The Problem

We recently released a new Pro Business Guide named Facebook Fan Pages for Business on our other site. We created a landing page using Premise. Premise allows for the creation of several types of landing pages with some cool features. Read more here.

The Premise landing pages are created as custom post types aptly named “Landing Page” and there are several types of landing pages to choose from. Because these are custom post types, they do not show up in your site feed (which is OK because we don’t want them to at this point), but they also do not show up in our XML Sitemap…and of course we DO want them there so search engines can easily index them and be updated of additions and changes.

We are using the XML-Sitemap Generator plugin (version 3.2.4 at time of writing). This plugin creates and updates your XML Sitemap whenever you add a new page or post BUT it does not account for custom post types.

We did our due diligence and read through the plugin documentation and forum threads, and even found a plugin that hooks into the XML-Sitemap plugin to include custom post types, but decided not to use it because of forward compatibility if the XML-Sitemap plugin gets updated to include custom post types.

The Fix

The solution to adding our custom post types to the XML-Sitemap plugin was simple, thanks to the forward thinking of the plugin developer. He included an option to add pages to the Sitemap manually by entering the URL to the page. It had been awhile since we visited the plugin settings, so we didn’t realize it was so easy right away.

Click to Enlarge

After entering the URL to our Premise custom post type page and configuring a few settings, all we had to do next was use the “Rebuild Sitemap Manually” link to rebuild our Sitemap so it would pick up our manually entered URL.

Click to Enlarge

The Result

You can clearly see in the image below that our Premise custom post type page has been added to our Sitemap.

Click to Enlarge

Update

The solution presented above worked great for our immediate needs, but what if you have dozens or even hundreds of Custom Post Types you need to add to your XML-Sitemap?

1. A function that specifically adds them:
http://www.getupandrunning.net/2010/06/adding-custom-content-types-to-the-sitemap/

2. Using Joost’s SEO plugin for WP which has this feature built-in:
http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/#xml-sitemap

There is a plugin somewhere that hooks into the XML-Sitemap Generator plugin too, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.

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I was browsing through the WP Plugins tab of the WP Universe iPhone app last night while in bed and came across a press release on PRWeb about a new WordPress plugin from MailChimp.

ChimpExpress Plugin

Being I’m a WP nerd and also a customer of MailChimp, I clicked through to learn more about this new plugin and had to share. I think this can be a very useful tool for those people using WordPress to power their websites who also send regular email campaigns and newsletters.

Disclaimer: I am the maker of the WP Universe app. I use it almost every day to stay up to date with new themes, plugins, development, and many other WordPress related information. If you’re interested in staying in the loop, feel free to grab the app.

ChimpExpress Plugin

As the name of the plugin above implies, it’s designed provide seemless content sharing between WordPress and your MailChimp account in order to speed up your content creation workflow. You can grab the ChimpExpress plugin on the repository.

This is very welcome news to me as I have been both blogging and sending newsletters through MailChimp more and more.

Two Publishing Modes

With this plugin you are able to publish from WordPress to MailChimp and bring in content from MailChimp into WordPress.

When publishing from WordPress to MailChimp, the author first selects an existing template in his/her MailChimp account. The WordPress plugin is aware of the content blocks in the template and allows the author to add new content into each section. The author can either choose to write new content in the WordPress editor and/or republish a blog post. Once the campaign is completed, the content is automatically posted to the user’s MailChimp account and a preview is provided of the final campaign. The MailChimp user would then log into his/her account to schedule the sendin time.

When publishing from MailChimp to WordPress you can bring in content from an existing MailChimp campaign as a blog post and edit the content in the WordPress editor before publishing.

Another Big Benefit

The plugin also makes it easy to create a stand alone landing page of the MailChimp campaign.

Read that last sentence again and think of the possibilities.

The plugin removes email specific information such as unsubscribe links and allows the user to edit the content and the page name. Then it publishes it to a new page in the blog. This is a perfect way for folks to create content in MailChimp and maintain a permanent web page with their own domain.

Source: PRWeb

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One of our WP Pro Business clients recently went through a redesign in anticipation for her book release. We moved her to the Genesis framework and implemented a customized version of the Crystal child theme.

She needed custom fonts on her site in order to match the design of her book cover. Here’s how we accomplished that goal.

The Goal

The original font for the site title and other areas being used was Arial, we needed to change that to the Typewriter Royal 200 web font provided by FontsForWeb.com.

Here’s the title before:

Before

Here’s the title after:

After

Setting Up the Change

FontsForWeb.com provides you with code that calls their font and it’s included CSS class. It’s required that you put this code into the header of your document.

<pre><style type="text/css">
    @font-face{
        font-family: "typewriterroyal200bold";
        src: url('http://fontsforweb.com/public/fonts/801/typewriterroyal200bold.eot');
        src: local("Typewriter Royal 200"), url('http://fontsforweb.com/public/fonts/801/typewriterroyal200bold.ttf') format("truetype");
    }
    .fontsforweb_fontid_801 {
        font-family: "typewriterroyal200bold";
    }
</style>

How To Include Header Scripts in Genesis?

Genesis makes it super easy and there are several ways to do it. We chose to simply include this script in the Genesis Header/Footer Scripts section of the Genesis Theme Settings.

1. Navigate to Genesis–>Theme Settings
2. Scroll down and on the bottom right you will see the Header/Footer Scripts section
3. Insert the FontsForWeb.com script
4. Choose Save Settings

The Header/Footer Scripts section should look like this:

Insert the fontsforweb Script

Note: Google also provides web fonts and this should work for them as well.

Filtering to Access CSS Font Styles

We had to include two functions in order to filter the CSS output of the site title and post titles in our Genesis child theme. We did this in order to include the fontsforweb CSS classes so we could style them accordingly.

We included the two functions below in our Crystal child theme’s functions.php file.

Our Function to Filter the Site Title

//Filter Site Title to Add Font Class
add_filter('genesis_seo_title', 'fontforweb_genesis_seo_title', 10, 3);
function fontforweb_genesis_seo_title($title, $inside, $wrap) {
 return sprintf('<%s id="title">%s</%s>', $wrap, $inside, $wrap);
}

Our Function to Filter the Post Titles

//Filter Post Title to Add Font Class
add_filter('genesis_post_title_output', 'fontforweb_post_title_output');
function fontforweb_post_title_output( $title ) {
 return sprintf( '<h2>%s</h2>', apply_filters( 'genesis_post_title_text', get_the_title() ) );
}

CSS Edits

We could have targeted the new

.fontsforweb_fontid_801

CSS class in the style.css file in our child theme , but because all we needed to define in our case was the actual font, that was already taken care of in the code we added to the Header/Footer section above.

Please Leave Us a Comment if You Found This Useful

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This is a simple one folks. If you use WordPress, especially with Multisite networks enabled, it’s likely that you have occasion to need a specialized plugin or theme that you can’t find in the repository, or at least ones that have dedicated support and feature enhancements on a regular basis.

Enter WPMUDEV.org. If you’re not familiar with them, go have a look and see how they can benefit you and your online properties.

I said I’d keep this post simple, so here’s the scoop. We’re promoting our new site WP Pro Business and we are currently looking for Facebook Page Likes. That’s it. Like our fan page, be entered to win. Details below…

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I was browsing through the WordPress.org support forums today and came across a question by a user who was creating an image grid on a page. There was a border around the table he created and it wasn’t clear on how to remove it.

Here’s how I found what was causing the border and how it could be removed…all without having to touch a single piece of code on his/her live website.

How to Create an Image Grid in WordPress

First, there are many ways to accomplish a grid of images on a WordPress page or post.

• The built-in Gallery Feature included in WordPress. Nice step-by-step here.
• A multitude of image gallery plugins. The most popular by far being NextGen Gallery.
• Creating a customized page template in your theme.
• Writing HTML directly into a page and inserting your images and links.
• Using the Grid Loop feature of the Genesis theme framework. This is what I do mostly, but it’s because my image galleries tend to be links to posts in a certain category.

Method Used and Problem

This user was using #4 in the list above. They chose to create a table in HTML directly inside the page and insert their images and links in each table data cell. The problem that this user was seeing was a border around the table even though they specified that there be no border.

The Unwanted Borders

This is the code they have:

<table height="100" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bordercolor="#808080" border="0" style="width: 205px;">

Cause

Even though they specified border=0 above, the table was still being given a border around it. I suspected that the table border was being defined by the CSS styling included with the theme they were using. I took a look at the CSS code and here’s what I saw.

Table HTML on Left - CSS Styles Affecting it on Right

Solution

You can see in the image above that there is definitely CSS there that is specifying a 1px solid border for tables, table headings, and table data cells.

To see if these were the cause of the borders, I simply turned these styles off with my handy web development tool as seen in the image below.

You’ll also notice I can see the .css files where this code exists on the right side.

Turn Off CSS Styles for Tables

How I Found and Offered a Fix

This is no mind blowing secret and many of you reading this may already be familiar with this tool and using it yourself. It’s one of the most popular free Add-ons for Firefox named Firebug.

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

While using Firebug and looking at the CSS for that that website, I could see the .css files as in the above image. Firebug also allowed me to simply right-click and copy the full path to the stylesheet file in order to share that with the user. Check it out in the image below.

Hover or Copy Location to Grab Full URL to CSS File

Summary

At the time of this writing the user hasn’t responded to the thread to update on whether this was the ultimate solution to their issue, but if not, I’m confident that just knowing that the CSS styles were affecting their code was enough to lead them in the right direction. At least I hope so;)

Do You Use Firebug?

Please share your advice and tips with us in the comments section below so we can all learn more.

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Creating contact forms in WordPress has been relatively easy with the availability of many different form making plugins. However, creating advanced forms that include features like letting users upload files, creating multiple page forms, etc. while still allowing you (or your clients) to create these inside an easily usable interface, can be a bit difficult.

Gravity Forms Makes Development Easy

Gravity Forms to the Rescue

Every year I spend a considerable amount of money purchasing premium WordPress plugins, themes, and other services. I purchased the developer license version of Gravity Forms back in 2009 and I can safely say it’s been one of the best WordPress related purchases I have ever made.

If you’ve been around WordPress for any length of time, you’re most likely aware of Gravity Forms or at least any of the dozens of freely available contact form plugins. Whether you are already using Gravity Forms, or are hearing this plugin’s name for the first time,  the new features detailed below with the release of version 1.5 are sure to make you giddy:)

What’s New in Gravity Forms v1.5

Multi-Page Forms
One of the most widely requested features is finally here, multi-page form capabilities. Using the new Page Break field you now have the ability split longer forms into multiple pages or steps. We have also integrated a visual paging status bar that can be used to show a progress bar or the steps involved in completing the form.

Pricing Fields
Pricing Fields allow you to create quotes and order forms. It features integrated pricing calculations and is compatible with the Gravity Forms PayPal Add-On. Pricing Fields consist of a Product Field, Option Field, Quantity Field, Shipping Field, Donation Field and Total Field. They allow you to easily turn your form into an order form and collect payments when combined with the PayPal Add-On.

Textarea Character Counter
Easily limit the number of characters entered into a textarea and include a visual character counter that lets them know how many characters are allowed and how many characters have been entered.

CSS Ready Classes
Easily create multi-column layouts using built in CSS classes. These keywords are custom CSS classes you add to the CSS Class Name option under the Advanced tab for each field. Using our pre-defined CSS class names you can easily create 2 or 3 column forms, display radio button and checkbox options in 2, 3 or 4 columns as well as turn a Section Break into a scrolling text field. Get complete details on the available Ready Classes here.

Default Notification
Gravity Forms will now automatically setup an Admin Notification that uses the WordPress Admin email as the Send To and includes all submitted form fields when a new form is created.

Post Field Enhancements
We have enhanced the content template capabilities of the Post Fields and extended them to the Post Custom Field. Now you can use the content template capabilities on the Post Title, Post Body and Post Custom Fields in the form builder. The Post Category field has been enhanced to allow for an initial placeholder value (ex. “Please Select a Category”) and now supports Admin Only visibility to allow you to set a default category using the Post Category field.

Checkbox and Multiple Choice (Radio Button) HTML Support
The Checkbox and Multiple Choice (Radio Button) fields now support HTML in the option labels. This allows you to include links or use images as your options.

Shortcode Support
Love using Shortcodes? Need to insert custom code into the Email Notification, Confirmation Text or HTML Field content? Gravity Forms now supports utilizing Shortcodes in the Email Notification Message Body, Confirmation Text and within the content of an HTML Field.

Enhanced Bulk Edit Functionality
You can now reset views, or delete entries from the Edit Forms screen using enhanced options added to the Bulk Edit functionality.

New Hooks and Filters
We have added a variety of new hooks and filters, all of which are documented (with examples) in the brand new Documentation area of the support site.

Upgrade and Renewals
Now you can Upgrade or Renew your Gravity Forms License Key right from your WordPress Dashboard! Visit either the Settings page or the Update page. If an Upgrade is available, or you are within the Renewal period, you will be presented with options to purchase the Upgrade or Renewal.

Support For New Add-Ons
Gravity Forms v1.5 supports the introduction of the PayPal Add-On and User Registration Add-On which are now available for Developer License customers.

Are You As Amazed As I Was?

Is that enough proof that you can do some awesome things with this plugin? Gravity Forms has come so far since it’s inception that it’s true power probably isn’t clear to many. I did notice that this plugin’s description now includes the words “…lead and data management…” which is fitting.

Are You Using Gravity Forms?

If you’re already using this plugin please share a link to something you’ve created with Gravity Forms so we can all learn what’s possible.

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The WP Modder mobile app is now available in the Android Marketplace. Check it out. Now more people can read and watch our WordPress tutorials and information while in the bathroom!

WordPress Tutorials Now Available on Android Devices

Why Did We Focus on Android?

Because we love you. As you may know, our app has been available for iOS devices since early last fall. It was always our intention to expand our reach into additional mobile markets, and we’re very pleased to reach this milestone.

What’s Next for WP Modder Apps?

WP Modder is still alive and well. We are undergoing a restructuring of this site and our other WP and content strategy related sites. This means a complete overhaul of the app and it’s features are coming. Rather than wait for that, we decided to release the Android version and get that off our todo list in order to focus on what you really want…awesome content.

Speaking of Awesome Content…

We’ve been busy analyzing the current content on this site and also our visitors, commentators, and those of you who contact us directly. Why? Because we want to make sure we’re giving you what you want. We’ve identified two distinct audiences on this site.

• Newcomers to web publishing as a whole, but they know WordPress is the way to go.
• Experienced publishers already using WordPress and looking to tweak it in one way or another.

We didn’t feel we were serving both groups or users as well as we know we can so we decided to build a few more sites specifically for each distinct user group.

The first of those new sites is WP Pro Business and although only being live for a short while, we are blown away with the great response we’re seeing. Downloads of our free ebook, Business Blogging Quick Start, have been jaw dropping for us! This is validation that people are hungry to learn WordPress and that it is a critical tool for achieving their online goals.

There are more sites to announce, but we can’t just yet;)

Having multiple sites in our network means we are able to separate the focus of our content. New users won’t be overwhelmed by blocks of code examples and experienced users won’t be disappointed when they see a tutorial about some task they’re already adept at accomplishing.

Last But Not Least

We would be nowhere without you reading, sharing, and otherwise supporting our efforts to continue doing our part to build the community.

THANK YOU!

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A great article on WordPress and how to define what it is from a developers perspective and with systems integration in mind…

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/wordpress-system-integration-101-3100

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I recently offered to provide WordPress answers to my readers in the form of screencasts. In this article we’ll learn how to change the default font sizes in the WordPress Tag Cloud.

This Screencast Challenge question comes from Neal who asks…

In the WP tagcloud please showcase how to make all of the style consistent. In otherwords overide the setting that makes some of the font sizes different. This has always been an annoyance and I can’t figure out how to change. Thanks Adam!

What is the Tag Cloud?

If you’re not familiar, a tag cloud is a grouping of your category or post tags. It allows for easy navigation to related posts on your site based on these tags. By default, the more times a post is assigned a certain tag or category, the larger the font size becomes for that tag or category name.

In the example below, you will notice that the term “WordPress Tutorials” is the largest font displayed. This is because this is the term I use the most:)

Click to View Full Size

The Problem

Depending on your usage or the theme you use, sometimes the max font size can become HUGE and you might want to either limit that max size or even make all fonts the same size.

Choices for Changing Font Size

• Edit WordPress core files – NEVER DO THIS!!!
• Write your own custom function and put it in your theme’s functions.php file.
• Write your own plugin.
• Find an existing plugin that does what you need:)

Using the Resize Tag Cloud plugin

I chose to use the Resize Tag Cloud plugin because it does one thing…resizes the fonts in tag clouds.

Here’s the screencast:

Why not submit your own WordPress Screencast Challenge?

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I recently revealed a free video course named Setup for Success over here that teaches you how to get started with a website powered by WordPress. I didn’t anticipate the overwhelming response. I’m humbled but I’m certainly not complaining! Rest assured that I am diligently working on course #2 which will dive into every detail of the Dashboard settings.

Now, onto the task at hand…

Why Am I Doing This?

