I really like the Markdown plugin in WordPress, particularly the cool reference style links. As someone who still uses a plain-text email client, it’s no surprise that I’d appreciate the simple syntax of Markdown…I already use it!

Still, since I can’t leave a good thing alone, I’d like it to work with my uploaded images, wrapped in fancy dropshadow boxes. So I’m going to try hacking in some of that goodness using some of PictPress’s features.

PictPress, while very nice for thumbnail galleries, doesn’t quite offer the control I want. Plus, it pollutes my posts with extra tags even when there are no images to add, offers no ability to position thumbnails anywhere else but at the bottom of the entry, and doesn’t play nice with my admittedly crude CSS manipulations. So I’ve disabled it, and have regained manual control.

PictPress has very nice bit of code in it: the resize.php script that automatically generates and caches thumbnail size images.

What I’d like to do is extend Markdown’s image linking to use PictPress’s thumbnail & image presentation, combined with on-the-fly caching. * I’d like to just upload ONE full resolution image to any valid directory, then put in the link in with Markdown. * I’d like to add a couple of extensions to its syntax for WIDTH and ALIGNMENT. * I’ll let Markdown pick the name of the thumbnail and retain its cachedness by stuffing it right back in the same folder as the original uploaded image.

RANDOM NOTE: Is it my imagination, or does my site load much faster with PictPress disabled?