Image Widget

Use the image widget whenever the learning task depends on something visual: a diagram, a source photo, a chart, or a reference illustration.

Where the settings live

A new image widget shows a placeholder — a soft tile with a picture icon and Choose image — until you give it a picture. Select it and click Choose image in the small bar that floats above it: the media library opens straight away. Once the widget has a picture, the same button reads Replace image. Double-clicking the image on the canvas does the same thing.

There is no ⚙ Configure dialog for an image: the picture is its only setup. Everything else lives in the right sidebar.

Settings to know

In the right sidebar, under Image Source:

• Open Media Library opens the same picker as Choose image, so you can choose an image from owned media, upload a new image, search the stock libraries and your own files together, or generate one with AI.
• The ✕ beside the chosen picture removes it, and the widget goes back to its placeholder.

In the right sidebar, under Style & Layout:

• Fit controls whether the image crops to fill the frame, stays fully visible, or stretches.
• Background Color is transparent by default, so a placed image — including a transparent PNG — sits directly on the scene with no box behind it. New images always start transparent, even if you gave an earlier image a colored background. Set a color here when you want a fill behind the image; it's most visible with Fit: Contain, where it shows in the margins around the image.
• Border Radius rounds the picture itself at every Fit setting. With Fit: Contain that's the corners of the visible image, not the empty margins around it, so a rounded diagram still looks rounded.

Every picture comes from your media library — something you uploaded, a stock image (Berdee copies it into your library when you pick it), or one you generated. There is no box for pasting a web address: a picture hot-linked from another site can vanish or change without warning, and a file in your library can't. To use an image from the web, save it and upload it.

Selecting several images at once gives you the same Fit control for all of them — see Editing several widgets at once.

Alt text follows the picture

When you pick an image, Berdee fills in its alt text (what a screen reader says about it) from the picture's own description, or its file name if it has none. Swap in a different picture and that alt text is replaced to describe the new one; remove the picture and it's cleared. Alt text you wrote is never touched — change it once and it stays yours through every swap. So after you replace a picture, read its alt text again. _Step-by-step: Describe your pictures for screen-reader users._

GIFs play for students

The studio canvas shows a GIF's first frame with a small GIF ▶ tag. Students see it animate — preview the lesson to watch it move.

The quickest way to add one

You do not have to add an empty image widget and then find a picture for it. Drag an image file from your desktop onto the canvas, or copy a picture and press ⌘ V (Ctrl V). Berdee uploads it, creates the image widget for you where you dropped it, and sizes the frame to the picture's own shape — so a portrait photo arrives portrait instead of squashed into a landscape box. The file lands in your media library at the same time, ready to reuse.

JPG, PNG, GIF and WebP up to 10 MB each. Full details, including what happens when a file is refused: Add an image by dropping or pasting it.

Grading setup

Images are not graded by themselves. They are usually the visual anchor for other graded widgets.

How to set up the content

Choose an image that supports the exact task on the scene. If the learner must inspect details, leave enough screen space around it instead of squeezing it into a decorative corner.

Useful setting combinations

• Fit Contain + a background color:

Best for diagrams where every part of the image must stay visible. The background fills the empty margins around the contained image — leave it transparent to let the scene show through, or set a color to frame the image.

• Fit Cover + large frame:

Best for photo-based prompts where cropping is acceptable.

• rounded corners + text overlay:

Best for visual prompt cards.

• image + hotspot widgets above it:

Best for diagrams learners explore by tapping. Hotspots aren't graded questions; see Hotspot. For a graded "find it in the picture" question, use Find in Picture, which holds the picture and its regions in one widget.

Strong use cases

• Showing a labeled or unlabeled diagram.
• Presenting a primary source image.
• Providing a visual prompt for writing or discussion.

Great pairings with other widgets

• Pair an image with hotspot so learners can tap parts of it to reveal more.
• Pair it with text for captions, prompts, or source notes.
• Pair it with button to reveal the image only after prediction.
• Pair it with dropdown or multiple choice to label parts of the visual.