I’ve received many requests from readers to offer tutorials specific to their needs and although there will be more advanced video courses coming, I’ve decided to do something a little fun and let everyone make their personal requests here.

What Am I Offering?

Plain and simple. You request a screencast on how to do something with WordPress and I make it for you.

Are There Any Rules?

Not really, think of the below as guidelines to try and follow so I can offer you a solution in a timely and effective way.

• Try not to be overly complicated. Ex: “How do I create a WP theme from scratch?” That’s a little much;)
• Try to keep it WP related.
• If I get too many requests, I’ll have to pause the request form until I can get all your questions answered in screencast form. If this happens I’ll put a message on this page and a date when I’ll be taking requests again.
• All screencasts will be performed on my demo site if possible. If it’s a question that can only be answered by me working on your site, then I’ll email you directly and request access.
• All screencasts will be posted on WP Modder and include the requester’s name and web address (unless otherwise noted using the form below).

What Do You Want To Know?

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I’m delighted to announce the release of the Hide Widget Title plugin. This plugin was created in partnership with some developers that I’ve been working with for the past several months for various personal and client projects.

It solved a huge problem for me and I hope it will do the same for you.

What Does it Do?

The Hide Widget Title plugin adds a checkbox to all widgets that enables you to hide a widget title on the frontend of your site. All widget titles remain visible in admin.

Backend:

Backend New Checkbox on Widget

Frontend:

Frontend Before and After

Why I had it Created

I administer a few sites that make heavy use of Widgets. These range from Text Widgets holding hand coded content to Widgets created by other plugins. When I say heavy use, I’m talking about a lot of Widgets…one installation is using over 120 sidebar widgets, each displayed on different pages throughout the 700+ page site.

The Problem

Most of the Widgets cannot have their titles displayed on the frontend of the site per the design limitations. The problem was that I had to leave the title fields blank in order to meet the design specs. and this meant that I had no way of knowing what was in each Widget easily in the backend.

I found myself opening dozens of Widgets to find the one I needed in order to make a simple change. I did get pretty good at guessing though.

In order to make my life easier (and hopefully yours) I had to do one of two things:

1. Hide individual Widget titles on the frontend using CSS
2. Have a plugin made to allow the title to be easily turned on and off on the frontend while always being visible to the admin in the backend

The Solution

As you might have guessed, I chose #2 and it’s now freely available in the WordPress plugin repository for you to use too.

If you find this plugin useful, I only ask that you share it with others via you’re own blog post or a social bookmark or network of some sort. If you don’t, well that’s OK too;)

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Not long ago I wrote an article targeted toward business owners and new bloggers detailing a checklist of what to consider before starting to build a website. That website checklist was sparked by the experiences I often have when performing freelance project work for clients. It was meant to be a reference tool for those new to WordPress and blogging in general, as well as a reminder to myself of important basic steps to remember when planning any new development projects.

Today I am announcing that

I’ve taken that concept further with the release of the Setup for Success video course which is now available on WP Pro Business and completely free. Even if you’ve already got you’re own WordPress site up and running I believe the concepts and steps I discuss will be beneficial as you continue to grow your site.

Why is This Course Different from Others?

I know there are many other WordPress courses and how-to blogs, articles, and videos available online. What I’ve seen in many is that assumptions are made by the creators that readers or viewers are already familiar with certain terminology and basic web development concepts. I saw an opportunity to offer true step-by-step instructions.

There are five videos in this first course and each includes step-by-step videos, resource links and downloadable pdf docs of the course material. Each video covers a different topic, from planning to the installation of WordPress.

This is the first course of many and each will build upon the concepts, lessons, and WordPress skills learned in the previous ones.

What You Will Learn

• The Seven P’s (Planning)
• Domain Names and Hosting
• Taking Action
• Preparing to Install (Tools I Use)
• Installing WordPress

Is It Free? Why?

Yes it is. Because it’s the right thing to do and my way to give back and “pay it forward” for all the assistance and guidance I’ve received from the WordPress community through the years.

C’mon, Really Free?

Yep, really free:) One thing you should know is that I do ask for a first name and email in order to access the course. I’m aware that this might turn some people off and I’ve given a lot of thought as to whether I should go that route. In the end decided that it made the most sense for what I hope to accomplish and provide with these courses.

I will only email you when new course materials and tools are available. I am using MailChimp as my email signup provider and you can always unsubscribe at anytime.

I ask that you give the videos a chance and if you find them useful, to please share this post or the course url with others.

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As I wrote in a previous tutorial, adding an Amazon store to your WordPress website is best accomplished (in my opinion) by using  Associate-O-Matic.

Just to be clear, this is not a plugin. It is a standalone script that you install on your server. However, there is a WordPress plugin that integrates with this script and it will help you to display your store items inside your posts with links directly to your store products.

This is a powerful combination and will enable you to offer your visitors an easy way to access products on Amazon that are specific to your content. You can even enable them to checkout with their Amazon account without ever leaving your site. Enough talk, let’s get to it shall we?

Download Associate-O-Matic

Go here to download Associate-O-Matic. There are two versions, the Lite Version which is completely free and the Full Version which comes with a 30-day trial.

Free and Full Version Downloads

Which Version to Choose?

I like to try before I buy and you probably do too. In these tutorials I’ll be using the Full version with the 30-day trial. This way I will be able to show you all the included features. You may be wondering what happens if you use the Full trial version and decide not to purchase it after the trial period. The folks at AOM have made it very easy to move to the Free version and still keep all your configuration settings so you have nothing to worry about.

If your curious about the differences between the two versions, here’s a comparison chart.

Comparison Chart

If you do decide to download the Full Trial Version, you will also need to download the trial license.

Choose to download either a .zip or .exe and also the trial license file.

Before You Install

Make sure your server meets the requirements listed here. These are common settings that most hosts should have enabled, but with such a variety of hosts out there, you might want to give a quick check.

There is an easy way to check your server settings. Simply install the free ServerBuddy plugin from the folks at iThemes and it will give you a nice looking page listing details of your host server environment.

How to Install Associate-O-Matic

Note: These steps can also be found on the Associate-O-Matic website. I have added screenshots for better clarity.

Step 1.

Unzip the files contained in the Associate-O-Matic ZIP or EXE file to your local hard drive. Make sure they retain the original directory structures. Make sure you see an /aom directory after you unzip the files.

Unzip the AOM files and notice the folder structure

Step 2.

Open your FTP client software (or use the control panel provided by your web host) and upload the Associate-O-Matic files to your server (web host).

TIP: Some FTP client software examples are FileZilla, CuteFTP and SmartFTP. I use Transmit for Mac.

First, upload (FTP) the encrypted PHP files in BINARY mode which are:

• shop.php
• admin.php

Set FTP Transfer Mode to Binary

Move admin.php and shop.php files

Then, upload all of the remaining files and let your FTP software decide the mode to use whether it be ASCII or BINARY.

• /aom/[all the files]
• /aom/cache/
• /aom/images/[all the image files]
• /aom/js/
• /ioncube/

Let the FTP Software Decide the Transfer Mode

Transfer the /aom/ and /ioncube/ Directories

Ideally, you would FTP the files to your main public site directory. Just make sure you don’t overwrite any of your existing non-AOM files if they happen to be named the same.

Example Store URLs:

• http://www.yoursite.com/shop.php (best choice, shortest URL)
• http://www.yoursite.com/dir1/dir2/shop.php (also works, longer URL)

The shop.php and related files can be placed anywhere off your public directories so long as the hierarchy of Associate-O-Matic files remains the same in relation to themselves.

Step 3.

Set the permissions for provided files/directories.

Normally this can be done by right-clicking on the file or directory from your FTP client.

NOTE: Windows users should contact their web hosting provider to determine the best method for changing file/directory permissions. Most likely they will provide a mechanism to do this within their control panel.

The permissions for Linux/Unix users are as follows and can vary from web host to web host:

NOTE: You may need to modify your permissions beyond the below recommended settings. You’ll know because Associate-O-Matic will give you cues that you still need to write and/or read enable a particular folder such as /aom. For example if 775 doesn’t work you may need to make it 777.

• shop.php  [CHMOD 644]
• admin.php  [CHMOD 644]
• /aom directory  [CHMOD 755]
• /aom/cache directory  [CHMOD 755]
• /aom/images directory  [CHMOD 755]
• /aom/js directory  [CHMOD 755]
• /ioncube directory
• all other permissions should be fine by default

Step 4.

Associate-O-Matic uses the ionCube PHP Encoder to protect their source code. Associated files are found in the /ioncube directory.

For step-by-step instructions on what you need, open the /ioncube/loader-wizard.php in a browser.

Please Note: I ran the ionCube wizard even though I knew it was already installed on my host. If you’re not sure whether your host has ioncube installed, just run the wizard as I did and you’ll see a message similar to this:

My Host Already Has ionCube Installed

If you have any problems related to ionCube, please more in-depth ionCube installation instructions.

Step 5.

You can rename your shop.php and admin.php files or leave them as is.

If you rename the files, be sure to keep the .php extension on the end.

For example, instead of:
http://www.yourdomain.com/shop.php

You could name it:
http://www.yourdomain.com/best_store_ever.php

Step 6.

**** If you are using the trial of the Full version, you must also upload the aomtrial.license file to your server. This goes in the same place as the shop.php file.****

Now that all of the files are on your server, it’s time to open the Associate-O-Matic Control Panel.

This would be the admin.php file or the new name if you renamed it.

For example, in a web browser open the address replacing “yourdomain” with your domain name:
http://www.yourdomain.com/admin.php

NOTE: The first time you open the Control Panel, you’ll be asked to enter your login username and password. Once set, you’ll be asked for this login on all subsequent visits. If you ever decide to change your login, simply delete the file in the /aom directory called cfg.login.php. You’ll then have a chance to reset the password. You can also reset the login from within the control panel.

Amazon Associate-O-Matic Control Panel

Step 7.

Once you enter the Control Panel, you’ll start in the Getting Started section.

At this point you’ll want to make sure you enter your correct Amazon Associate ID, Amazon Access Key ID and Amazon Secret Access Key. Please see the Amazon section of their documentation for more information. Also, enter the main information for your store. Please see the Site section of our documentation for more information.

Enter Your Amazon Credentials

Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of customizations you have at your disposal. You can actually save your settings at this point just to make sure everything works. Or go ahead and enter some more of your site details and then save. In the Control Panel Settings section of their online documentation, they describe in much more detail each of the various settings. You can login to your Control Panel at any time and update your settings.

Step 8.

If you would like your domain name to point to your store page (shop.php), please read this post in the Tips & Tricks section of their forum:

http://www.associate-o-matic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52

Step 9.

Congratulations! You’re done. Now you can view your store from within a web browser.For example:
http://www.yoursite.com/shop.php

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you see a blank screen or errors, please see their troubleshooting section.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT NOTE:
Make sure you are using an Amazon Associate ID that matches the locale of your store otherwise you won’t receive credit for sales from Amazon.

Register at the appropriate locale:
Amazon.com (US)
Amazon.co.uk (UK)
Amazon.ca (CA)
Amazon.de (DE)
Amazon.fr (FR)
Amazon.co.jp (JP)

How to Configure the Associate-O-Matic Settings

Please stay tuned to my site for the next post in this series that will show you the available Associate-O-Matic settings and how to configure them.

Related posts:

• How to Add an Amazon Store to your WordPress Website
• Add an Amazon Associates Store To Your WordPress Powered Website
• WordPress Affiliate Store Plugin

Adding an Amazon store to your WordPress site is made easy by Amazon’s aStore builder, but what if you want more features than aStore can provide? There is a better way to create a full featured Amazon Associate store with very powerful customization and configuration options.

I’ve written about this amazon store script before and it’s been featured on Amazon’s Web Services blog, in Inc. Magazine, CNET Download.com, and more.

What Is It?

It’s name is Associate-O-Matic and it’s the most powerful Amazon Associate store builder available.

Features

• Simple Setup
• Customizable
• Profitable
• Huge Selection
• SEO Friendly
• Affordable
• and more! Read about more features here.

Not a Plugin

Associate-O-Matic is not a WordPress plugin. It’s a self contained PHP script that gets installed into it’s own subdirectory or subdomain (assuming your WP installation is in the root of your domain). You’ll need to have FTP access to your server and be able to set file permissions (chmod). If you’re not sure about this process, don’t worry, I’ll be showing you how.

Even though Associate-O-Matic isn’t a plugin in the standard sense, as with all things that are awesome, Associate-O-Matic does provide a plugin to display dynamic Amazon content inside your posts automatically linked to your store pages.

Versions: Free and Premium

There are two versions of Associate-O-Matic available, Lite and Full. You can view the comparison chart of the two versions on the Associate-O-Matic website. Make no mistake, even using the Lite version will give you a lot of control over the customization and configuration of your Amazon Associate store.

How to Install Associate-O-Matic on a WordPress Website?

I’ve posted a tutorial on how install Associate-O-Matic here. I’ll also be giving an overview of many configuration options available in this script. Stay tuned to WP Modder via RSS or Email, or just check back here.

Related posts:

• Add an Amazon Associates Store To Your WordPress Powered Website
• Add Amazon Store to WordPress Tutorial Series Part 1
• WordPress Affiliate Store Plugin

It’s that time of year when I get a little nostalgic and reflect on life a bit. The next article will be another tutorial I promise, but today I’d like to share some information on how I ended up choosing WordPress and what it means to me personally.

How I Started with WordPress

I built my first WP powered website in 2004 for a company I created named Moving Moments which offered photo memorial dvds. I certainly wasn’t the first to do this, but I was inspired after creating a photo memorial for my brother who passed away in 2003. I love you and miss you Brent.

I had created a straight HTML site already but because of the nature of the product I needed to update the site often and doing it manually was starting to become a chore so I began searching for a solution. I experimented with several blogging and content management system platforms and found that I kept coming back to WordPress as the web publishing platform that matched my needs the closest.

Then and Now

The platform was barely a year old when I made my first blog post and there was a lot that it just couldn’t do at that time. However, one of the main reasons I choose it was because of the large and active community surrounding it. I knew I could get help.

A lot has changed in my life, WordPress, and the community surrounding the software. WordPress is no longer only a simple blogging solution. It is a full featured content management system and has the ability to power any type of website you can throw at it. The community of users, plugin developers, and theme creators continues to push the software past it’s perceived limits.

I feel honored to be able to give back to the WordPress community by creating and sharing tutorials on this site and others, and through the WP Modder iOS app. I am truly thankful to all of you who read my material, watch my videos, participate in my courses, and allow me to be involved with your website projects.

You make me…complete

p.s. I’m attending WordCamp Phoenix in January and would love to meet you. Feel free to send me a line here if you’d like to schedule coffee or a beer.

Related posts:

• Is the Property Managment Plugin for WordPress – StayPress – Ready?
• What is WordPress Integration
• Blogging Wars – WordPress Vs Blogger

I’m a huge fan of several WordPress theme framework providers like Genesis, Thematic, Hybrid, and others. Each framework builds in some very unique features that can be easily used to position content the way one would like, but often times I find myself needing to make a few tweaks to the child theme files or adding a few functions.

This tutorial will show you how I duplicated a widgetized area in the Genesis Corporate child theme created by StudioPress. You can probably apply this basic method to most if not all StudioPress child themes.

What My Client Wanted

As seen in the Corporate child theme below, there are a few content blocks inside the circled area.

They include:

• Dynamic Content Galllery (slideshow)
• Featured Top Left
• Featured Top Right
• Featured Bottom

Corporate Theme Content Areas

The request I had was to remove the Dynamic Content Gallery slideshow and instead place static content in that area.

I Assumed Wrong

I’ve been using the Genesis framework for several sites lately but this was the first time I had used this particular child theme. My assumption was that the area that holds the Dynamic Content Gallery was a widgetized area where I could simply place a text widget containing my static content. Wrong.

The three other content areas are all widgetized, but this one only gets displayed if the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin is activated.

I needed to add another widgetized content area like in the quick mockup below.

New "Featured Top" Widgetized Area Requested

How I Added Another Widgetized Area

Basically what I needed to do was to duplicate the Featured Bottom widgetized area and place it above the Featured Top Left and Featured Top Right content.

Duplicating this and adding a new one where I wanted involved editing three files within the Corporate Child Theme.

• functions.php
• home.php
• style.css

It’s a three step process:

1. Duplicate the Featured Bottom code – functions.php
2. Add the new widgetized area to the home page – home.php
3. Add the styling for this addition – style.css

functions.php

Toward the bottom of this file, you’ll see the code that registers (or creates) the widgetized areas. Look for code block that creates the Featured Bottom area we want to duplicate:

genesis_register_sidebar(array(
 'name'=>'Featured Bottom',
 'id' => 'featured-bottom',
 'description' => 'This is the featured bottom section of the homepage.',
 'before_title'=>'<h4>','after_title'=>'</h4>'
));

Copy this chunk of code and paste it at the bottom of your functions.php file. Now you’ll want to rename the ‘name’ and ‘id’ parameters to something unique like I’ve done below:

genesis_register_sidebar(array(
‘name’=>’Featured Top Addition’,
‘id’ => ‘featured-top-addition’,
‘description’ => ‘This is the featured top added by Adam section of the homepage.’,
‘before_title’=>’<h4>’,'after_title’=>’</h4>’
));[/php]

You’ve just created another widgetized area named “Featured Top Addition”.

home.php

Now we need to actually display the Featured Top Addition in the child theme. I want to put it above the Featured Top Left and Right areas, so I found the code for those in home.php and added code for my new widgetized area right above. Again, I copied the details of the Featured Bottom and changed parameters to match my new one.

