The example above should be between php tags (<?php .. ?>)

and then:

<img src="<?php echo $thumbPath ?>" alt="" />

The example was just to show how you could add a picture to an empty (or non existing) custom field

How does this work without img src= or an echo?

$thumbPath = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'thumbnail', true);

if ($thumbPath == "") {
$thumbPath = "comingsoon.png";
}

$thumbPath = "/wp-content/media/store/" . $thumbPath;

I would keep the images out of the template directory, but that’s just my opinion.

This is great. I’m definitely bookmarking this page. I am using custom fields to pull in an image for my posts for a site I’m developing. I really like the code you have for displaying alternate text if there is no value found for a custom field. However, I would like to display a placeholder image instead of “dummy text”. I would like to use a ‘template_directory’ php link if possible but if I have to use an absolute URL that’s fine too.

How would I do that?

There are several solutions to this problem:

First of all, you could display the list as an unordered list (like in the example)m and style the list via css:

(enclose the unordered list with <div id=”inline-list”>)

#inline-list ul, #inline-list li {
display: inline;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

#inline-list-gen ul li:after {
content: “, “;
}

#inline-list-gen ul li.last:after {
content: ” “;
}

The advandage is that it’s still a list (for screen readers, for instance), but the disadvantage is thet these pseudo elements don’t work in every browser. Maybe some javascript could solve that problem (I do not know of one, google is your friend).

I suspect however that you’ve abandoned the unordered list alltogether, so you would have to detect when the list ends. One possible solution would be this:

$thanks = get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘thanks’, false);

if ($thanks) {
$counter=1;
foreach ($thanks as $person) {
if ($counter > 1) echo “, “;
echo $person;
$counter++;
}
}

The trick here is to display the comma in front of the field, but not before the first one.

I used the above code to output something like this: field1, field2, field3
Problem is I get: field1, field2, field3, (notice the last comma)

Can this be eliminated?

Thanks. I guess it’s just confusing to a noob like me that the loop code retrieves “posts” but my template is trying to display a “page”. It’s hard to understand that WP treats them both the same. This might be worth a little explanation on your blog if you have a slow day….

Thanks for your help. Suddenly pages based uopn my template display the content.

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_title(); ?>
<?php the_content(‘Read the rest of this page »’); ?>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Or in short: the loop