The Image Widget, Plus News from Support
Last month, the Support team (also known as Happiness Engineers) got together to brainstorm new ways of providing you with the features and resources you need.
Out of that meetup came a number of improvements and features, like the RSS Links Widget, introduced earlier this month. Another is the Image Widget, launching today.
In the past, it was necessary to use HTML in a text widget to display images in your sidebar. Now all you have to do is plop a URL in the image widget. The rest is done for you. If you’d like to set a title, alternate text, and image size, it’ll do that, too.
And there’s more cool stuff coming your way:
We’ve made some improvements to the Support contact form, and a better search for Support is in the works. We’ve made some internal changes, too, that will help our growing team answer your questions even more efficiently.
There’s now a Hugs page to display some of the positive feedback we receive from those of you who write in to Support. It brightens our day to hear that we’ve helped out, so we’re sharing a bit of that love. 
Maybe most excitingly, we’re going to start providing Support in other languages — a much-requested feature. The first of these will be French, with several others to follow. We’ll post announcements here when each is launched.
Posted: Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 3:16 pm. Filed in Language, Localization, Support, Widgets.
Sep 29th at 3:27 pm
As always, another excellent move. Bravo WP!
Sep 29th at 3:41 pm
cool, about time lol and I can’t access the hugs page, it shows blank so I’ll just leave my hug here and write, Thanks for the new widget and new features *hugs*
Sep 29th at 4:00 pm
Whoops, forgot to remove a security check. Should be able to get to the Hugs page now.
Sep 29th at 3:49 pm
This seems static. A better idea would be to have a dynamic image widget where an already posted picture would rotate daily from blog archives allowing visitors to click on it to read the blog post from the past. Perhaps I’m talking about a different widget altogether but I think it would be more useful.
Sep 29th at 4:20 pm
Cool. Maybe WP will add a slideshow widget next. Thanks!
Sep 29th at 4:42 pm
almost as awesome as unicorns!
Sep 29th at 4:55 pm
That is so great ; )
Now people who had difficulty with HTML will find it easy to place images in the sidebar!
The Hugs page is a pretty nice idea, too.
Cheers
Sep 29th at 5:00 pm
Must it be an image which is stored on *another* website?
Can’t I use one of the images you have stored for my WordPress blog, e.g. embedded in a page or a post?
And if yes, can you please provide an example?
Sep 29th at 9:55 pm
You can use any image URL. An example is the image used in this post. The URL is http://en.blog.wordpress.com/files/2009/09/image-widget-example.png
Sep 29th at 5:02 pm
Wonderful!
Sep 29th at 5:12 pm
You guys do such a great job. THANK YOU.
Sep 29th at 5:29 pm
Cute
Better support for the win!
Sep 29th at 5:30 pm
Does the widget allow to have the clickable URL to open in a new window? That would make it perfect!
Sep 29th at 5:48 pm
A big HUG from my side too….
Sep 29th at 6:00 pm
Ok. I have tried it and it works fine
Sep 29th at 6:06 pm
Gotta love widgets
Sep 29th at 6:29 pm
every visual feature is like a lavish chocolate topping on the blog
*hugs*
Sep 29th at 6:39 pm
You guys are making this blogging thing a little too easy.
Sep 29th at 6:43 pm
Awesome!!
Sep 29th at 7:11 pm
It’s cool. I think it would be more useful.
I love it
Sep 29th at 7:12 pm
The image widget will come in handy. Waiting for the more “cool stuff” in the pipeline!
I keep hugging you [though not as warmly as most of them in that page]! Hope to see myself in the ‘hall of fame’ sometime! Please also start an appreciation page for people who have been most helping in the forums.
P.S.: My blog views have crossed 50K and I am soon moving to .org!
Sep 29th at 7:20 pm
That is awesome! Thanks so much!
Oh and if some brain comes up with a way to do what Ismailimail said, that would be super cool too!
Sep 29th at 7:25 pm
ten thousand thank-yous for the imagewidgie
Sep 29th at 7:54 pm
you folks read my mind–thank you! looking forward to using this!
Sep 29th at 8:07 pm
yes, awesome. Though I still do not understand why WP.com do not accept javascript… In my opinion I just can’t understand why this could be happenning in the biggest blog plataform. There’s nothing more to prove or to avoid so why not to enable full features for professional bloggers. Another point is why to collect (I know is a low price) for making template modifications (CSS…). I am not willing to migrate to another plataform but TODAY I can see many features at Blogger that, hard to believe, WP.com do not make available… Congratulations for any improvement but still very shy ones…
thanks
Sep 29th at 8:50 pm
thanks
Sep 29th at 9:17 pm
Very good; I’ll take it (grin).