I found this:

<div id="featured-bottom">
 <?php if (!dynamic_sidebar('Featured Bottom')) : ?>
 <div>
 <h4><?php _e("Featured Bottom", 'genesis'); ?></h4>
 <div>
 <p><?php _e("This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. Use it as a way to get your visitors interested, so they can click through and read more about it. This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. Use it as a way to get your visitors interested, so they can click through and read more about it. This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. ", 'genesis'); ?></p>
 </div><!-- end .wrap -->
 </div><!-- end .widget -->
 <?php endif; ?>
 </div><!-- end #featured-bottom -->

…and changed it to this to match the parameters I used in my functions.php file. At the same time within this code chunk I am defining the CSS div id I’ll be using to syle this with:

<div id="featured-top-addition">
 <?php if (!dynamic_sidebar('Featured Top Addition')) : ?>
 <div>
 <h4><?php _e("Featured Top Addition", 'genesis'); ?></h4>
 <div>
 <p><?php _e("This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. Use it as a way to get your visitors interested, so they can click through and read more about it. This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. Use it as a way to get your visitors interested, so they can click through and read more about it. This is an example of a text widget that you can place to describe a particular product or service. ", 'genesis'); ?></p>
 </div><!-- end .wrap -->
 </div><!-- end .widget -->

style.css

Again, we’ll copy the code, this time CSS, for the Featured Bottom and apply it to our new Featured Top Addition. Look for this, copy and paste it right below itself:

#featured-bottom {
 background: #F7F7F7;
 width: 610px;
 float: left;
 margin: 0;
 padding: 9px 9px 0 9px;
 border: 1px solid #E6E6E6;
 }

…and change the it to this:

#featured-top-addition {
 background: #F7F7F7;
 width: 610px;
 float: left;
 margin:0 0 10px 0;
 padding: 9px 9px 0 9px;
 border: 1px solid #E6E6E6;
 }

If you look close, you’ll see I had to make a couple slight margin changes to get it positioned correctly (thanks to the StudioPress forums).

The Result

I hope this helps those of you using the Genesis framework and it’s child themes. As always, please feel free to comment below.

Related posts:

• How I Added Custom Web Fonts to Genesis Child Theme
• Query Posts Widget Plugin + Widgetized Page Template + Widget Logic = WordPress Gold
• Muted Blues Free WordPress Theme Release

Thank you to all who participated in my Free WordPress Multisite Plugin giveaway. I’m also thankful that @andrea_r and @wpmuguru allowed me to make it happen:)

The Winners

Aggregating Global Content

paul
Angie Meeker
Chris Carrier

Professional Domain Mapping

Event Espresso
Affiliatetheme

Winners will be contacted via their email or Twitter accounts shortly.

I’m also planning a series of tutorials on this subject. If you have any requests, please feel free to post them here as comments.

Related posts:

• Giveaway of Free WordPress Multisite Plugins
• WP eBooks
• WP Curator – Promote Multisite Posts

If you’re a regular WordPress user, it’s likely you’re aware of the Multisite capabilities that can be activated.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, in a nutshell, having a Multisite installation allows you to manage an entire network of WordPress powered sites, all from one Admin area. Stay tuned for more information and tutorials coming soon in my WordPress Multisite series.

The Contest

The prizes are being offered by @wpmuguru and @andrea_r of http://wpebooks.com. You may also know them as Ron and Andrea Rennick, long time WordPress Multisite (MU) users, support forum posters, beta testers, WordPress core contributors and all around good people in the community. They know WordPress Multisite, period.

Plugin Prizes

	3 Copies Available The ebook with included plugins covers how to set up the main site and the home page of the network to make it easier for visitors to access content from across the entire install. We’ll show you how to aggregate global content, set up sitewide tags, create a huge tags cloud like the one seen on WordPress.com, and also a bonus tutorial on how to make the default signup page its own specially named page to help stop spammers. And there’s even more hidden gems in there…
	2 Copies Available If you are running multiple sites within WordPress, you may wish to have each site use its own domain. This plugin will help you do that. Included is an eleven page ebook with full documentation and screenshots to help you set up whatever kind of server you have. Professional Domain Mapping is the ideal plugin to use if you wish to hide the originating domain of the network, and where you wish for the Super Admin to be the only one with access to the menu. In addition, only one domain can be mapped to any site.

Included with each plugin is of course, an ebook that includes full instructions. You’ll also get access to support forums for each plugin at http://wpebooks.com!

How to Enter

Two steps, easy peasy.

1. Post a link back to my site using one of the three urls below, your pick.
2. Leave a comment here with link url.
3. 5 winners will be randomly selected from the comments and notified by email.
4. Contest ends Sunday Dec. 5th at Midnight EST.

Choice of URLs to link to:

• Help a New User to Understand WordPress
• How to Hide Individual Pages from Search Engines
• How to Put Your WordPress Site in Maintenance Mode

Links can be most anywhere. Here’s a few ideas…

• Twitter
• Your own blog post
• StumbleUpon
• Facebook
• Delicious

Thanks for your participation and good luck!

Related posts:

• And the WordPress Multisite Plugins Go To…
• WP eBooks
• WP Curator – Promote Multisite Posts

Are you a non-technical small business owner thinking of building your own website? Maybe an experienced do-it-yourself-er who wants to make sure they know what’s involved in creating a website and all the different things to consider before you dive in head first? Would a checklist help?

I often meet people who know that building their own website is possible with WordPress, but aren’t quite sure just how to get started. Other times, it’s the exact opposite. They can be in such a hurry to get up and running that they miss critical steps during their planning that can cause problems down the road.

Why do you want a website?

To blog? Promote your brick and mortar store? An online business? Keep a digital record of your kids while they grow? Promote your consulting services? Run an e-Commerce store? Create a social community around a particular subject?

Why do you need a website?

Having a website used to be a choice for businesses or individuals wanting to promote themselves or their products. If you’re a legitimate business or professional in your field, having a website is now the standard.

It’s no longer a choice. It’s your digital business card, but it’s also a very powerful marketing tool, especially when you build in social media marketing and search engine optimization within your content.

Who is your audience?

This is different for every individual and it depends on the subject matter of your content, but please remember that your audience is comprised of your past, current, and future customers. Even if you’re blogging about Grandma Ethel’s giant black hairy back mole, you will have regular readers and new visitors who expect you to meet their needs with your content.

The point is this. Pick and niche and be the best. Don’t try to be an “all-in-one” with varied subject matter. It doesn’t work.

What is the main purpose of your website?

To entertain? Inform? Get leads? Have a goal. Know where you want your visitor to end up before they leave your site.

Maybe you want to sell a product, get an email address, or get freelance work. Pick the end goal for your visitors first. That will become the purpose of your site and then you can build your navigation and content around that purpose.

What software should I use to build it?

WordPress of course. Duh.

What domain name should I buy and where should I buy it?

Get a .com name, unless you’re an organization, then get a .org name. Keep it as short and memorable as possible. You could also get a .net name, but I would stay away from others. Of course that’s just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.

Remember that it doesn’t necessarily have to match your business or organization name. For instance, a solar panel company named Bob’s Solar Panels might choose a domain like solarpanelpro.com instead of bobssolarpanels.com.

What security measures can I take before and after installing WordPress?

• Use a great host with fast and knowledgeable support. There are many available but Synhosting.com is my preference and I use them for myself and my clients. Yes, that’s an affiliate link because I know they provide superior support. That’s important to me.
• Use STRONG naming techniques when creating your database names and users.
• Change the default database prefix when installing WordPress, and make it STRONG.
• Do not use the default “admin” username. Use a STRONG username and password for your admin account.
• Install and configure great security plugins for WordPress. (article coming soon)

What three things should every website home page have?

Take this advice from Rachel Baker. Simple and effective but you’d be surprised how many people miss these three simple rules on the main page of their sites.

1. Tell me who you are – This is where you communicate your type of business (bank, law firm, non-profit, etc)
2. Tell me why you are special – Now why should I care? What separates you from the other banks/law firms/non-profits?
3. Call to action – Do you want me to purchase your product, subscribe to your newsletter, hire your services? This should be obvious and easy for your visitors to do.
4. Let me contact you easily – I added this one. Do you want my contact or not? Don’t make me search through layers of navigation to get your contact details.

Above all else, remember “The Seven P’s of Life”

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

If you’ve found this list useful, please share it with others on your preferred social platform. You can also subscribe to my new articles, or even learn WordPress on the go with your mobile device (details below).

Related posts:

• Ode to WordPress – A Personal Retrospective
• Setup WordPress for Blogging or Business (Free Course)
• Add an Amazon Associates Store To Your WordPress Powered Website

New User

As a WordPress tutorial writer I try my best to look at the software from a new user’s perspective. Sometimes it’s difficult to remember all the little details I’ve learned about using the platform through the years and that I now take for granted as “second nature knowledge”.

I received a series of questions the other day from someone building their first WordPress site. I wanted to share them with you because I think they serve as great examples of the kinds of issues a new WordPress user can run into and also because you might benefit from my answers.

If you have you’re own advice to add regarding any of these questions, please share your knowledge in the comment section.

Problem:

When I type in word or in the admin page itself, what is shown differs from what the actual is once posted. This causes spacing, indenting and wrapping that is not appealing on the end product.

This is intended behavior. The size of the content area you have available on the frontend is applied directly from whatever theme you have installed. Different themes have diff. content widths, some may be 550px wide, others may be 640px wide. Your content will expand to fit whatever content width your theme has.

Solution One: Use the “Preview” button when writing your posts. This will open a new tab in your browser showing you a preview of your post. This is an easy way to judge how your text will wrap in the content area of your theme.

Solution Two: In this latest version of WP, they introduced the ability to apply CSS styles to the editor itself. This is handy in your situation because you can make the width of the editor MATCH the width of your theme….this way the formatting you see when editing should match when published. See the two links below (one by me back in June)

http://wpmodder.com/why-your-visual-editor-width-is-different-in-wordpress-3-0-838.html

http://www.jleuze.com/add-a-themes-css-style-to-the-visual-editor/

Question:

How do you get text “not” to wrap, post as created or expand space within a page to allow for fit?

See above for matching text formatting. Auto expanding the editor or theme to fit your content isn’t possible if I understand your question, however, you might consider looking into how to create a “full width” page template for the theme you’re using (or it might already have one). This uses the full width of your page for content on a per page basis. It essentially removes the sidebar on specified pages. See examples here:

(with normal content/sidebar) http://adamwwarner.com/tutorials/how-to-put-your-wordpress-site-into-maintenance-mode-and-why-you-would-want-to

(with “full width” applied = no sidebar) http://adamwwarner.com/learning-center/wordpress-building-website-courses

Problem:

The content within the pages need help with presentation. To make more attractive, I used tables in word to apply different colors and boxes before cutting and pasting. The end product however does not appear in my post.

Do not use Word to apply any styling, period. In fact, to make your life easier in web publishing, I urge you to strongly consider changing your workflow to exclude Word. In short, Word is a word processor for creating documents, not for creating HTML for use on the web (although it claims to have this ability). The problem your seeing is that Word adds all kinds of styling code that is specific to the Word software program and NOT valid HTML. When you plop that into an HTML editor (as the WP visual editor is), those Word-specific styles get ignored and you get what you’re seeing now.

Some solutions:

1. In the WP editor visual mode, look for a button that has a yellow folder and blue W (Word icon). This allows you to paste text from a Word doc and WP will attempt to remove all Word-specific coding.

2. Paste your Word text into a plain text editor first, then into WP editor (this removes the offending Word-specific code).

3. Write your content directly in WP instead, or use a plain text editor to write content and then apply your styling later in WP

Question:

Are there tricks for creating boxes and color backgrounds within a pre-made template to allow for better content presentation?

Yes there are. If you know a little HTML you can surrounding anything with a colored box. If you don’t know the HTML to do this, there is at least one plugin I know of that can help named Utility Shortcodes: http://demo.pippinspages.com/wp-utility-shortcodes/

You could also create tables (in HTML not in Word) either by hand or with the help of a plugin. You would still need to know some HTML and CSS to style them with BG colors, etc. You can see an example of my use of a table on a full width page here:

http://adamwwarner.com/learning-center/wordpress-building-website-courses

Problem:

When looking at my website, there are two home pages at the top menu however in the Dashboard, there is only one.

It look like you have either your WP page settings wrong or the theme is automatically inserting an extra “home” tab that needs to be removed. If you give me login info I can check on this…should be an easy and quick fix.

Question:

How do I remove a duplicate page in a pre-created template?

Not 100% sure what you mean….

Problem:

I would like to add a sidebar of industry related feeds and linked in blog discussions within my site but do not know how to accomplish this.

You would add the RSS feed of whatever sites you want to the RSS widget. That said, I just checked Linkedin discussion quickly and don’t see that they provide RSS feeds….maybe there’s a plugin for this or some other hack to get Linkedin discussions feeds. Would need more research.

Question:

How do I create the sidebar and insert the feeds?

In the backend Appearance–>Widgets–>RSS

Question:

Can you pull over discussions from other blogs within linked in which requires a password for accessing? (These are currently coming to my email)

Not sure about this one…

Problem:

Being a beginner, I have very little knowledge of how to use tags, etc for SEO and would like to pull customers to my site. My template however does provide for a plugin.

We should talk further in person, it’s too big of a subject to cover here. There are some fundamental “best practices” to always start with though.

Question:

What tips can be provided to maximize SEO along with instructions for establishing within my site.

Again, huge subject, more later….

Sidenote: That image above is my baby girl:)

Related posts:

• What Will Make WordPress Easier For You?
• Giveaway of Free WordPress Multisite Plugins
• How to Know What Your Readers Want from You

In my last WordPress tutorial I explained Page Attributes and how to use them. That tutorial was prompted by a client who’s page navigation was horked. They had set several parent and child pages incorrectly and I was able to see that and get them fixed quickly.

However, the navigation menu was still messed up.

It was almost as if there was still a page with wrong attributes set incorrectly. I was seeing several menu items that had the child attribute, but were still…well…funky looking in their positioning. I checked, double checked, and triple checked. Finally, after much head scratching and several emails back and forth to the client I discovered the problem.They had inadvertently deleted a Parent level page. This was supposed to be in the main level navigation menu and because it was gone, the Child page positioning was broken. Luckily for me (and my client) WordPress has a built-in Move to Trash feature. Before this was added in version 2.9, when you deleted a page or post it was gone forever. WordPress still allows you to delete pages and posts but instead of being gone forever, their held in a virtual recycle bin within your WordPress installation.

The Move to Trash link while in edit mode appears in the Publish box.

Move to Trash

A list of trashed posts.

Post in Trash

Notice the Empty Trash button in the screenshot above.

When you really want something gone from your WordPress website, use this button in your lists of trashed posts and pages.

I hope you enjoyed this WordPress tutorial, and if you found it helpful please share it with your friends and colleagues on your preferred social network. I sure would appreciate it!

Related posts:

• Video Producer "Double Feature" WordPress Theme Series Release
• How to Post to your WordPress Site Directly from Yahoo! Mail
• Speeding up Your WordPress Site by Limiting the Number of Post and Page Revisions

Page Attributes in WordPress

In all my years working with WordPress I’ve seldom uttered that phrase above but the other day I had to explain how to set them for WordPress, and also explain what they were, where they were, and why you would want to set them a certain way for individual pages.

I’ve never had to verbalize this to anyone before and after thinking about it, I don’t recall ever seeing a simple and clear tutorial about the usage of WordPress Page Attributes. So here goes…

What are they?

Page Attributes are settings that are applied to individual pages in your WordPress backend.

Where do I find them?

You will find these settings in a meta box in your WordPress backend when you create a new page or when you are editing an existing one. This box is usually directly underneath the Publish meta box.

Page Attributes Settings

What do the options do?

You’ll see three options in the Page Attributes meta box. Parent, Template, and Order. Let’s break it down by individual option.

Parent

This option is directly related to the meaning of the terms Parent and Child as they relate to WordPress. These terms refer to the hierarchy (order) of the pages on your site. You could also use the terms Main and Sub, but I would recommend trying to learn the terminology used by WordPress developers and power users. It will help to create clearer communication when you’re writing your own code or reading forums in the future.

Choose a Parent Page

It allows you to choose a page that will be the Parent page of the one you are currently creating or editing. If you choose nothing here, it will remain a Parent page (or Main). If you do choose a Parent from this dropdown, the page you are editing becomes a Child of the page you’ve chosen.

Something of note: When you expand the dropdown, you will see a list of all the published pages on your site. You will not see the ones in Draft mode.

Let’s look at an example. In the image below, you can see that I have six pages in the navigation menu. These are all Parents…their Parent attribute is set to (no parent).

