th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
I was waiting this for quite a while. Hurray! (:
June 14th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
I second Livia and Phil—it would be awesome to see this feature in the default theme, and I think people would use it. I did switch to Connections (from Regulus) after trying some different header images, though. I definitely like the large, high-contrast type and muted color scheme in Connections.
June 14th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Unless you can also edit the color scheme this function is going to create a lot of bad looking sites. I fear there will be many sites with photos that clash with font and header colors.
June 15th, 2006 at 12:31 am
Well, yes, customisation inevitably leads to bad looking sites because so many people have no taste. For an illustration of this principle you only need to look at MySpace (if your eyeballs can take the punishment). Therefore your proposal that we be able to edit the colours would only make matters worse, because not everyone cannot be trusted to pick decent ones.
June 15th, 2006 at 5:15 am
I tried to customize my own. Is there any chance to make Regulus Theme with dark background?
June 15th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I made a quick one for my second site at http://techrant.wordpress.com/ . it isn’t much, but it’s better than a generic one
June 15th, 2006 at 11:35 am
Well did you notice anything?
Look up, I've got a new banner…sweet, that they are allowing some custom banners on a select few themes..I know it's not much, but hey its new…
…
June 15th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
This is simply fabulous! I started a blog here recently because I was already using WordPress as the content management system for my business website.
I’ve had lots of fun playing with various ‘themes’ here but this latest one is the best yet. Just waiting for a friend of mine to photoshop my cats under my arm in my new personalised header – ha!
I’ve also really appreciated how genuinely REAL and CARING the WordPress staff comes across. Amazing support system. People working to make the site even more interesting than it was yesterday. That really blows me away!
So basically, I love being here. And send my thanks to all the WordPress staff who keep making great things happen here.
azahar
June 15th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Very cool!!!
June 15th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Great work, guys. I appreciate it. Got a closeup sand header on my other blog at http://theoldvillage.wordpress.com check it out.
June 16th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Good job guys…Somehow, maybe you can make it flexible and allow the text in the header (where we can put the blog name and tagline) to be customizable to be where the user wishes. (e.g top left or right hand corner.) Presently it is only available on the top right hand…
I don’t know if you get what i am trying to say cos I don’t know all the proper terms. Hah!
June 16th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Looks very good guys. I changed the header of my blog as well. Very nice update here.
June 16th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
nice job, but read this excerpt from an IM conversation I just had.
me: ooh, big news at wordpress
finally, custom header images
Alex: its like 1999!
June 17th, 2006 at 4:13 am
Despite my bit of sass, I have enthusiastically adopted a new header image. I don’t really like it, and I’d like to work on it more, but a crazy desert party beckons…
June 17th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Thats fantastic job.. I love WordPress… !!!!!!
June 17th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
I used the custom header feature. Works really well. My custom header can be seen at http://benlucier.wordpress.com. One question though… I made my own text as part of the header image. Do you think an option can be added to disable the Blog Title and Tagline in the Header? My only option was to completely remove the Blog Title and Tagline under Options… Something I’d rather not do.
Thanks for the hard work!
June 18th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Can’t wait till this is available for all the themes – way to go WP team!
June 22nd, 2006 at 3:15 pm
I think my header is pretty nice. How do you other bloggers reconcile color schemes (my header image is a bit overwhelming)
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Just starting to test wordpress as my blogs new home. Anyway, here is my self made header: http://bttgeraes.wordpress.com/
thanks!
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:30 am
WONDERFUL! This has made it easier to customize my page to be more like… well, me!
Thanks. (Take a look if you want)
June 25th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Getting better all the time! I’m tickled pink with the Sweet Blossoms template, but I think the font’s too small for easy readability. ?? Changed it in the code a couple X’s, but would rather just type & not have to fiddle too much. No doubt I will try the custom headers sooner or later. Thanx for all the great work!!
June 25th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Thaks. You are the best blog service on the Planet Earth.
Next step: Custom CSS/ Theme editting pannel(Pleace):)
June 28th, 2006 at 8:45 am
This is so nice.. I love that we now can have a costum headbanner..
THX U GUYS
Peter (Sloane)
June 28th, 2006 at 10:13 am
This will be perfect:
Thaks. You are the best blog service on the Planet Earth.
Next step: Custom CSS/ Theme editting pannel(Pleace):)
June 30th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
I did my header image. Check this out on my blog. I LOVE WP!
July 6th, 2006 at 5:42 am
This is nice and the crop function is great. But my nifty header image clashes with the green background of the theme. It’d be really nice to be able to change the background colors as well.
July 7th, 2006 at 12:10 am
yeah, it’s pretty nifty.
July 8th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Use Gimp!!! Not Photoshop!