Suggestions for improvement are always welcome. Just send an email to marcel@featuredimagefromurl.com and your request can be available in the next release.
But if you want to report a bug, first click on to get your plugin version and options. You can also attach as many details as possible such as screenshots, JS errors on browser console, PHP errors in debug file etc.
Auto Set Featured Image: configuration
Perfect for external posts, this option allows to use the first image from a post/page/product content as featured image. It will happen when you click on Publish/Update button.
use the first image as featured image
hide the first image from content
overwrite the existing external featured image
Auto Set Image Alt/Title
Enable the toggle below to automatically set the attibutes "alt" and "title" of an external image with the title of the post/page. It will have effect when you click on publish/update button of your post/page.
auto set image alt/title
Custom Post Types
Featured Image from URL is preconfigured to work with only one Custom Post Type (WooCommerce Product). But you also can use this plugin with other ones. For that, you just need to know the correct Custom Post Type names and fill the fields below. Please, let me know if you need more than 10 inputs here.
CSS Style
Here you can define a CSS style to be applied to all external featured images. Usage example:
If your theme doesn't define an image width in some area of the site, FIFU can use a default value (px).
Default External Featured Image
Here you can define the URL of a default external featured image that will be shown when you create/update a post/page/product without an internal/external featured image.
Fake Internal Featured Image
Even though FIFU works fine with the most of themes/plugins, some of them are not able to show the external featured image if there is no internal featured image associated to your post/page/product. Enabling the toggle below, a symbolic empty file will be added to your Media Library as an attempt to overcome that limitation.
action
pros
cons
Featured Image Column
The plugin adds a new column "FIFU" (Featured Image from URL) to your table of posts/pages/products in admin area. Below you can choose the height (px) of the image in the column. To disable that, just uncheck "FIFU" in the Screen Options.
Featured Image in Content
It will sound crazy, but some themes don't show the Featured Image on the posts or pages. If it is your case and you would like to show the Featured Image there, just enable the toggle. The Featured Image will appear at the beginning of the content, before the text.
on page
on post
Hide Featured Media
Enable the toggle if you want to hide the external featured image/video/slider on posts/pages but keeping its visibility on home.
on page
on post
Lazy Load
Enabling this feature the images/videos won't be loaded until user scrolls to them. So it will make your home/shop load faster.
Priority
Enable the toggle below to prioritize the internal image rather than the external one, if both exist.
prioritize the internal image
Social Tags
Featured Image from URL provides social tags to share the external images on the social networks. Here you can enable/disable this feature.
WooCommerce Category Image on Product Grid
That's possible to show the external featured image of your category on category page, immediately before the product grid. To do that, enable the toggle below.
If this new FREE feature is useful to you, please cherish my work. Give FIFU a 5-star rating!
show category image on product grid
WooCommerce Lightbox and Zoom
You can enable/disable the product lightbox and zoom here.
lightbox
zoom
WP All Import
You can use Featured Image from URL with WP All Import plugin. For that, use the custom field fifu_image_url.
The other custom fields supported by FIFU are listed below, in the section WP REST API > Plugin Fields.
Premium feature
But if you have a list of URLs delimited by "|", it's possible to use that with the custom field fifu_list_url. In this case, the first image will be considered the featured image and the others will be in the product image gallery. For sliders, use fifu_slider_list_url.
Auto Set Featured Image: apply to all
Premium feature
Enable that to update all your posts/pages/products applying the configuration above. Very useful if you have hundreds of them and want to set the first image as featured image for all. To repeat/continue the process enable the toggle again. It can take several minutes and you can monitor the progress here. It can't be undone, so make a backup.
To schedule this process (hourly, daily etc), you can use the Hook fifu_event with your favorite cron event plugin. I like WP Control.
posts per second (high values can bring down your database)
ignore posts that already have an external featured image
update all your posts/pages/products now
Status:
Auto Set Product Category Images
Premium feature
Enable the toggle below to set one external image to each product category. The image will be the external featured image from the most recent product from that category.
set category images
Crop images to the same size
Premium feature
If you are not happy with the different sizes of external featured images on your home/shop, enable the toggle below to crop them to the same size.
 crop images
P.S.: if the crop doesn't work, use a Selector to inform where is the group of external images that you want to crop.
 inform a Selector
Examples of valid selectors: #products (if the element id="products"), .my-post-area (if the element class="my-post-area")
External Featured Videos
Premium feature
The default value applied to the videos is "100%" and it usually works fine. However, here you can define the max size (px, cm etc) of the featured videos at different screens and the ratio for these videos as well.