Parent Pages in Navigation Menu

There are four pages above that are related to the About page, so I would like to put those underneath the About page and create a dropdown menu. What I need to do is to go to each of these four and set their Parent page in the Page Attributes box.

Let’s start with Company History. I am going to specify that I want it’s Parent to be About so I choose About from the Parent menu.

Setting the Parent Page

I’ve saved it and you can see how that set Company History as the Child of  About and at the same time created a dropdown menu.

About is Parent Page - Company History is Child Page of About

After setting the Parent attribute on the others, here’s my menu now.

Multiple Child Pages

Pretty cool huh? As you can see, the Parent option in the Page Attributes settings is a pretty powerful way to help you organize the navigation on your WordPress site.

Template

This option allows you to choose a specific Page Template to use on any page you’re editing. What is a Template? In short, it’s an extra file that can be included in your WordPress theme that changes the layout (or functionality) of whatever page it’s applied to.

Using Contact Us as an example, you can see that by default this has two columns. One for the main content and one for all of our sidebar content.

Two Column Page Layout

But what if we want to display our content across the entire width and remove the sidebar? What if we only wanted to do this on a single page and no others on the site? If we have some Templates available in our theme, it’s no problem at all.

The Twenty Ten default theme in your WordPress installation just happens to include a  Template that you can apply. This template is named One column, no sidebar.

Choosing a Page Template

I would have preferred a name like “Full Width” but you get the idea. So, here’s the same Contact Us page with the One column, no sidebar Template applied.

One Column Page Template Applied

Savvy readers may notice that this one column doesn’t exactly stretch the full width. That’s a css styling issue. I’m guessing it was an oversight or a design decision by the creator of the Twenty Ten theme because the content width for the one-column style is still at 640px. This can be increased to something like 940px.

Order

This option refers to the order in which the pages appear in your menu or any listing. This field accepts numbers and the higher the number you enter determines where a page is in relation to others on your site. For example, if it is set as zero (and all others have numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc.), the one that has zero will be listed first in your menus.

Ordering your pages like this is a bit of a throwback to older versions of WordPress though and today you can drag and drop them into any order you want when creating custom menus. You could also use a Page Order plugin to order your pages visually.

I hope you enjoyed this WordPress tutorial, and if you found it helpful please share it with the world on your preferred social network. I sure would appreciate it!

Related posts:

• How the WordPress Trash Feature Saved the Day
• Create a Custom Database Connection Error Page
• How to Hide Pages in Your WordPress Navigation Menu

I recently wrote a couple other tutorials about WordPress Shortcodes, what they are and how to use them in Widgets. This WordPress tutorial will show you how to create your own Shortcodes. The traditional method of creating Shortcodes includes hand coding them inside your theme’s functions.php file.

I’m going to show you an easier way to create Shortcodes without the need to know how to write PHP code. We’ll accomplish this with the help of a plugin named Post Snippets. In short, the Post Snippets plugin allows you to create content and then makes that content available to you in a Shortcode. You can then insert this Shortcode into your posts as needed. Here’s the description from the plugin author:

This admin plugin stores snippets of HTML code or reoccurring text that you often use in your posts. You can use predefined variables to replace parts of the snippet on insert. All snippets are available in the post editor with a TinyMCE button. The snippet can be inserted as defined, or as a shortcode to keep flexibility for updating the snippet.

After activating the plugin, you’ll find a new item named Post Snippets under the Settings tab in your WordPress backend.

Post Snippets

Clicking on the Post Snippets link takes you to the snippets creation and management screen. You’ll also see some handy explanations and directions from the plugin author. A nice usability touch.

Post Snippet Shortcode Creation and Management

To create your first Post Snippet (and resulting Shortcode) just click Add New Snippet. You’ll see some input fields to fill out.

Creating a post snippet WordPress Shortcode

The Title field is simply the title of your snippet and therefore your Shortcode, try to be brief. Let’s ignore the Variables field for now. Next comes the Snippet field. This is where you’ll enter the text and/or HTML code you would like this Shortcode to display.

Important Note:
I think it would be much more user-friendly if this plugin were to integrate the visual editor, or at least the HTML editor when creating content for the Snippet input field. As it is now, you will have to write HTML code directly in this field. Of course, you could always write your content in a draft post using the visual editor, then switch to HTML mode and then copy/paste that into your Snippet field.

You will also see two checkboxes on the far right. One that says “SC” and one that says “QT”. “SC” stands for Shortcode and “QT” stands for Quicktag. By checking these you are telling the plugin to make this snippet available to be used as a Shortcode and also to make a Quicktag button available in the Visual editor.

Using WordPress Post Snippets to Create Shortcodes

Now let’s create a post and see what this plugin can do. When creating a new post, you’ll see a new button in the Visual editor that looks like a yellow scrap of note paper.

WordPress Post Snippet Shortcode Button in Visual Editor

Clicking that button will bring up all the post snippets you’ve created and allow you to chose which one to use. Once you’ve made your choice, the Shortcode for that post snippet is inserted into your post wherever your cursor is positioned.

Select the Post Snippet you would like to insert

You will now see the Shortcode named FirstShortcode in your post.

Let’s have a look at this same post on the frontend to see the output of that Shortcode.

As you can see, it pretty easy to create reusable content to include in your posts using your own Shortcodes created with the Post Snippets plugin for WordPress.

I can think of a lot of ways to use these post snippets and Shortcodes. How would you use them for your own site?

I hope you enjoyed this WordPress tutorial, and if you found it helpful please share it with the world on your preferred social network. I sure would appreciate it!

Related posts:

• How to Use WordPress Shortcodes in Widgets
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While Drinking My Morning Coffee…

This morning I was going through my email and had a few dozen new Twitter followers (thanks to all of you who follow by the way) and clicked through to their Twitter profile pages. I always like to do this to see if who’s following me seems legit or if they’re using some automated Twitter script to gain as many followers as possible. I also like to check out their site link and see if it’s someone I might be able to collaborate with on WordPress projects.

I came to one profile page and the latest tweet (with a http://dlvr.it/ short url) referenced an “Attacker” who ambushed a woman, dragged her into the woods, and tried to rape her. This tweet had a hash tag of #Orlando_FL among others and that piqued my curiosity because I know several females in Orlando. So I clicked through.

I was expecting to see a full article from an Orlando newspaper or news station, but what I saw both shocked and saddened me. Say it ain’t so…

Look at those CRAZY EYES and MANIACAL SMILE!

What Clues Led Me To WordPress Autoblogging?

First off, there was no full article, only the headline and summary that I had already read in the tweet + two urls pointing to the source of the news. Make me click, then click again? How dare you! I had been duped by someone using WordPress with some type of automated blogging plugin at work.

Doing This Will Piss Off Your Readers!

How Do I Know For Sure?

Along with the first clue above regarding short content and links back to additional sources, the other obvious clue is…what the hell is Spongebob doing on an article about attempted rape!? Look closely at that last arrow…guess where the image source is…yep, Flickr. It was only posted there a mere 76 months ago!

Did "Lore" Capture a Shot of the Attacker?

It was only so obvious to me because I’ve tried autoblogging. Yep, I admit it. I’m a recovering autoblogger. It started innocently enough. I just wanted to bring in a little extra content to a site I was already writing for daily. Just enough to entertain my readers and allow me to post a bit less often. It was a miserable failure…or a great success about a lesson learned if you’re a glass-half-full type of person like me.

The Moral Of The Story Is…

Just as in life, there are no shortcuts in creating quality online content. No matter what fancy tools come along and try to claim otherwise, the old saying stands true, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

You will ruin your otherwise original content by surrounding it with fluff no one wants to see.

You will piss off your loyal readers because they will know your passion is not there. Why would they want to read your site when you don’t even write anything?

Google and others will know, and punish you accordingly.

You will feel like a cheater and less of a man…or woman.

What Do You Think About Autoblogging?

How to Assure Content Consistency from your Authors and Yourself

A few days ago I found myself reviewing a series of draft posts written by three different authors for a project I’m working on. I was checking these posts for technical errors like broken links, images, etc. but I was also checking for consistency in the layout of the content. Did they all use the correct same size headings, etc?

Unfortunately, each author used different formatting for their content.

An additional need was that several (but not all) articles needed to have some default content included above and below the content for each article. I could have created a post with this default content, saved it as a draft, and then directed each author to open that draft and copy/paste the content into each new article they write, but that was hardly elegant.

How can I assure that each author on this WordPress multi-author site use the same default content and content layout? I set out to solve this problem.

The Search for a Plugin

My search led me to a few different options, but the key here was to search for “post template” plugins. The plugin I chose, and the one I’ll be showing you in this tutorial is named Article Templates and was released by binnyva. The description of the plugin is actually pretty vague…

This plugin lets you create templates that can be used when writing a new post or page. This will be very useful if you are writting many post with the same structure.

I run across this lack of detail often with plugins in the repository, but I’m not complaining. I’d rather have useful plugins full of surprises than plugin devs who are better at writing marketing copy than they are at writing code.

How to Use This Plugin

Once installed and activated, you’ll see an extra item under the Tools menu named Manage Templates.

Manage Templates

Clicking that link will bring you to the management page where you’ll create and manage your templates.

Managing Post Templates

Click Create New Template and you’ll see what looks like the standard editor complete with media buttons and your choice between the Visual and HTML editing modes. You’ll also see a few check-boxes under your new post template that allows you to set the status of this one individually.

Creating your WordPress post template

Save this and now it’s available for use when you create a new post. You will see a new box appear under your editor named Article Template (be aware that it was placed below every other box on this screen, I edited my screen to show this box directly underneath the editor). This box allows you to chose the template you would like to apply to this new post you’re creating.

Chose the post template to apply

I chose the Test Template I created and it automatically inserted the content from that template into this new post. Are you starting to brainstorm the possibilities of just how useful this is!?

Template Content Inside New Post!

Pretty slick eh?

Here’s just another quick example of what is possible when creating and using the Article Templates WordPress plugin. Along with the default content I want to include above every article, I’ve also formatted the text size and have given the author instructions on where to put their content. I’ve also include a list of links to be at the bottom of every post that uses this template.

The Possibilities are Endless!

These are just a couple quick examples. You could include advertisements, links to your products, other posts on the same subject, etc.

How Would You Use a WordPress Article Template?

Related posts:

• Using the Category-Icons plugin and Thematic to create custom category pages
• Share Content Between WordPress and MailChimp with New Plugin
• Speeding up Your WordPress Site by Limiting the Number of Post and Page Revisions

Registration Customization Plugin Search

Disclaimer: This is a lengthy post, but well worth it.

Have you been searching for that perfect WordPress custom registration plugin that will allow you to fully customize your user registration page? I have…literally for years. I believe I’ve found the solution we’ve ALL been looking for, but I need your help to make sure.

The Problem

I have tried many plugins and combination of plugins both in the past and just a few days ago to try and get the WordPress registration page customized to my exact needs. The trouble is that I have never been able to find one that had everything I needed.

The one plugin solutions always seemed to be lacking one critical piece of functionality that I needed. Then I was left with trying to use several plugins that achieved similar results, but one would have some function that the other didn’t.

The problem with this approach is that you then have overlapping features, two plugins performing the same tasks. Errors and unexpected behavior abounded (for me at least).

The Solution (almost)

While performing my normal morning WordPress research and news sponging, I came across a new site named WP Honors which as you might guess by it’s name, aims to honor those associated with WordPress in some way. It’s a cool idea for a site but I’ll let you explore it on your own. While there I came across a nomination for a plugin named Register Plus Redux.

Register Plus Redux

Now, if you’ve been involved with WordPress for any length of time, of if you’ve already researched on how to create a custom registration page in WordPress, the first part of that name might ring a bell. There is an existing plugin named Register Plus and back in the day, it was the grand puba of registration plugins. However, the original developer abandoned the plugin just about a year ago.

This is where Register Plus Redux steps onto the scene. Another developer named radiok has stepped in and started developing a fork of the original registration plugin. When I say stepped onto the scene, I should say busted onto the scene like the Kool-Aid man busts through walls!

His version of the plugin has only been live for just over a month (at the time of this writing) and not only has he squashed most of the bugs reported by users, but has also added a TON of very useful features. Just a look at some of what this plugin offers:

Register Plus Redux enables the user registration process to be customized in any way, big or small. Is there another field you want users to fill out when registering? Do you want to change the message your users receive after they register? Do you want users to have to verify their email address is legitimate? Do you want to queue up new users to be approved or denied by an administrator? Register Plus Redux can do all that and more.

Enhancements to registration include:

• Customized registration page, including your own logo, disclaimer, license agreement, or privacy policy
• User-entered password (with password strength meter)
• Added profile fields
• Additional required fields for registration
• Invitation code system (with dashboard widget to track invites)
• User-defined fields
• Email verification of new users
• Administration verification of new users
• Customized new user message
• Customized administrator message

As you can see, it’s pretty kickass, but it still didn’t fit my specific needs. Ugh. But read on because there’s an opportunity for this plugin to not only fill my needs but probably yours as well.

What Features Does My Perfect Registration Customization Plugin Have?

Multisite/Network Compatibility

First and foremost, it must be compatible with WordPress MU and Multisite. MU you might ask? Isn’t that outdated in favor of WP 3.0.1 with Multisite enabled. Yes it is, but I have some clients with MU 2.9.2 installations. These days I work almost exclusively within the WordPress Multisite environment for my own network of sites and any new client projects I create.

Removal of Built-in WordPress Fields

Secondly, if you’re going to have the ability to create custom registration fields and have your users fill them out, then you would most certainly want to have the option to remove the built-in fields that WordPress provides. I’m talking about the AIM, Jabber, etc. fields.

The good news is that Register Plus Redux does allow you to remove these fields from the registration page by toggling them on and off in the settings. However, this does not remove these fields from the profile page. These fields just don’t make sense anymore, especially when you haven’t asked for that information during registration.

There are ways to remove these fields as you can see in my previous post, but could this feature be added into the Register Plus Redux plugin? I decided to find out.

You Don’t Know Until You Ask

I decided to contact the plugin developer (radiok) directly but before I did I made sure to read through his documentation and some of the forum posts, as well as his website. I quickly learned that the MU/MS feature was on the todo as well as many other things, but there was no indication of when…he is developing this plugin for free ya know;)

In my contact with radiok, I offered a donation and asked if the Multisite compatibility could be moved up on the todo list and also if he would consider the removal of the built-in contact fields from the Profile page feature. I was delighted to receive a reply a short while later that included a detailed response to my suggestions/requests and an agreement that these items would be looked at more closely.

I was also asked my opinion on some other thoughts radiok had about the organization of the plugin backend, especially concerning the placement of all the settings he’s built-in as they are now getting a bit complex.

It Takes a Village (WP Community)

I replied with my thoughts and suggestions, but there was also something else I added to my reply. I shared my intention to implement an idea I’ve had for awhile concerning a WordPress registration and profile customization plugin. It’s nothing new really, but the idea is this…to rally the WP Community to support the development of this plugin. Believe it or not, I actually had a draft post saved that included a few brainstorms about this very subject. It was prompted by a forum thread I found while searching (yet again) for another solution. This is the draft post…no bull:

Let’s Get a Registration Plugin Built

Idea: Start a community initiative to fund the development of a registration and profile fields plugin to be released for free.

Get devs to line up and then promote it to the WP world
Create a mock up of the interface and post these images and ideas
Create an entire community project site?

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-register-plus-doesnt-work-on-wpmu?replies=2#post-1702654

I would say that is serendipity in full swing!

How Much is Custom Registration Worth?

Think about that for a moment. The Register Plus Redux plugin is already freely available. Chances are, it might handle everything you need already. Is that worth a $1, $5, $10?

Now think about the future.

Register Plus was a very popular plugin on the repository with over 130,000 downloads…then the author discontinued development and after a few WordPress upgrades things started to break.

Imagine you had installed this on a client site and created a custom registration form and all of a sudden it stopped working after you (or they) upgraded their installation. You would be scrambling to get it fixed and time would be of the essence!

It would probably cost you.

If it were me, I’d have to hire a plugin developer, and one who had the chops to take on this already complex plugin. Add the hours he or she would need to spend to find out what’s broken plus the hours of coding to fix things and you’d be in the several thousands easily. I ask again, how much is this plugin worth to you? $20, $30, $50?

It’s the Right Thing To Do

So folks, here’s the point. I’m asking that you throw a few bucks to radiok if you use this plugin. In other words, you’re donating to “the cause” of Register Plus Redux development and at the same time contributing to the software that we all love. Keep in mind that I do NOT know radiok personally. My communication with him started as outlined above. He deserves it. I hope you agree.

Donate to Register Plus Redux Development

Disclaimer: The Paypal button was supplied directly from radiok upon my request. No donations go through me or this website.

Spread the Word – Pay it Forward

I’m a realist and I know times are tough. You may not be able to afford even a $1, and that’s ok. You can still help by spreading the word about this donation campaign by sharing it on your own site, on Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc. Whatever you’re preferred means of socializing online, please help me to spread the word. I know the WP Community is full of helpful, positive, and appreciative people!

Related posts:

• Simple:Press Forum Updates are Coming
• How to Add and Delete Contact Info Fields for Your Users
• Simple WordPress Forum Plugin – Revisted

I use several plugins on a regular basis that provide shortcodes. If you don’t know what shortcodes are or how they can be used, please read this tutorial first. If you are familiar with shortcodes and want to know how to use them in a Widget, read on.

