Image captions not being displayed + random pop-up display size

[colleenumn]

Two issues related to images:

1. I published a new blog post with 2 inline images but the captions are not appearing -- neither inline nor when it pops-up.

Example:
https://gin.btaa.org/posts/2026-01-29-collaborative-storytelling-about-important-farmlands-maps-collection/

I do see that this news post does include captions:
https://gin.btaa.org/posts/building-historical-maps-of-new-jersey/

Related to inline images:
2. when clicking on the image in the blog post, the pop-ups displays either a smaller or same size version of the image instead of the expected larger version.

inline images stay same size:
https://gin.btaa.org/posts/2026-01-29-collaborative-storytelling-about-important-farmlands-maps-collection/

inline images are smaller:
https://gin.btaa.org/posts/building-historical-maps-of-new-jersey/

inline images display the gamut of behaviors: same, smaller, larger.
https://gin.btaa.org/posts/applying-deep-learning-models-to-btaa/

[karenmajewicz]

I updated the blog and updates templates so that the Cover image does not display at the top of the post itself and does not include a "caption" field.

Then, any image uploaded to the blog posts will be center aligned. If you add a "Title" to the image insert widget, it will appear as a caption beneath the image.

[karenmajewicz]

For the images:

• The current plugin just displays the image at its original size with the Alt Text at the bottom. Even though it is called "Starlight Image Zoom", it doesn't really "zoom" at all
• It can be a fairly user friendly experience only if the original image size is already very large and the page layout features a smaller width. I replaced some of the blog post images with larger, higher quality images and it is a little better.

Going forward, I think these are our options:

1. Disable the image zoom plugin completely. It is not really an image-forward site and having zoomable images might not be necessary.
2. Keep the existing plugin, but replace any small or lower quality images with higher ones. Establish a precedent going forward to always use images that are at least 1200px wide.
3. Find a different plugin that functions a little differently.

@colleenumn do you have a preference between these options? Or something else?

[colleenumn]

My preference is option 2 for now and we can opportunistically keep an eye out for a different plugin (#3).

My thinking -- while it's not an image-forward site, the Collections blog frequently includes wonderful maps so we should aim to showcase when we can. Thanks for digging into this!

[karenmajewicz]

It is now optional to add a cover image to a blog post.