[wp-hackers] shortcode for images?

[Paul]

All,

Just wondering is there are any future core plans to replace the full  
URL of images inserted into Posts/Pages with some new image shortcode?

Historically I've always disagreed with placing the full image URL  
into the post body since this limits the overall blog portability. As  
a full-time developer I usually develop the client WordPress site on  
my local system. This includes importing any legacy blog posts,  
images, documents, etc. When I push this to the client server I have  
to search and replace the local URL the client site URL. Not s big  
issue really I know.

Another example. I'm converting this HRC blog site http://www.hrcbackstory.org/ 
  from TypePad to a self-hosted WordPress instance http://blogstaging.hrcsupport.org 
. The site has over 1460 posts and most post have 2 or more images.  
The dev URL 'blogstaging.hrcsupport.org' used for the staging site  
will need to be updated when they point the live domain 'www.hrcbackstory.org 
' to the self-hosted WordPress site end of next week. At that time  
I'll need to update the database. Again, not a big issue. But would be  
nice if the client could do this themselves. I was thinking there  
could be a cleaner way.

Seems that shortcodes are all the rage now. Most media plugin  
developers are utilizing them quite well. So why is WordPress still  
using the full URL for the image source? I noticed the new image  
caption already uses shortcode [caption... ]. Seems it would not be a  
big task to use a shortcode for the image itself. Just wondering.

Paul Menard
http://www.codehooligans.com