The Good ‘Ole Days

I tried using shortcodes in Widgets a few years ago and quickly became frustrated because  it wasn’t possible (back then). I always thought of it as “…one of those WordPress quirks…” and never gave it much thought until the other day.

Why I Needed Shortcodes in Text Widgets

I manage a site that makes heavy use of a plugin to create and manage tables. In this installation I am managing well over a hundred separate tables, each containing dozens of rows of data. As it was, these tables were inserted into individual pages using the plugin’s shortcode that passed the table id like this:

[table id=17]

That works perfectly and displays the table and it’s contents beautifully on the page. However, I received a request to put many of these tables into the sidebar area of the site. I thought I was in for a LOT of work. Knowing (or so I thought) that I couldn’t use these table shortcodes in a Text Widget I thought I would have to manually code the contents of over 75 Text Widgets. Gulp!

Never Assume You Know it All

Knowing that the WordPress core had been updated several times since I tried using shortcodes in Widgets and that new features had been added, and knowing that there are many WordPress developers out there smarter than me (or is that I?)…I did a quick Google search and low and behold, the answer was not far away.

You can force your Widgets to accept shortcodes by putting one line in your theme’s functions.php file.

add_filter( 'widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

I read a bit more and followed another link and found out that using two lines is a bit better.

add_filter( 'widget_text', 'shortcode_unautop');
add_filter( 'widget_text', 'do_shortcode');

Why the additional line? From Stephanie Leary of SillyBean.net

The second line is the one that makes the shortcodes work, but you’ll want to include both. If you check “add paragraphs automatically” on the widget, WordPress will apply the autop filter — the one that turns your line breaks into paragraph and break tags. If a shortcode is on its own line, it would normally get wrapped in a paragraph tag. The first line prevents that from happening.

It was as easy as that. I added those two lines in my theme’s functions.php file, dropped some table shortcodes in my Text Widgets, and there were my tables in the sidebar just as had been requested. Thank you WordPress dev team, Google, Digwp.com and Stephanie Leary!

I also learned of a few ways to create your own shortcodes, and the best part is that you don’t have to be a plugin developer to do it. Stay tuned for that tutorial coming soon. In the meantime, you might want to…

Related posts:

• How to Create Your Own WordPress Shortcodes Using a Plugin
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It is with great pleasure and excitement that I am able to finally announce the WP Modder App for iPhone and iPod!

You know I love WordPress and I’ve been providing WordPress tutorials on what I’ve learned about the software for many years on this site and on AdamWWarner.com. Now you can gain access to all my past and future tutorials on the go and learn more about your favorite web publishing platform anywhere you are.

WP Modder App

In addition to the detailed tutorials and how-to articles, this app also provides you with plugin and theme reviews to help you make informed decisions when building your WordPress powered sites.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re creating a network of sites for yourself or for your clients, the WP Modder App for iOS devices gives you quick and easy access wherever you happen to be.

You can grab it online by scanning the barcode with your iPhone, iPod, or iPad here, or in the app store here.

Not only that, the WP Modder App also provides access to WordPress video tutorials as well as giving you the ability to send messages directly to WP Modder to be listed on the Voice of the Community page. You’re able to attach an image and insert links back to your own WordPress powered site! You can either self promote to a targeted community or ask a WordPress related question to the WP Modder group. Have a look at the page to see an example of how you could get some free promotion.
(Note: In the next release, users will have access to the listings on this page from within the app).

Once you start the WP Modder WordPress tutorials and reviews app, you’ll see the following navigation tabs.

WP Modder iPhone/iPod App Options

Here are some screenshots of the different areas of the WP Modder App.

Related posts:

• Voice of the Community
• WordPress Tutorials App
• WordPress Announces iPhone App!

Ok, you caught me. This really isn’t a WordPress tutorial in the traditional sense, but I just had to share. I just signed up with Google’s new product, Google Voice. I’ll let you see all the details for yourself, but it’s truly amazing!

In a Nutshell

Google assigns you a phone number (you get to pick your own area code or try and spell out a word). You then attach all your other phone numbers to this number…home phone, cell phone, work phone, etc. When someone calls your Google number, you can send that call to whatever phone number (or numbers) you want. But it’s not just that folks…there are just too many features for me to list here, but I wanted to show you the one that nearly blew my mind. The Singularity is truly near.
I don’t even know off hand how I would use it but I’m sure I’ll figure something out;)

What’s the Big Deal?

This…

I called my new Google number from a land line and my cell phone rang. Pretty cool. I then declined the call so it would go to voicemail. It connected to a nice woman who informed me that I had reached the Google voicemail service and to leave a message at the tone.

I left a voicemail message to myself and hung up. A few seconds later (yes, a few seconds) I received this text on my phone.

Transcribed Voicemail Text

Pay special attention to the actual text contained within this message. That text was automatically transcribed from the voicemail I had just left seconds earlier!

After I picked my jaw up off the floor and changed my pants, I decided to continue my testing and reply to the text I received containing a transcription of my voicemail.

Replying to the Google Voice Text

I then went to my Google Voice dashboard and look what I saw. Again, notice the text of the message…this was automatically transcribed in seconds!

I noticed there were a few options. I could perform some actions like “Call” and “Text”. I wonder what’s under the “more” dropdown menu?

Holy Toledo!

Want to Hear My Message? Sure ya do...

I clicked “Embed” and a window popped up allowing me to give the embed a caption (similar to my favorite software;)

Create a Caption for Your Voicemail Embed Code

So, without further ado, here it is! (click the little blue play button to listen)

How would you use embedded Google Voicemail(s) on Your Site?

Aside from it being technically amazing, I can see where it could also be used in more nefarious ways. What happens when a jilted lover all of a sudden has his/her voicemails shared with the entire Internet after a breakup? Or when private business information is shared?

In Case You’re Wondering…

I signed up because I didn’t want my regular phone number listed on my email newsletters. Having a phone number listed is required by the Canned Spam Act.

What do you think?

Tell me what you think in the comments below and please share this on your desired social network if you find it interesting.

Related posts:

• Voice of the Community
• Introducing the WP Modder App for iPhone and iPod Touch
• WordPress Tutorials App

Updated Profile Page with New fields

I want to share a code snippet I recently learned about from following the action (online) at WordCamp Montreal. This is a function written by Stephanie Leary and was presented in her slideshow available here. This function allows you to add/remove/edit the available fields in the Contact Info area of a WordPress user’s Profile page.

Why would you want to do this? Let’s have a look at the default Contact Info area of the Profile page.

Contact Info of Profile Page

Ok, the first two  fields above are useful for sure, but the others? They may be useful to some WordPress site administrators but I’m guessing that number is small in relation to the millions of WordPress installations worldwide. That’s only a guess and I can only speak for myself…and I have no use for knowing any of my user’s AIM account details. So, I want to get rid of that field.

Now that we’re editing this function code, we might as well add some more fields too. This would be information a bit more specific to your WordPress site’s purpose. For my needs, I wanted to add Company Name, Title, Phone Number, and Twitter fields.

Here’s the exact function code I’m using:

function change_contactmethod( $contactmethods ) {
//Add some fields
$contactmethods['company'] = 'Company Name';
$contactmethods['title'] = 'Title';
$contactmethods['phone'] = 'Phone Number';
$contactmethods['twitter'] = 'Twitter Name (no @)';

//Remove AIM, Yahoo IM, Google Talk/Jabber
unset($contactmethods['aim']);
unset($contactmethods['yim']);
unset($contactmethods['jabber']);

//make it go!
return $contactmethods;

}

add_filter('user_contactmethods','change_contactmethod',10,1);

I placed this function in the functions.php file that exists inside the theme folder for the theme I have activated on my site. I saved my changes, refreshed the Profile page and got the desired result as seen below.

Updated Profile Page with New fields

Keep in mind that this is really only an initial step in how you can make better use of your user Profile pages. What would you do?

Related posts:

• Attaining the Holy Grail of WordPress Registration Customization
• Share WordPress – Find and Promote WordPress Tips and Tools
• The Ultimate WordPress Form Maker

If you’ve read my previous post and have been waiting for the step-by-step tutorial, here it is. If you haven’t read my previous post, I suggest you give it a quick scan to learn the real world use case that prompted me to write this tutorial. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long and if you subscribed to my site, I’d like to say thanks:)

In this tutorial you will learn how to remove many of the non-essential pieces of information included by default in your WordPress Dashboard and Post Edit screens. I realize non-essential is a relative term. What might work for me or my Authors may not work for you, so go ahead and tweak the settings to suit your own needs.

As a reminder, the default Dashboard area looks like this:

…and we want to make it look uncluttered like this:

Click to Enlarge

Here’s what you do. Go to your Dashboard area and look at the far right. You’ll see a few things, but look for the button that says “Screen Options”.

Click on the "Screen Options" button

Have you ever clicked that button? If not, you’ll probably be surprised to see the hidden options below:

Surprise! Look at all the hidden options!

Simply checking or unchecking these items will allow you to decide what you want to show, and what you want to hide on the Dashboard.

In the example above, you can see in the upper right of the image that I am logged in under the username,  testuser. I created the testuser account as an Author level user. Any changes you make to the Screen Options settings will only apply to the user that was logged in when the settings were set.

So, for my use case, I simply logged in as the user that I wanted to hide these details from and unchecked all options, then choose the one column setting. Now their Dashboard looks like this:

Click to Enlarge

As you can see, this really simplifies things for a person new to WordPress. Not only that, but because all of those extra options are gone, the user is more likely to focus on and better understand the options they do have on the left side.

The same applies to the Post Edit screen options. Have a look at those:

Post Edit Screen Options

Do your Author level users really need to see the Send Trackbacks, Custom Fields, and Discussion options when writing their posts? Probably not.

As your users get more and more familiar with writing posts, they’re also likely to start exploring these available buttons and discover these options on their own. Alternatively, you can always go in and turn these options back on for them too.

I would recommend that you also explore the screen options for more pages within the WordPress administration area while you’re logged in as the administrator. The rabbit hole runs deep with more options;)

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I Feel So Stupid

I made a tutorial over at AdamWWarner.com and included a video. Unfortunately, in the video I directed people here to watch it….whoops. It’s over here folks! Sorry about that…

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Information Overload

I run the website for my neighborhood association. No wait. Let me rephrase that…I am the guy who developed a website to facilitate the needs of my neighborhood association. It was never my intention to write posts about the neighborhood happenings or to document the minutes from the association’s monthly meetings. My position (as I saw it) was to provide the tools and teach people how to use them. Even though WordPress makes publishing content very easy, especially for someone who’s been working with it for seven years, I always have to keep in mind that it is completely new to others, especially the Dashboard as seen by new Authors.

When I developed and launched this association website, I created user accounts for all of the seven board members. I also wrote a very long email explaining how to login and add content to the site. I included links to some great video overviews on what the Dashboard is, how to make posts, pages, categories, etc and even created my own twenty minute screencast to talk about site-specific things.

I received no follow-up questions. That should have been my first clue that there was either no interest in adding content, the explanations didn’t make sense, or that publishing content through a piece of software like this was so scary and unfamiliar that no one wanted to attempt it.

This was a year ago. Up until today I was just fielding emails and adding posts as I received them. Inevitably my ability  to keep up with posting the updates the community members were requesting was challenged. I’m all about supporting my clients, even the pro-bono projects but I was starting to miss these updates, so I needed a solution, and fast.

Just as I was considering approaching the group to request that they review the instructions again and have someone step up to the “Author” role, I was greeted by an email from one of the members requesting that a new person be given access to the site so they can post the updates. Whooo hoo! Problem solved, but I wanted to make sure that this person wasn’t distracted (confused) by too many options within the WordPress Dashboard.

I removed a bunch of items from this user’s Dashboard and Edit Post in order to not overwhelm them with information that don’t need and to make the Visual Editor more of the focus.

Here’s the Dashboard before:

Click to Enlarge

Here’s the Dashboard after:

Click to Enlarge

Here’s the Post Edit screen before:

Click to Enlarge

Here’s the Post Edit screen after:

Click to Enlarge

You’re might be wondering how I accomplished this and how you can do the same. Did I use a plugin? Did I write a special function? Was it simply mind of matter?

Nope. I used some easily accessible built-in WordPress settings that don’t get too much “press” on WordPress tutorial sites. I don’t mean to leave you hanging, but you’ll have to stay tuned here to learn how I did it. I’ll be posting a detailed tutorial with screenshots in the next few days…this post is already too long!

You can subscribe for updates via RSS or get handy email updates whenever I post a new tutorial.

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Need for Speed

I was recently optimizing my other site to squeeze out some more speed and performance and made a simple change to a built-in WordPress setting that solved a nagging issue I’ve had. This setting has to do with page and post revisions. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Have a look toward the bottom of your page or post while you’re in edit mode and look for the revisions area. Check out the image below:

The Revisions Area

Revisions are basically drafts of your posts and pages. They are automatically saved at a specified time interval and also when you click “Save Draft”. The reasoning behind revisions is that you can go back to a previous version of what you were writing and either choose to use that older revision, or to compare to other revisions (drafts). There is a lot of flexibility here, but in my case, and maybe in yours, this flexibility is unnecessary and uses resources on your site that can slow down your page load times. They’re also all stored in your WordPress database…that’s too much clutter.

Fortunately, we can change the time between each saved revision, and also the total number of revisions that are saved. In fact, we can even turn off revisions completely. So where is this setting in the Dashboard? Logic might suggest that it would be under the Settings–>Writing options, but for some reason logic doesn’t seem to apply in respect to WordPress post and page revision settings.

In order to make these changes, you’ll need to get your hands dirty just a bit by editing the wp-config.php file on your server. Go ahead and get your FTP client started and open your wp-config.php file for editing.

Look for the line in this file that looks like this:

/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Just before the line above, copy and paste the following lines:

define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 120 );  // seconds (default is 60)
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); // disable post revisions
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3); // alter number of post revisions kept.

Save your changes and you’re done! Congrats, you’ve just sped up your site and decreased the amount of data that will be stored in your database. Feel free to change the settings above to suit your individual writing habits.

BUT WAIT Adam!…I do not have an FTP client and don’t feel comfortable editing this file! Is there another option? Oh how I love WordPress, of course there’s also a plugin you can install for making these changes, but I try to avoid using too many plugins. If you like keeping your hands clean then go ahead and grab the Revision Control plugin.

If you found this article helpful, please do me a favor and share it using one the social services below and feel free to leave a comment with your website link.

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WordPress Theme Frameworks

I’ve seen a bit of discussion popping up lately on why calling a parent theme a framework really isn’t correct. This is especially important with new framework releases like RichWP. A framework is not a parent theme.

I just finished reading a post by Justin Tadlock explaining the differences between WordPress theme frameworks, parent themes, and child themes. He also explains the problem that child themes were meant to solve (being able to customize your theme without fear of losing those customizations upon theme upgrades)…still exists.

With this explanation, Justin also reveals (again) that he will be releasing his own framework aptly named Hybrid Core. You can learn more here.

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Not long ago I moved this site to a new domain and in the process axed a lot of custom code and plugins I had been using for almost three years. I was frustrated with the bloat of the site and wanted to start fresh. During that process I deleted a plugin that I had forgotten I had installed that did a nice job of helping me make a more personal connection with you, my visitors. That plugin is named What Would Seth Godin Do and has been around for quite a while. It was created by Richard K. Miller. In fact, it’s been downloaded 52,667 times according to the WordPress plugin repository and it’s been through six version updates.

Don’t know who Seth Godin is or what this plugin does? In short, Seth Godin is a marketing guru who has created several internet ventures and written a bunch of books. According to the developer, this plugin idea was sparked by a few words of Seth’s in one of his books:

“One opportunity that’s underused is the idea of using cookies to treat returning visitors differently than newbies. It’s more work at first, but it can offer two experiences to two different sorts of people.”

That leads us to the basic idea behind this plugin. It allows you to target returning visitors different from new visitors. Let me explain a little more by showing you an example from this very site. More than likely you’ve seen the output of this plugin just before you started reading this post. Go ahead, scroll up and take a peek….see what I mean?

If this is your first visit to my site, you should be seeing a message similar to this:

Message for New Visitors

If you’re a returning visitor (more than two visits), you should be seeing a message similar to this:

Message for Returning Visitors

I love this plugin and how it allows me to send a personal message to two different groups of visitors and to highlight the things I want to promote. One thing I had to consider when entering the actual content in these messages was the overall size of each message block, especially the message for returning visitors. What you see above in the second image isn’t the default output, I added a bit of my own css styling to tweak things so it would fit into what I consider an acceptable space when viewed above a post.