Sep 29th at 9:25 pm
thats its so cool and great 4 the inexpert people in html
Sep 29th at 10:27 pm
ah much easier!
Sep 29th at 10:28 pm
awesome guys, I can’t wait to test it.
Sep 29th at 10:33 pm
The innovations at WP are always appreciated. This make life much easier for me with several live weather images I use.
Sep 29th at 10:43 pm
Sweet! Now I don’t have to use the Text Widget to post pictures!
Sep 29th at 11:50 pm
Spiffulosity! Up with unicorns and widgets!
Sep 30th at 1:57 am
The image widget is going to make my life MUCH more interesting. OK, not my whole life, just the blogging part of it. I have already thought of twelve new things to try and I haven’t even gone over to look at it yet. Now about a widget to make coffee . . .
Sep 30th at 2:00 am
Love the Image widget it makes it a lot easier instead of the coding all the time. Thanks guys great job as usual.
Sep 30th at 2:35 am
YES! I was just thinking a few days ago that ya’ll needed to do this! Thanks!!!!
Sep 30th at 2:37 am
once again WP never run out of ideas that is something special, I hope you are gazzilionares, you sure help my business XX
Sep 30th at 2:42 am
For the inexperienced blog user, this may be good, but for many of us, it doesn’t give us anything we weren’t already capable of doing.
Given this could be done with HTML, how about giving us something that we couldn’t do with HTML. I agree with one of the other comments about something dynamic or let us emulate something that would normally require javascript to do, given that hosted wordpress doesn’t allow javascript.
Sep 30th at 2:43 am
I speak for the WordPress.com community when I say thank you for releasing new features regularly!
Nice job once again!
Sep 30th at 2:55 am
it is ok, thanks
Sep 30th at 3:23 am
K-ewl! Thank you, people . . .
Sep 30th at 3:47 am
As always WP is making simple things simpler.
Sep 30th at 4:04 am
About time! Great job.
Sep 30th at 4:46 am
Good move on the sidebar image widget. It’s a big help!
Sep 30th at 4:51 am
Yay for easy images!
Time to spice up the already-spicy political commentary
Sep 30th at 4:52 am
WP just gets better and better.
Sep 30th at 5:02 am
Fantastic!
Sep 30th at 5:36 am
@ Nick
Thank you for the explanation.
Sep 30th at 5:42 am
But I need more than one picture (slide, album…). The “Text widget” doesn’t allow embed flash, iframe or javascript code
Sep 30th at 9:17 am
I’m sorry, but we don’t allow iframes, Flash or javascript anywhere on WordPress.com, for security reasons.
Sep 30th at 5:50 am
Thank you!
I like the other name for support team — happiness engineers. haha. <3
Sep 30th at 5:53 am
This is definitely a plus. WordPress gets better and better by the day!
Sep 30th at 6:12 am
Awesome! Hope this goes for GIFs too ^^
Sep 30th at 6:29 am
that’s great, before I used text widget to put image, now that is an official way, thanks
Sep 30th at 8:17 am
I would love to help you do the Support in Spanish. If there is any way I can help, let me know
Oct 1st at 8:25 am
Thanks! One way you can help is contributing translations to translate.wordpress.com!
Sep 30th at 9:41 am
thanks for improving yourself for us!
Sep 30th at 12:20 pm
I love it! Makes the task so much easier. Thank you and God Bless.
Sep 30th at 12:52 pm
Shiny!
Thanks, as always, for all your hard work, guys. Truly, we appreciate it.
Sep 30th at 12:55 pm
Way to go, WordPress! w00t!!!
Sep 30th at 1:10 pm
was needed.
thanks
Sep 30th at 1:18 pm
awesome
Sep 30th at 1:23 pm
I propose that this widget has the choice of target.
Example html: target=”_blank”
But, we always can use text widget
greetings
Sep 30th at 1:27 pm
thanks a lot, it is pretty nice idea, like it
is there anything else like this to wait?
open the secret, what is upcoming?
Sep 30th at 1:28 pm
excellent
excellent
excellent
excellent
lanjutkan!!!!
Sep 30th at 2:11 pm
This one is much needed and facilitates a lot for those of us who are not html-wizards. Palms together!