Ratio:
e.g.: 1, 2, 3...
Margin Bottom:
e.g.: 10px, 1cm...
Vertical Margin:
e.g.: 10px, 1cm...
Archive:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Category:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Home:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Page:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Post:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Product:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
Shop:
e.g.: 300px, 8cm...
External Thumbnails (Flickr Integration): Your Website Faster Than Ever
Premium feature
 Do you know Flickr?
It's free;
Offers 1000 GB of space;
It's dedicated to store and provide images, probably faster than the most of servers;
Creates automatic copies of your images in many different sizes.
 How does Featured Image from URL take advantage of Flickr?
Smaller the images, faster your site.
So the plugin will load the images from Flickr in the exactly size your site needs.
And the result is...
The images will be shown with the best quality and the shortest time possible.
Getting Flickr URL
You just need to get one URL (Square 75). Use that to fill the External Featured Image field of your post, page or product. The plugin will handle this URL to provide the image in different sizes.
Hover Effects
Premium feature
Choose one among 18 hover effects to be applied to the external featured images of your posts/products on your homepage.
Meta boxes: External Galleries and Slider
Premium feature
Here you can define the number of fields you will have on the editor for galleries and slider. A huge amount of fields can interfere in the save action time.
Shortcode (beta feature)
Premium feature
This experimental feature allows to use a shortcode as "featured image" of posts/pages/products. Using shortcodes you are not limited to images/videos/sliders anymore. You can use any content provided by the shortcode, what could be a music, a text, a whole site etc. However, some contents will need a large area of your site to be shown properly. So you should define a minimum width that an area of your site should have to be able to show the shortcode content, otherwise it will be shown the regular featured image. Important: shortcodes can be not compatible with other FIFU features, such as CSS Style and Crop Image.
shortcode
minimum width required (px)
maximum height (px)
Slider Settings
Premium feature
Once you have added the first external image on a post/page/product, the slider meta box will show up. Adding more external images, you have a slider and you can define its settings here.
slider
fade effect
pause autoplay on hover
show prev/next buttons
start to play automatically
time between each transition (in ms)
transition duration (in ms)
Validate Images
Premium feature
Allows to check image URLs and, when an image is not found, its URL is not saved. However, the validation can make the saving time too long. It is not integrated with Auto Set Featured Image or WP Rest API features yet.
Video
Premium feature
Enable video meta box. If you are not using videos as featured images, you can disable this feature and make your site a little faster.
Video Auto Play
Premium feature
This option allows to play a video on "mouseover" and pause it on "mouseout".
for YouTube videos
for Vimeo videos
Video Thumbnail
Premium feature
Enable the toggle below to show the video thumbnail instead of the video on home/shop.
WooCommerce Variable Product
Premium feature
Allows to use external images in variations of WooCommerce Variable Products.
You can inform any problem related to the Premium version in the email above. It will be solved as soon as possible and without any cost.
2) "Which plugins are compatible with Premium version?"
WooCommerce, WP All Import, Monarch, Frontend Publishing and others. If you intend to use the Premium version with a specific plugin, try to test with the free version first. Or you can ask me if they are compatible.
3) "Are there the known incompatibility issues?"
Themes: some WooCommerce themes aren’t flexible enough to work with Videos and Sliders. To know if your theme is compatible with those features, please take a look on “Checking compatibility” area, here in FIFU settings.
4) "Can I get my money back later?"
With the exception of rare situations, no. But don't worry about that. You will still have the best support and if, after your complete cooperation, I'm not able to solve your issue, I may refund you.
5) "How to get the Premium version?"
(US$ 49.90 or more, please) and receive the download link by email within 12 hours.
Moreover, you will have lifetime automatic updates.
And if you need more license keys, you can get 5 by US$ 99.90.
Clean meta data
This option might be necessary if you intend to deactivate the plugin and use only internal featured images again. It will clean the fake internal featured images generated by FIFU, but not the URLs.