What configuration options are there you ask? Here’s a quick video run-through to give you a better visual…. (click the full screen icon for 1280 x 720 video size)

I hope this plugin description and overview has been helpful, and I do hope you’ll share your experiences with this plugin in the comments so we can see how you’re using it. I would imagine that because this plugin accepts HTML in the message fields that you could probably do some pretty cool stuff…

Here’s the YouTube version:

What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress Plugin

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If you’ve been around the WordPress world for awhile, you’ve no doubt heard about the WishList Member plugin. If you haven’t heard of it before, here’s the skinny…it’s simply the best and most feature rich WordPress membership plugin available (in my opinion that is). Not only does this plugin work as advertised, but they also offer a lot of great documentation and training materials. Note: I am speaking from personal experience with this plugin. I never recommend any paid plugin, theme, or other software unless I believe in it. If you’ve been thinking about starting your WordPress-powered membership site, now might be the best time to do it. Why?

Wishlist Member is running a really cool promotion where they have teamed up with the co-founder of WooThemes (Adii Pienaar) and they are offering a great promotion.

If you purchase WishList Member between now and August 27th, you’ll get Adii’s new book (Rockstar Business) absolutely free.

You can learn more about Wishlist Member and this promotion here.

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A long title perhaps, but it could have read like this…

“What I Learned About Using WordPress Multi-Site (WMPU), Multiple Thematic Child Themes, Thematic Functions and CSS Body Class Styling and the wpSearchMu Plugin, to Accomplish a Sitewide Search and Get the Results Displayed How I Needed.”

Whew!

In other words…

My client had a need for several distinct sites for each of their product offerings, all related and interconnected, but needing to have individual plugins and themes managed separately. I needed six sites, all with the same branding, but all with slightly different layout and functional changes. I should also point out that this is a page heavy implementation of WordPress. Across all six sites there are only three actual blog posts and roughly 700 pages, give or take. Yes. You read that correctly…over 700 pages in total.

The Network of Sites

As I stated above there are six sites. The main site and five subdomain sites. Three of these sites are actually duplicates of the main site and two subdomain sites that have been translated into another language, so for the purposes of this article, I’ll be referring to just three sites. We’ll call them Main Portal, Residential, and Commercial.

Each of these sites had to have the same theme applied, but each site’s theme needed to have a slightly different look and functionality. By that I mean, the contents of the style.css and the functions.php files needed to be different for each theme. My solution was to use the Thematic Framework and create a custom Child Theme for each site and this has worked great, but when I needed a sitewide search solution, things got a bit dicey and I needed to do a lot of research, forum reading, trial and error, and reach out for assistance from a WPMU and Thematic guru in order to find the solution.

The Initial Solution

The sitewide WordPress Multi-Site search solution I chose to implement was the wpSearchMu plugin by Adam Wulf and Kenny Katzgrau. I’ll let you read the instructions for setting up this plugin on your own, but when you get to the part about making a small edit to your theme’s search.php file, be sure to read below if you’re using Thematic and a child theme. That’s what this post is all about…

The theme edit that the plugin requires is to add some code to the beginning and the end of the Loop in your search.php file.

At the beginning of the Loop:

switch_to_blog($post->blog_id);

At the end of the Loop:

restore_current_blog();

It’s not quite that simple when using Thematic and child themes, instead of editing the main Thematic search.php file (and having it overwritten each time you upgrade the Thematic core), you would instead create a function in each child theme to filter the main Thematic search. In this search filter function you would add the extra bit of code that the plugin requires. Here’s that function with those two lines added to the beginning and end of the search loop:

//**********  FILTER SEARCH LOOP TO ADD WPSEARCHMU PLUGIN CODE  ***********
function remove_searchloop() {
    remove_action('thematic_searchloop', 'thematic_search_loop');
}
add_action('init', 'remove_searchloop');

function my_wpsearchmu_loop() {
	global $post;
	while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
		switch_to_blog($post->blog_id); ?>
		<div id="post-<?php the_ID() ?>" class="<?php thematic_post_class() ?>">
			<?php thematic_postheader(); ?>
			<div class="entry-content">
				<?php thematic_content(); ?>
			</div>
			<?php thematic_postfooter(); ?>
		</div><!-- .post -->
		<?php restore_current_blog();
      endwhile;
}
add_action('thematic_searchloop', 'my_wpsearchmu_loop');

//***************************************************************

Ok, so now that I had the necessary code from the wpSearchMu plugin added to the search loop, I went through the rest of the instructions including creating an index of the blogs I wanted search results from. And I did this on each of the blogs. Now it was time to test my search results…

The Problem

I tested the search from the main blog using the search term of “radon” because I knew that this term existed on the three blogs I wanted results from: Main Portal, Residential, and Commercial. This worked perfectly and exactly as expected, as seen in the image below.

The blue text you see in the image above are the page title links. Mission accomplished right? Not quite. Next I checked the search from one of the subdomain blogs and check out the search results now…where did the page titles go!?

Well, obviously those aren’t very useful results as they don’t lead the user anywhere! This was only also happening on Commercial site. So I started troubleshooting to find out what was going on. As I had been working on this project for a long time, and knowing it (and it’s stylesheets and functions files) had been changed, tweaked, and edited many times, I assumed the trouble was with one of two things. Either I was hiding those page titles with a function or within the stylesheet of that particular child theme.

The Final Solution

After many hours and days of frustration searching through and comparing these files over and over again, I finally reached out to the aforementioned guru, a.k.a. Ron Rennick and asked him to have a look with fresh eyes, which he graciously did and this was his response:

Found it- In Thematic

function thematic_postheader() {
  global $id, $post, $authordata;
  <snip>
    if (is_single() || is_page()) {
      $posttitle = '<h1 class="entry-title">' . get_the_title() . "</h1>\n";
  } elseif (is_404()) {          $posttitle = '<h1 class="entry-title">' . __('Not Found', 'thematic') . "</h1>\n";
  } else {
      $posttitle = '<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="';
      $posttitle .= get_permalink();
      $posttitle .= '" title="';
      $posttitle .= __('Permalink to ', 'thematic') . the_title_attribute('echo=0');
      $posttitle .= '" rel="bookmark">';
      $posttitle .= get_the_title();        $posttitle .= "</a></h2>\n";
  }

<...>

In the main blog, the url for radon is being treated as a post. On the residential blog, it’s being treated as a page. Your search loop calls the thematic_postheader function.

Now I still don’t really understand why the thematic_postheader function would treat one blog’s content as a page and the other as a post, but I took the guru’s advice and created separate thematic_postheader functions for each child theme and placed it in their respective functions.php files. My child theme postheader function looks like this:

/*********** Filtering thematic_postheader Function to Display Post Title Links in Search Results **************/
// Information in Post Header
function childtheme_thematic_postheader() {
    global $id, $post, $authordata;

    // Create $posteditlink
    $posteditlink .= '<a href="' . get_bloginfo('wpurl') . '/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&amp;post=' . $id;
    $posteditlink .= '" title="' . __('Edit post', 'thematic') .'">';
    $posteditlink .= __('Edit', 'thematic') . '</a>';
    $posteditlink = apply_filters('thematic_postheader_posteditlink',$posteditlink);

    if (is_single() || is_page()) {
        $posttitle = '<h1 class="entry-title">' . get_the_title() . "</h1>\n";
    } elseif (is_404()) {
        $posttitle = '<h1 class="entry-title">' . __('Not Found', 'thematic') . "</h1>\n";
    } else {
        $posttitle = '<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="';
        $posttitle .= get_permalink();
        $posttitle .= '" title="';
        $posttitle .= __('Permalink to ', 'thematic') . the_title_attribute('echo=0');
        $posttitle .= '" rel="bookmark">';
        $posttitle .= get_the_title();
        $posttitle .= "</a></h2>\n";
    }
    $posttitle = apply_filters('thematic_postheader_posttitle',$posttitle);

    $postmeta = '<div class="entry-meta">';
    $postmeta .= '<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author">' . __('By ', 'thematic') . '</span>';
    $postmeta .= '<span class="author vcard">'. '<a class="url fn n" href="';
    $postmeta .= get_author_link(false, $authordata->ID, $authordata->user_nicename);
    $postmeta .= '" title="' . __('View all posts by ', 'thematic') . get_the_author() . '">';
    $postmeta .= get_the_author();
    $postmeta .= '</a></span><span class="meta-sep meta-sep-entry-date"> | </span>';
    $postmeta .= '<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-entry-date">' . __('Published: ', 'thematic') . '</span>';
    $postmeta .= '<span class="entry-date"><abbr class="published" title="';
    $postmeta .= get_the_time(thematic_time_title()) . '">';
    $postmeta .= get_the_time(thematic_time_display());
    $postmeta .= '</abbr></span>';
    // Display edit link
    if (current_user_can('edit_posts')) {
        $postmeta .= ' <span class="meta-sep meta-sep-edit">|</span> ' . '<span class="edit">' . $posteditlink . '</span>';
    }
    $postmeta .= "</div><!-- .entry-meta -->\n";
    $postmeta = apply_filters('thematic_postheader_postmeta',$postmeta);

    if ($post->post_type == 'page' || is_404()) {
        $postheader = $posttitle;
    } else {
        $postheader = $posttitle . $postmeta;
    }

    echo apply_filters( 'childtheme_thematic_postheader', $postheader ); // Filter to override default post header
} // end thematic_postheader
add_filter('thematic_postheader','childtheme_thematic_postheader');
/************ END Filtering Thematic Post Header ********************

Thank you Thematic Forum community for providing the basis for the above.

So now I had relevant sitewide search results that users could actually use, and they worked on each of the three sites, but there was one more thing to change per my client’s request.

Instead of the results being listed in the standard content area that is roughly 620px wide, they wanted these results to use the full width of the page. There are many ways to do this, but I had already created a function that removed the sidebar from specified pages and css declarations to change the width of these pages using the Thematic-added body class, so I went ahead and added the search page to my code.

//REMOVES SIDEBAR ON SPECIFIED PAGES - ALSO CHANGES TO CSS
function remove_sidebar() {
	// We test if we are on the pages "Test One, Test Two, Test Three, and Search Results"
if (is_page('test-one') || is_page('test-two') || is_page('test-three') || is_search()) {
// Yes, we are .. now we switch off the sidebar
		return FALSE;
	} else {
		// we are not .. we leave the switch on
		return TRUE;
	}
}
// Connect the filter to thematic_sidebar()
add_filter('thematic_sidebar', 'remove_sidebar');

This removed the sidebar, but the content still didn’t use the full width yet. I had to target the body css class on each page in order to make the width extend the full width of the page. That looked like this:

body.slug-test-one #container {
	width: 940px;
}

body.slug-test-two #content {
	width: 940px;
	/*border: 1px solid;*/
}

body.slug-test-three #content {
	width: 940px;
	/*border: 1px solid;*/
}

/* Styling the Search Results Page */
body.search-results #content {
	width: 940px;
	color:#666666;
	font-family:verdana;
	font-size:12px;
	line-height:15px;
	margin-bottom:10px;
	margin-left:10px;
	/*border: 1px solid;*/
}

I hope this helps someone. Please feel free to leave comments to help me (and others) understand further. I also would like to give a big thanks to everyone on the Thematic forums, the creators of wpSearchMu, and Ron Rennick for your code and assistance:)

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As I promised in my previous post, I’ve created a video tutorial on my personal site that shows how to configure the Slideshow Plugin. The name is a bit generic as far as Slideshow plugins for WordPress go, so let me be clear. This is a paid-for plugin named WordPress Slideshow Plugin and can be found here. I purchased the developer version of this plugin after reading through it’s features and viewing the demos.

I don’t recommend paid plugins willy nilly because frankly, there is a lot of junk out there and I’ve been duped before by flashy sales pages. However, I do stand behind my recommendation and you can see why by watching the video.

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One of the first things I noticed after upgrading to WordPress 3.0 was that my visual editor was a bit different. What I mean is that as I typed my posts, the text wasn’t filling the entire width of the visual editor like it always had before. At first I thought it was a plugin conflict or a bug, but after some quick research I discovered that it’s actually a new feature, and now that I understand what’s happening I couldn’t be more pleased.

My research led me to two people, Matt Thomas and Andrew Ozz. Seeing their names put me at ease immediately because I highly respect both of them and what they’ve contributed to the WordPress community, not to mention, my own livelihood…so I knew an explanation was right around the corner.

The short story…now the visual editor style can be specified within the theme. In other words, if your theme’s post content area is 640px wide, your visual editor is now aware of this and wraps text accordingly while you write your post. Think about that for just a moment, let it sink in…

How many times have you been writing a post, inserting an image and screwing with the alignment trying to get your text to look decent as it wraps. Now any theme developer can specify this within their theme’s functions.php file and style.css to tell the visual editor to display your text exactly as it will appear in the wild.

Here’s a pic of my visual editor while writing this post. See all that white space to the right?

What else can be said except…awesome. Thank you Andrew and Matt. I bow to the usability gods that you are…

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As you may know, I recently changed the domain name of this site. You can read more about it here. During this change, I went through a series of steps to cleanup my site. Some of these included activating the same plugins I had installed, scanning my post content for security breaches, and making sure I didn’t have any dead links.

I’m comfortable writing SQL queries to search and replace, but I’d been aware of a plugin by Frank Bültge for some time that allows for a simple search and replace of your content, and I wanted to give it a shot. As you might have guessed, it’s aptly named Search and Replace. I just wanted to point out that Frank is an avid and excellent plugin developer and I really appreciate all his hard work and dedication to the WordPress project.

I took a video of my experience as you can see below. I hope it helps give you a better idea of just how useful this plugin can be.

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Downloads of WP 3.0 So Far

Chances are if you’re reading this you came from my old domain name, http://wordpressmodder.org. I mentioned here that I would be making some changes soon and this domain switch was first and foremost. I figured while in the process I might as well upgrade to WP 3.0 and “cleanse” my online persona at the same time.

You may notice that the new site is using the new default theme for 3.0 and that much of the content I used to display in my sidebar areas is missing. I kind of like it like that for now, but I’ll most likely change the theme again soon and start re-adding some necessary content…like a way for people to subscribe;)

If you care to know what I have planned next, please visit Adam W. Warner dot com and sign up for email updates. I promise you won’t be disappointed, especially if you’re a visual learner…hint hint. No need to worry though, the new and improved wpmodder.com will be regularly updated with fresh WordPress content as often as possible.

I threw together a 10 minute video of my domain switch process, well most of it anyway. If you find it useful, please feel free to share a link to my post.

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If you’re subscribed to my feed by RSS or email, you may be surprised to hear from me. My last post here was close to seven months ago. There are few reasons for my absence, all of them good. The short story is that life is happening and I’ve been enjoying it (see bottom of post for photographic proof). I’ve also been extremely busy with WordPress development work and managing my own business in addition to working full-time in web development.

With that said, here’s the update…There are a few changes coming that involve this site, the WordPress Modder persona, and another site in development that I hope will be useful to many.

1. The site will be moving to another, better supported host. I have several personal and client sites hosted with them, and they have proven to provide the best customer service I have ever seen in a hosting company. If you know anything about me, you know I believe that great customer service is the most important quality any business can possess. They also have a pretty good deal when you pay for a year of hosting…you get 50% off that cost using the coupon code WHT50-2010. Check out their plans here.
2. The domain name will be changing to http://wpmodder.com. That’s right, I’m finally dropping the wordpress part…long overdue I know. Sorry Matt…but I’m sure he’s not concerned with ‘lil old me anyway. Oh, and it will be on the bleeding edge of WP 3.0.
3. I’m also re-branding myself a bit. I’ve developed my personal site to highlight my expertise in deploying WordPress-based networks and sites and also to better showcase my name as a brand. I’ve learned quite a bit from working clients in the last several years and this new site will serve as both my development and consulting portal, but also as my training, guidance, and support portal for my existing and future clients. Training and support you say? Let that serve as a hint of what’s to come. By the way, the address is my first and last name, including my middle initial. http://adamwwarner.com. <–Notice the two “W”s in the url for Adam W. Warner.

The next post on http://adamwwarner.com will be a tutorial on using an awesome new WordPress Slideshow Plugin I’ve found. It’s a premium plugin, but well worth the cost. I don’t ever promote WordPress related products that I don’t believe to be useful. I’m pretty sure this one will knock your socks off (as far as slideshow plugins go any;) Oh, and I encourage you to sign up for email updates over there too…I promise you won’t be disappointed…and no spam! Yay!

Oh yeah, almost forgot the proof that I’ve been enjoying life…

The Meatball Challenge

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• I've Always Wanted to be a Rockstar
• How I Changed my Domain Name and Upgraded to WordPress 3.0
• I Have a Web Development Secret – Can You Help Me Break the Silence?

You may remember my WordPress Book Giveaway contest from a few weeks ago. I’m pleased to announce the winners of this contest and would like to thank Packt Publishing for making it possible, and of course all those who entered. I hope to run similar contests in the future but for now, check out the winners!

Karen Rodriguez
I am a Stay at home mom & wife of 2 young children.  I have been shopping for deals and using coupons so we can afford for me to stay at home with the kids. I decided earlier this year to put my efforts into a website to help other families save money as well. SavingTheFamilyMoney.com is a hobby that has turned into a wonderful learning experience, where I have met many wonderful families.  What I’ve learned over the past year about WordPress and HTML has helped me expand my knowledge as a blogger and turned me into a self professed “geek”.

Alex Denning
Hi. I’m Alex Denning. WordPress designer and developer; I blog about WordPress development at wpshout.com.