Irina
Sep 30th at 2:41 pm
hats off to this fantastic team…. m always wid WP
Sep 30th at 3:46 pm
holy cow, i love this. thank you! you guys are so great. thank you for all of your hard work.
Sep 30th at 3:57 pm
It is good, and i wish it can be more effective to many people.
Sep 30th at 3:58 pm
Well done team! It just gets better and better! Thank you.
Sep 30th at 7:00 pm
Saving us time and making life simple. Thanks.
Sep 30th at 7:28 pm
awesome improvement!! Thank heaps WP!! <3
Sep 30th at 8:24 pm
Awesome WordPress!!
Sep 30th at 9:35 pm
Yes, nice idea and thank you…
And to those complaining about javascript stuff, yes, I’d like to have it too, but I would *not* like to have the problems that friends of mine on other hosting services have had because of javascript. WP is stable and secure, and that matters more to me than any fancy widget.
Thanks again, team:)
Sep 30th at 11:16 pm
Great………, This is going to very useful for Photo blogging. I will try this. I am still waiting for excellent photo blogging theme.
Sep 30th at 11:16 pm
Cool – I’m going to try out the image widget! It is exactly what I needed!
Thank you!
-nathan
Oct 1st at 1:59 am
I’m right behind these guys… headin’ over to try out the new image widget! Woo Hoo! Thanks! You guys are the best! <>
Oct 1st at 5:41 am
A slideshow widget would be cool. But this is pretty cool too.
I’ve bounced around between different blog hosts since 2003, and let me just say that I think WordPress is by FAR the BEST.
You guys do more stuff to make the user experience so cool. Great job. 
Oct 1st at 6:47 am
wow wow wow, thanks heaps for making our lives on this WPLand easier and easier. <3
Oct 1st at 7:29 am
hay salamat. (thanks, i mean).
Oct 1st at 7:40 am
A long awaited feature finally here. Thanks so much!
Oct 1st at 9:25 am
I inserted a live webcam of the city i’m living in just using the Image Widget. It is straight forward to use it!
Thanks!
Oct 1st at 10:50 am
cool
Oct 1st at 12:07 pm
I’ll check it out.
Oct 1st at 1:44 pm
Gonna start playing around with this asap.
Oct 1st at 4:36 pm
Thanks,wordpress is really great
Oct 1st at 7:40 pm
WordPress, you rock!!
Oct 1st at 7:46 pm
Yeh. Thanks a lot! I like this widget. Next time for slide show widget.
Oct 1st at 9:45 pm
HOT DIGGITY DAMN! I use tons of images on my blog so this is PERFECT!
Thanks wordpress!
(Now how about you make it possible to use the WordPress audio player in the sidebar
)
Oct 1st at 11:20 pm
I know you creative and very thoughtful WordPress geniuses are working to make your Image Upload screen fully interactive with Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition software for those of us with blog-burned hands. I will promise a positively gushy comment to your Hugs line!
Oct 2nd at 2:27 am
Oooh, that’s fabulous!!
Oct 2nd at 7:12 am
Very helpful for the HTML challenged-two thumbs up!
Oct 2nd at 12:15 pm
the wordpress is really great platform for make the blog….Its updates are high tech….
Oct 2nd at 1:57 pm
Ive been waiting for you guys to do an image thing that was easier! I liked the changes they made on blogspot, you just do one thing instead of 4 like in wordpress. Hopefully this will cut down on things and save us time..
thanks for making our posting easier.. we appreciate it
Oct 2nd at 4:00 pm
makes it easy
tnx
Oct 2nd at 5:37 pm
if the image is stored on your computer it has no url. did i miss something?
Oct 7th at 9:43 am
If the image isn’t hosted on the web, you’ll need to upload your image to the Media Library first and use the provided WordPress.com URL.
Oct 2nd at 5:39 pm
What a wonderful coincidence! I was playing around with the text widget image insertion and I had difficulties so I gave up and now you’re giving me an easy solution. The wordpress fairy heard my pleas! Thanks so much!
Oct 2nd at 7:01 pm
Wow things just cant be hard in here…Thanks loads WP!!!!…
Oct 2nd at 7:13 pm
Just added it. A valuable addition to the Flickr access I offer in the sidebar.
Now, I can add whatever happens to be my latest fave photo from one of my walks here in La Cieneguilla. Regular visitors already love it.
Oct 2nd at 7:17 pm
Yey!
Oct 2nd at 7:32 pm
Thanks sooo much! I know HTML but this is AMAZING!