WordPress.org

A set of tools to automatically import external images and set the first image as featured image.

It uses the libraries provided by the plugin Media Tools by C3MDigital (http://c3mdigital.com/wordpress/media-tools/). Their plugin allows to import external images and also to set one of them as the featured image. However it is a process that should be launched manually from within wp-admin.

Our plugin calls the functions provided by Media Tools when the post is saved, importing all images and setting the featured image. Thus the images are available since the first moment.