Lynne Foster
Lynne Foster is the director of PoLR Limited – a web design, SEO and online marketing company in Glasgow Scotland.

Related posts:

• WordPress Books Giveaway!
• And the WordPress Multisite Plugins Go To…
• How to Add a Sticky Post to a WordPress Category Archive Page

I’ve been invited to participate in a webinar taking place on Dec. 2nd named WordPress for Nonprofits that’s been organized by Roshani Kothari of OneWorld.net. I’ll be presenting along with Rosalyn Lemieux, Partner of Fission Strategy. You can read more about the webinar here. This is a paid access webinar with all proceeds being used to fund the efforts of OneWorld.net

What is OneWorld.net all about?

OneWorld is a global information network developed to support communication media of the people, by the people and for the people — everywhere. Its goal is to help build a more just, global society, through its partnership community. OneWorld encourages people to discover their power — power to speak, connect, and make a difference — by providing access to information, and enabling connections between hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of people around the world.

What will I be covering in my presentation?

I’ll be providing a basic overview of what WordPress is, what it does, and what it can do. I’ll also be giving an overview of the Dashboard and then touching on the options for extending WordPress through the use of themes and plugins. After this, I’ll be fielding specific questions from the webinar participants.

Rosalyn Lemieux will be showing specific examples of how current nonprofit’s sites are being powered by WordPress, and how they are updating their content.

If you’re interested in learning more, I welcome you to sign up for the webinar. If you’re not interested but know someone who may be, please forward share this post in whatever social portal you prefer:)

I’ve recently became aware of the “Secondary HTML Content” plugin for WordPress, and after having a quick look at the description, I still wasn’t quite sure what exactly it was supposed to do. I’m more of a visual learner and I had a hunch that it’s intended usage may not be clear for others either, so I installed the plugin and made a video showing some basics.

The plugin descriptions starts out like this:

Add a second block of HTML content to WordPress pages. A perfect solution for layouts with two distinct content areas or “blocks”, such as a sidebar or two column view. When editing a page, a second WordPress WYSIWYG content editor will appear beneath the standard page editing block.

The description goes on to explain that whatever you enter into this second HTML content area, can be output to your page in a couple of ways. You can add the “Secondary HTML Content” widget to your sidebar or you can use a function inside your template. This video only covers the widget usage.

Thanks for taking the time to watch this video. Please feel free to leave comments below with further questions.

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• Query Posts Widget Plugin + Widgetized Page Template + Widget Logic = WordPress Gold
• Query Posts Widget: WordPress Plugin – Video Overview Tutorial
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We all know that you can add a sticky post to the index page right? Have you ever wanted to do the same with a category archive page? One way is to create your own category page template and code in a custom loop, but that’s not really “user-friendly” for most WordPress users. As good news usually goes with WordPress, a plugin exists to help you more easily accomplish this “Category Sticky Post” feature on your site. It’s named AStickyPostsOrderER and it was created by AndreSC. I love the name!

I’ve created a video that gives you a quick overview and also an idea of the possibilities available with this plugin. Incidentally, I’ve created several videos so far and this is the first to show my ugly mug…so be prepared. Ha!

Oh wait, one more thing before the video…don’t forget to enter the WordPress Book Giveaway, it really couldn’t be easier to enter. You’ve got nothing to lose and only WordPress knowledge to gain.

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• Using the Category-Icons plugin and Thematic to create custom category pages
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Two
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I just came across this Paypal shopping cart plugin and thought I’d share for two reasons. First, because of all the eCommerce and Paypal plugins available, sometimes you just need something simple…and this is it. Second, because I’m not publishing this post from the normal WordPress backend. I’m testing something very cool! More on that later:) It’s name is WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart. Not only does it provide a simple shopping cart, but also can be integrated with the NextGen Gallery plugin.

What does it provide?

WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart allows you to add an ‘Add to Cart’ button on any posts or pages. It also allows you to add/display the shopping cart on any post or page or sidebar easily. The shopping cart shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items. It can be easily integrated with the NextGen Photo Gallery plugin too.

You can learn more by visiting the plugin page here.

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Are you a WordPress fan like me? Do you aspire to become an expert in any area of WordPress like themes or plugins? Maybe you’ve heard of WordPress Multi-User (WPMU) and want to know how it differs from standard WordPress and learn it’s enormous capabilities?

Well kiddos, if any of the above rings true for you, today’s post is sure to satisfy. Through a deal with Packt Publishing, I’m a giving away not one, not two, but three books focused exclusively on WordPress, the open source software we all know and love. Let’s cut to the chase shall we? Here are the book details…

1. WordPress Theme Design

A complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes

Take control of the look and feel of your WordPress site
Simple, clear tutorial to creating Unique and Beautiful themes
Expert guidance with practical step-by-step instructions for theme design
Design tips, tricks, and troubleshooting ideas

2. WordPress Plugin Development: Beginner’s Guide

Build powerful, interactive plug-ins for your blog and to share online

Everything you need to create and distribute your own plug-ins following WordPress coding standards
Walk through the development of six complete, feature-rich, real-world plug-ins that are being used by thousands of WP users
Written by Vladimir Prelovac, WordPress expert and developer of WordPress plug-ins such as Smart YouTube and Plugin Central
Part of Packt’s Beginners Guide series: expect step-by-step instructions with an emphasis on experimentation and tweaking code

3. WordPress MU 2.8: Beginner’s Guide (Please Note: This title is expected to be released in Dec. 2009)

Build your own blog network with unlimited users and blogs, forums, photo galleries, and more!

Design, develop, secure, and optimize a blog network with a single installation of WordPress
Add unlimited users and blogs, and give different permissions on different blogs
Add social networking features to your blogs using BuddyPress
Create a bbPress forum for your users to communicate with each other
Part of Packt’s Beginner’s Guide Series, with step-by-step, detailed instructions for building a blog network from scratch

So, how do you get your hands on one of these books?

Pretty simple really. All I ask is that you help me spread the word about an exciting new project that is under development. In fact, you can become part of this project if you’d like but more on that later. All you need to do to be entered to win one of these books is:

1. Link to LearnWebTools (http://learnwebtools.com) in some way and then leave a comment on this post with the url, and what book you’d like. That’s it. No more steps! The contest ends on Oct. 31st. On November 1st, I will put all the commentators (who provided a valid url) into a hat and draw names until I get a winner for each title. Look for the winners notification post on that date!

Here are some ways to link:

• Write a quick blog post describing the LearnWebTools project. You can use this text:

LearnWebTools.com will enable you to do just what our name implies, Learn Web Tools. Our service will include step-by-step instructions for a wide variety of web development tools, social sites, open source software, and more. We are working diligently behind the scenes building a full featured site that will allow you to become an expert user of web based tools, online marketing techniques, and other web only skills. Whether you learn better by reading, seeing, or just plain doing, we’ll provide the information you need to get started building your ideas, or your business.

• Tweet it.
• Facebook it.
• Put a banner link on your site. You can use this 250px wide banner:

I’m really looking forward to giving these books away to the three winners. I’ve read the first two, and I can tell you, they are packed with very useful information…and I expect that the third title will be just as informative.

Ok, good luck!

*Please Note*
As dictated by Packt Publishing rules, print or ebook formats are available for winners located in the U.S. and Europe. Winners located in other countries will be provided the ebook format only.

Related posts:

• Meet the WordPress Book Giveaway Winners!
• How to Add a Sticky Post to a WordPress Category Archive Page
• Enter Our Ultimate WordPress Giveaway Now

WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg speaks about WordPress and the GPL.

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Viper007Bond, “a 25 year old guy living in Portland, Oregon”, has just posted some very exciting news concerning a new feature coming in the 2.9 release of WordPress. Media Embedding. If you’ve ever struggled with embedding video or images, or if you wish it was simpler for your clients to do, you’ve just found the answer.

Read here for more…

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I had a bit of a time finding the answer to this one, but I solved it by searching high and low and thought I’d share:) A client I’m working with has a few different series of products and along with the standard categorical framework, they needed an easy way for their customers to “jump to information” on different series of products. They also wanted this series list in a dropdown menu displayed on most pages. So, here’s what I did…

I am using posts to display individual product information, but I needed to use individual pages to display the information about a particular product series. Using pages posed a bit of a quandary though when I started thinking about how to display them in a dropdown list. Why? Have a look in your WordPress Dashboard–>Appearance–>Widgets area. Look at the Categories widget. See that option in there to “show as dropdown”?

Now have a look at the Pages widget. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

…right! WTF? No option to display pages as a dropdown list? Why? Who knows, but I needed to solve it so I set forth on my search. The first thing I did was look for a Template Tag similar to wp_dropdown_categories and I found one for pages named wp_dropdown_pages. Now, I needed to use this tag AND be able to specify the individual pages to be included AND the order of these pages. Before we get to that code, the first thing I needed to do was to figure out the easiest way to get it displayed in a widget. As you might know, WordPress doesn’t allow for inserting PHP code into your widgets by default, so finding a plugin for that was the first task. Luckily, I came across Otto’s PHP Code Widget plugin pretty quickly and since Otto’s pretty ingrained in the WordPress world, it seemed very likely that this plugin would be “future-proof”. OK, so now I can put PHP code inside a widget.

I then wrote some pretty simple code using the wp_dropdown_pages Template Tag (or function) to pull a list of pages into my PHP Code Widget. It looked like this: (with proper beginning and ending PHP tags not seen in this example) wp_dropdown_pages(‘include=1409,1411,1413&sort_column=ID’). I saved my widget, refreshed my main page, and presto, a pages dropdown list. But wait!!! When selecting any page from the list, none of them were being loaded by the browser. HUH?

So, off again I went to search the Template Tag section of the Codex. I found this on the wp_dropdown_pages detail page:

See the section entitled 5.1? With Submit Button? But I don’t want a submit button, I want a “jump” menu. Take me to the page when selected. It works in the categories widget by default and there’s not even an example of how to achieve this with dropdown pages. Say it ain’t so WordPress gods, say it ain’t so!

After much time searching the Codex, forums, and blog posts, and bothering online friends who have better things to do, I finally found the answer. Guess where. The Codex! I missed it initially, but the answer is there, only it’s on the wp_dropdown_categories Codex page and not the wp_dropdown_pages Codex page.

See examples 4.2 and 4.3. Those were my answers. Actually 4.3 was my answer. I took that bit of code, replaced all references to categories and replaced with pages, and Bam! A dropdown list of pages that works like a charm! Here’s the end result:

Here’s what my PHP Code Widget looked like with the code inside: (notice I commented out the H2 title tags also)

I hope that helps and if you use this trick, please post a link in the comments.

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In early April of this year I told you about a homeless girl named Brianna and how I was able to assist her by donating a domain name, hosting, and the setup, configuration, and maintenance of her site, The Girls Guide to Homelessness. I was moved to take action after watching a series of videos from InvisiblePeople.tv that features interviews with homeless people from across America. I’m extremely happy to report to you today that, among many great accomplishments, Brianna has earned the opportunity to blog on ELLE.com. You can see a couple of her posts here and here.

If you’ve been wondering how you can give back to your community and make a difference, I urge you to just do one thing. No matter how simple it may seem to you, your act of kindness CAN affect others. Whatever your expertise, whatever your passion, share it freely with others and it WILL make a difference.

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I am working on a website redesign project for a company that has a need to display several thousand products on their site. One of the main goals with this redesign was easier navigation for the end user. This post will focus on only one aspect of this new navigation. The display of categories.

The desire was to display these product posts and their categories like an online catalog without the need for e-commerce capability. This meant that the categories needed a more visual display instead of a standard list, and this needed to be included on category archive pages. To achieve this, I turned to the Thematic theme framework, category page templates, and most important for my visual layout, the Category-Icons plugin by Sub.

Creating Category Page Templates

The first thing I did was create category page templates. There were two reasons for this:

1. This site has 85 seperate categories and several category archive pages needed different descriptions at the top of the page.
2. Each category archive page needed a different loop to pull in different categories of my choosing.

It couldn’t be easier to create category page templates really. Two simple steps:

1. Copy the category.php file from the main Thematic folder, put it in your Child Theme folder, and rename it using the ID of the category you want to use it for. Learn more here http://codex.wordpress.org/Category_Templates
2. That’s it, you’ve just created a category template page. Now you can edit this page to include content specific to that category.

Here’s a quick example. I have a category named Bath. This category has an ID of 62. I copied the category.php file into my Child Theme folder and named it category-62.php. Now everytime the Bath category archive page loads, it uses the category-62.php file instead of the category.php file.

Adding Custom Content to Category Page Templates

Now I needed to change the content for the Bath category page, so I dove into the template and placed some descriptive content at the top:

<p>You&#039;ve spent hours pouring over magazines to find the perfect design for your new
spa-like bathroom retreat. You&#039;ve chosen the perfect tile, the whirlpool tub,
beautiful faucets and luxurious shower sprays.</p>

Notice the ascii code in there? I had to use that for the apostrophe’s in order for the page to render correctly. But I digress…

Now for the really cool part. Changing the category loop to pull in the categories of my choosing and to display the icons I assigned to these categories using the Category-Icons plugin. (I’ll go into more detail about this plugin in a future post).

<?php //Bath Cats
//Create a variable with category IDs. These can easily be changed anytime.
$ftchildcats="69,71,77,75,67,116,72";
?>

<?php
//Creating my own ul class for styling these category listings
echo "<ul class='ft-category'>";
//Checking to see if the Category-Icons plugin function exists

if (function_exists('put_cat_icons'))
//If it does exist, display the Category-Icons along with the category titles
put_cat_icons( wp_list_categories('title_li=&include=' . $ftchildcats . '&echo=0'));
//If the Category-Icons plugin is broken, or doesn't exist, just show the full category list
else
wp_list_categories('title_li');
echo "</ul>;
?>

The output looks like this:

Category Icons

Of course this is only one of the methods you can use with the Category-Icons plugin. You can learn more here.

If you’re using this plugin, please post a link so we can all have a peek.

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As with most products I use or causes I’m involved with, I’m always proud to be affiliated and promote their use whenever I can. This is no different with WordPress. Although I’ve been using WordPress for many years now, I’ve never bought anything from the WordPress shop until recently.

I’m a proud user and wanted to display that pride publicly, so I went to the shop and bought a couple of items. Overall the experience was very good, but I have a couple of suggestions, and one complaint I’d like to share in the hope that the store would be a bit of a smoother user experience. Who knows? Maybe Matt or someone else from the WP team will read this post:)

1. The store wasn’t as easy to find as I would have expected. Why isn’t it linked from the main page of the WordPress.org and WordPress.com sites? I had to Google to find it. For your convenience, it’s located at here at the address http://shop.wordpress.net/.

2. The current product choices are:

• T-Shirts
• Hoodies
• Mugs
• Accessories
• Zip-Jackets

I think these selections were OK. After all, I was interested in getting a t-shirt and a mug so ultimately, my needs were filled. What surprised me was the lack of color and size selections for the t-shirts. At the time of my purchase (and the time of this writing) there were only two colors available, Red and Olive Green. I was looking for Navy Blue, but settled on Olive Green.

Even though the color selection wasn’t as varied as I would have preferred, the quality of the shirt I purchased was very nice. It was soft and thin (a good thing in the warm climate where I reside), and it fit me nice and comfortably.

Next, I went to the mug section. There I found a really nice looking “footed bistro mug”.

When this mug arrived, I was very pleased! It looks nice and it seems to be made well. Now, you should now, I am a coffee drinker. I drink two large cups every morning when at work. This is where some minor disappointment set in.

As I said, I drink a couple cups of coffee every morning, but I don’t drink them very fast, I sip from 8:00am until about 11:30am. Because of this time line, I use a coffee warmer so my coffee stays nice and hot for those 3.5 hours. This is where the trouble with the new mug starts. You see, the bottom of my current mug and my new mug are different. Check out the pictures below to see the difference:

Old Coffee Mug (with warm coffee)

My Shiny New Mug (with cold coffee)

Notice that the mug on the left has a flat bottom and the mug on the right has a bottom similar to a wine glass. Also the bottom of the mug on the right has a concave bottom.

So, what’s the point?

The point is that because of the shape of the bottom of the WordPress mug, there is very little surface area that actually touches the warmer, and the heat doesn’t transfer through the mug, and that allows my coffee to get cold. Yuck!

Unfortunately, this means that my shiny new WordPress mug isn’t user-friendly and is not functional as a coffee drinking device for me.

If there are any Automattic employees listening, could you please slip this simple request in the virtual suggestion box? “Mugs with flat bottoms please.”

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An interesting thing happened while I was checking my Yahoo! Mail this morning. A little notification popped up telling me that I had an extra feature named “Applications” and asked if I would like to see the “Gallery”. So I had a look and it appears that Yahoo! has integrated some applications in the their Mail program. To my delight, as I was scanning the (short) list of apps, and the oh so familiar WordPress logo seemed to call right to me. Could it be? WordPress inside my Yahoo! Mail!?

I forged ahead with configuring the WordPress application and thought you might like to see the process. In fact, I am writing this entire post from within of my Yahoo! Mail client. I just tried to insert an image, which it will allow you to do, but you can only insert an image URL, not browse your machine and upload let’s say, a screenshot of Yahoo! and WordPress in action. Strike one. I am now writing from within my WordPress installation.

