Modifying protexted image sizes: use “add_image_size()” or “update_option()”?

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I’m finding conflicting info on whether it’s okay to override protected WordPress image sizes (thumbnail, medium, medium_large, and large) with add_image_size(). Some docs indicate it’s better to do this with update_option (). Is there a practical difference between these sets of code:

function mytheme_image_sizes() {
  add_image_size('thumbnail', 200, 200, true);    
  add_image_size('medium', 480, 480, true); 
}

vs

function mytheme_image_sizes() {
  update_option( 'thumbnail_size_w', 200 );
  update_option( 'thumbnail_size_h', 200 );
  update_option( 'thumbnail_crop', 1 );
  update_option( 'medium_size_w', 480 );
  update_option( 'medium_size_h', 480 );
  update_option( 'medium_crop', 1 );
}

Note: I’m specifying these in my theme to stop admins from arbitrarily altering sizes and screwing up the post-4.4 responsive images function, and I’ll probably remove the admin interface to change the image sizes.

1 Answer
1

There is little difference, by default crop is set to false.

function add_image_size( $name, $width = 0, $height = 0, $crop = false ) {
    global $_wp_additional_image_sizes;

    $_wp_additional_image_sizes[ $name ] = array(
        'width'  => absint( $width ),
        'height' => absint( $height ),
        'crop'   => $crop,
    );
}

And also during the process of evaluation

if ( isset( $_wp_additional_image_sizes[ $size ] ) ) {
                $width  = intval( $_wp_additional_image_sizes[ $size ]['width'] );
                $height = intval( $_wp_additional_image_sizes[ $size ]['height'] );
                $crop   = ( $nocrop ) ? false : $_wp_additional_image_sizes[ $size ]['crop'];
            } else {
                $height = get_option( "{$size}_size_h" );
                $width  = get_option( "{$size}_size_w" );
                $crop   = ( $nocrop ) ? false : get_option( "{$size}_crop" );
            }

variable $_wp_additional_image_sizes is took in consideration. Other then that it is very simple, options will be read from options table only if not defined.

Also please note: the database wp_options table is read before functions.php has been processed.

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