First things first. In the left side of your Yahoo! Mail page (assuming you’re using the “New” Yahoo! Mail), you will see a new section named Applications. Click the word Applications and you will be presented with the application Gallery.

WordPress in the Yahoo App. Gallery

After reading through the descriptions of the various apps, I eventually clicked Add next to WordPress and was presented with a standard legal agreement message.

Of course I agreed, it’s WordPress;) I then went back to the left side of my Yahoo! Mail screen and now saw WordPress listed under the Applications menu.

After clicking on WordPress, the Blog Settings screen appears and you are prompted to add your blog connection information. Please note that this will work for both WordPress.com and WordPress.org blogs (or self-hosted). There is one slight difference in the Blog URL that you will enter depending on what type of WordPress blog you’re connecting to.

If you’re connecting to a WordPress.com blog, simply enter the standard URL: http://example.com

If you’re connecting to a self hosted version of WordPress, enter the domain name and the path to the xmlrpc.php file. This is usually found in the root of your WordPress install. Look at the second screenshot below to see what I mean…

Yahoo! WordPress Blog Settings

Yahoo! WordPress Blog Settings (Self-Hosted)

Yaay! We’re connected. Let’s have a look at the Write Post panel. It pops up as an additional tab in your mail screen. You should notice a few things about the visual editor here. First, it’s not the same as the visual editor as  in the normal WordPress dashboard. It has some limitations, but I didn’t feel like anything major was missing. That’s what I thought before trying to add an image.

As you can see below there is an Add Image icon, and you can add images, but as referenced above, you are required to add an image URL. I do not see any way to browse to an image on my local machine and upload. Not cool, and yes, it’s kind of a big deal as I use WordPress to create screenshot-laden posts just like this one. We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks, maybe this feature is just over the horizon.

Yahoo! WordPress Write Tab

There was another little feature that caught my eye on the bottom of the Write Post tab as seen in the screenshot below. You can drag an email from your inbox to the WordPress app in the Yahoo! Mail sidebar to blog it. I can’t think of a time I would need this, but it seems like a pretty slick little option.

I wonder what happens if the email has images attached?

Yahoo! WordPress Tags and Email Post Options

This looks like a great start to using WordPress inside Yahoo! Mail, and I would definately use this if I could upload images. I have Mail open all day long and this is a welcome addition. However, there are many questions and room for improvement.

• Please let me upload images!
• Are Drafts being saved as they are in the Dashboard?
• What about categories? Didn’t see that option. Although tags are possible?
• How about multiple blog connections?

Can you think of anything else that should be included? We’d all love to hear your thoughts!

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Ian Stewart has just announced that he will be making a series of posts that will outline, in detail, the 12 steps to creating your own WordPress theme. You can see his announcement here.

Ian Stewart of Themeshaper

If you’re not familiar with Ian Stewart, and you aspire to become a WordPress expert, or better yet, a WordPress theme expert, you need to pay attention. Ian runs the site, ThemeShaper which offers a lot of WordPress information focused on themes and theme development. Most notably, ThemeShaper has released Thematic, a WordPress Theme Framework.

I have learned a lot from many people in the WP community, too many to name here, but lately Ian’s approach seems to make the most sense to me.

Check it out and follow along…and tell ‘em Adam sent ya;)

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This is the sixth post in my series about using video with WordPress. Today we’ll focus on some plugins and a couple of themes that help to display video on your WordPress-powered site. I’ve discussed plugins previously in this series, but in the WordPress world, things are always evolving and plugin development is a prime example. One of my favorite things about WordPress is the massive community around it. As you probably know already, there are thousands of themes and plugins available, and new ones being released almost daily.

We all know that online video has, and still is, maturing. Both the quality and accessibility of online video has changed greatly since the days of 14.4k modems and ten second .mpg movie clips. Video is now a necessary addition to many websites. It’s not just a novelty anymore, and will never be again.

If you run a WordPress-powered website that includes video, or you aspire to place video on your site, the theme and plugins below will help.

First, I’d like to bring your attention to Press75.com. This is the home of a great WordPress theme designer, Jason Schuller. Press75 was one of the first offer themes specifically for video…and is still the best in my opinion. Feel free to have a look at all of the video-centric themes that Jason offers.

Video Flick WordPress Theme

Now, that you’ve had a look at some options for displaying video on Press75, what happens when you either can’t afford a professionally coded video theme, or you just prefer to use a different one altogether. How do you attain a functional display of your video? Again, Jason Schuller comes to the rescue, along with plugin developer James Lao.

In the spirit of WordPress, Jason and James have made freely available,  two plugins that were developed specifically for his video themes.

• Simple Post Thumbnails
• Simple Video Embedder

Simple Post Thumbnails

With the Simple Post Thumbnails plugin, adding thumbnail images to your posts is as easy as uploading any image (no editing required) and clicking the “Update Post” button. Upon upload, the plugin will re-size and crop the selected image according to whatever parameters you specify within the plugin configuration.

Simple Video Embedder

With the Simple Video Embedder plugin, adding video to your post is as easy as pasting the URL for the video you want to add within a field, and then click submit. You can even provide simple “width” and “height” parameters to size your video to match your theme. Currently, this “URL embed” method works perfectly with several services including Vimeo.com, YouTube.com, MetaCafe.com, Revver.com, Google Video and Seesmic.com. Or, of you want to host your own video, the plugin is also compatible with FLV (Flash Video) and Quicktime formats. If your video service is not on the list of currently supported formats for the “URL embed” feature, you can use the optional “embed code” field.

I hope you find these themes and plugins useful. I am always on the lookout for themes, plugins, and other apps that will make it as easy as possible to integrate video on WordPress-powered sites. If you know of any tools that fit into this category, please feel free to contact me and let me know, either here or by leaving a comment below.

Stay tuned to WPM for Part Seven in our video series.

Related posts:

• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Four
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part One
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Three

The Forum Plugin for WordPress

I’ve written about my favorite WordPress forum plugin previously on the posts Do You Need a Simple WordPress Forum? and Simple WordPress Forum Plugin – Revisited.

I’ve just received an update on the progress of the upcoming latest release and there are some really cool features that will be included.

From the Simple:Press site:

…here are just a few of the things that have made the cut so far. So – on top of topic titles being included in searches and our new auto-subscription feature some of the major items our users can expect to see include:

• A new, replacement uploader. Long overdue, the new uploader will work for images, videos and other media as well as other file types – all configurable by the admin. There is also an option for each member who is permitted to upload to have their own, personal folder. The uploader has a decent browser and can handle multiple files.
• Topic Tags. Tag new topics with… well… tags! We have auto-suggest, tag management and tag searching as well as a related topics dropdown based on the current topic tags.
• Sub-forums. Yes, we have been talking about them for a long time and they have been a frequent request and finally they will make their debut.
• Support for WP Roles. To help ease the management of user and their membership in spf user groups, 4.1 will now support auto user group assignment based on their WP Role. Give an existing or new user a new WP Role and he can be auto moved into a corresponding user group. This new feature fully works with the Role Manager plugin and other role modifying plugins that use the standard WP interfaces. This has been called a must have feature by many users. It’s in 4.1!
• Storage Location Configurator. That’s an awful title for something that sounds very dull but can actually be a great aid to performance and organization. With 4.1, you will be able to store a lot of the forum items such as skins and icon sets, hooks and custom code, outside of the plugins folder down in wp-content. This can also become the home of avatars, smileys and the new forum user badges as well as uploads you may allow your users to make.
• Forum Slugs. We have made some changes and improvements to the creation of ’slugs’ which should aid our non-English speaking users – although to be honest, we have a lot of testing left to do to make sure all is well.
• Admin Redesign and Restructure. The entire set of admin pages – already surely one of the prettiest in the WP world! – have undergone a complete overhaul and rewrite with heavy emphasis on Ajax and only loading what is necessary.
• Special Forum Ranks. Joining the already existing forum ranks (based on post count) will be the new special forum ranks. Special ranks allow you to assign custom ranks to any user and is not based on post count. Want a special rank that matches the User Group? Done! Want special ranks for donators or paid members? Special ranks will allow that!
• Forum Badges. With the new forum badges, you can now assign a unique badge (ie graphic image) to each forum rank and special rank. The user’s badge will display in the userinfo area.
• Improved User Management. This will be welcomed by those users with large memberships – quicker and easier user group and forum rank assignments – and no more long, long waits for the data to save!
• Spoilers. We have had quite a few requests for handling ’spoilers’ and think we have come up with a neat solution
• Print a Post. Ever wanted to print out the content of a post? Well, we know some of you have as we have been asked for it. Just a click on the new print icon!
• More Display Options. It sometimes feels like every user would like to hide something different from the display. Well we have tried to cover as much as we can think of that can now be turned off.
• Meta Description Tags for Forums and Topics. Another often asked for feature, meta tags and keyword descriptions will make their appearance in 4.1. As is customary with Simple:Press Forum, you have multiple options on how to configure the meta description. You can have a fixed meta description, have it based on the forum name or even the topic name. You can also customize the meta keywords or, if using the new tags feature, have the meta keywords based on the tags for a topic.
• Block Admin Pages. It’s a common complaint against WP that after registration or login, users are dumped into the admin pages (profile and dashboard) to be confused! This has given rise to many plugins to plug the hole and now we have built the feature into SPF.
• Profile Overhaul. The user profile is getting a complete overhaul. There will be more configuration options as to what fields are available and now the admins will have access to the fields. We have added some additional custom profile field types too. This one is still in development, but looks promising and often requested!

There is much more of course. In particular, a LOT of code and query optimizations have taken place and continues to be implemented. The speed improvement should be quite noticeable. A lot of small problems have also been corrected. And there are still some more big-ticket items in the planning stage.

You can read more about the Simple:Press forum plugin and get the current version download here.

Related posts:

• Do You Need a Simple WordPress Forum?
• Updates and Changes at WordPress Modder
• Simple WordPress Forum Plugin – Revisted

If you’re a regular reader of WPM, you may have noticed that I’ve changed the look and feel of the site recently. While changing themes, I ran into a Widgets issue that I had forgotten about. Sometimes when changing themes, the new theme you’ve chosen won’t display your Widgets properly. This is kind of a big deal, especially for those WordPress users who are unaware and complete a theme change, only to discover their Widgets are gone.

Now this isn’t such a big deal for standard WordPress Widgets like Pages, Categories, and Archives, but like many of you, I have created several Text Widgets that contain hand-written code, custom scripts, and forms. I also use the Query Posts Widget which contains hand-entered parameters. So, how do we avoid disaster?

Why Does This Happen?

An explanation from Justin Tadlock:

Basically, widget areas (aka sidebars) with unique IDs will throw things off. Widgets are added according to a widget area’s ID. When you change themes that have different IDs, the widgets are no longer where you might expect them to be.

How to Avoid Trouble?

Before changing your theme, do the following:

1. Get the right tool for the job.

The first thing you’ll want to do is download the Widgets Reset plugin, again, from Justin Tadlock. This plugin will allow to you completely reset your WordPress Widgets to the default WordPress settings. Notice the emphasis and beware from the plugin’s site:

It’s not for moving widgets, saving widgets, or anything of the sort. When I say it resets your widgets, I really mean it. The slate is wiped completely clean.

Install and activate this plugin, but DO NOT USE IT YET.

2. Backup your Widgets.

Unfortunately, neither the plugin above, nor any other automated method I’m aware of allows you to backup your Widgets. You’re going to have to go “old school” and do it manually. In your WordPress backend, go to the Widgets settings and start copying and pasting the code from each of your Widgets into a simple text document. I had over a dozen Widgets, and most had the Widget Logic plugin applied, so it took some time.

Now Breathe Easy, Almost.

Now that your certain your Widgets are all backed up properly, go into the Appearance tab and change your theme. With any luck, your Widgets (or some of them) will be preserved, but most likely you will have lost some, if not all. At this stage, you may also notice that when you go into the Widgets area, there will be some Widgets listed, but they will be missing the “Add” button. Weird huh? Those Widgets are now in “Limbo”. The good news is that hopefully you’ve installed the Widgets Reset plugin. If so, simply navigate to “Widgets Reset” under the Appearance tab and reset the Widgets. You should now see all your Widgets available with an “Add” button.

Put the Pieces Back Together.

Now for the manual labor. You’ll need to recreate each Widget you had previously by using the code you’ve copied into your backup text file. Don’t worry, it goes pretty fast. I had recreated most of the Widgets I had within about 10 minutes.

Also, it was a great time for me to review the Widgets I had and give a couple of them the boot.

Related posts:

• How to Use WordPress Shortcodes in Widgets
• Updates and Changes at WordPress Modder
• Hide Widget Titles WordPress Plugin

I’ve just learned that I’ve made it to the WordPress Rockstar list over at WeRockWP.com. I’m very flattered to be on this list and am humbled to be included with such company as Justin Tadlock, Donncha O Caoimh, Andrea and Ron Rennick, and many many others. After all, I’ve only dabbled in theme and plugin development. I consider myself more of a WordPress consultant, teacher, fanboy, and architect rather than a WP Rockstar, but hey, there I am nonetheless.

If you like what I do, please head on over and give me a rating:)

Related posts:

• WordPress Membership Site + WooThemes Adii Pienaar + Free Book
• How the Search and Replace Plugin Helped with my Domain Change
• Project Community WordPress Theme – Help Make a Great Theme!

Read Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.

Web Video

This is the fifth post in my series about using video with WordPress. In this post, we’ll talk about how displaying video content can differ from the normal blog or website layout, and what themes are available to help your site stand out from the rest.

Over the last several years I’ve built many of my own sites using WordPress and have worked as a WordPress consultant with dozens of clients. In that time, one of the reoccurring challenges was to “break the blog format” with a theme design that would display video in a unique, and more importantly, a more navigable way. Whether it’s videoblogging, video tutorials, or citizen journalism, the last thing you want is one long line of posts with a page that scrolls forever. You want to get your videos in front of the viewer and not force them to search around to find something they might want to watch.

One of the first solutions to come from the WordPress community of developers was the Magazine theme style. These themes were OK for displaying video, and still are, but don’t focus quite enough on the video niche in my opinion. I’m not going to go into detail, I’m sure you’ve heard enough about these themes by now.

So I set off to offer another solution, in conjunction with Cheryl Colan, and with the full support of the Show In a Box team. We created the Video Producer Double Feature theme.

Video Producer WordPress Theme

I’m still rather proud of this theme as it was my first time coding a complete theme from scratch. I think it still stands up today, although it could probably use some updates.

Not to be ignored is the original theme developed for Show in a Box users, Spacey, by Michael Verdi.

Spacey Video WordPress Theme

Another great video-specific theme is EVID from Elegant Themes. This theme is only available to Elegant Themes members, but even if you only become a member in order to use this one theme, your $19.95 membership would be well spent. Of course, there are many other very beautiful themes available as well:)

EVID Video WordPress Theme

The last group of video themes comes from Press75.com. This site’s themes are by far my favorite video WordPress themes, not just because they display video posts amazingly, but because they have some special features that make posting your videos very easy. My favorite theme on this site is named Video Flick.

Video Flick WordPress Theme

Just read some of the features:

Video Flick is the latest addition to my “Video Centric” line of WordPress themes. The all new Video Flick theme features a “gallery” style design which gives your users access to more content on one page in an appealing and efficient way. Got WordPress 2.7? The new Video Flick theme is compatible with all the great new features released in 2.7 including threaded comments and several others. Also, with Video Flick you can seamlessly blend standard Blog and Video posts without having to do any extra work. In short, the Video Flick theme is the perfect all-around Video WordPress Theme. Continue reading below for a more detailed description of the features included with the Video Flick theme.

Check out Video Flick here.

As you can see, there are some great video themes available for WordPress so far, and I’m guessing many more in the future. Do you have any favorite WordPress themes for video? Are you currently using a theme for your video site? Please share with us by leaving a link in the comment section.

[the-series]

Related posts:

• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Four
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part One
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Three

I’ve just been experimenting with dynamic headers on my development site, and the solution I’ve found is very cool. Imagine being able to set a different header image for each page on your WordPress-powered site. Now imagine being able to do that, and being able to set a different header for each post. Yes, I know, super cool right?

The solution I found is the Dynamic Headers plugin created by the team at Nicasio Design. I downloaded and installed the plugin, and I have to say, not only is this one of the most useful plugins I’ve come across in awhile, but also one of the most impressive for it’s ease of use, and the possibilities of feature extensions in the future.

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? After installing this plugin, you will see a new management panel in your WordPress Dashboard, most likely all the way on the lower left.

Dynamic Headers Management Panel

What I especially like about the management panel for this plugin is the very top item, Directions. I have experimented with hundreds of plugins and most of them have directions in a readme.txt file. Having the directions available right from the dashboard is very convenient, and a nice user-focused touch. (A testament to the Nicasio Design team’s design philosophy?)

After reading the directions, I created a couple of test headers and uploaded them using the “Add New File” option.

Add New Header Image

The next step was to make a simple edit to the header.php file in my theme. I know, in a perfect world, you don’t want to edit any files, both WordPress core files or theme files, but for some features, editing your theme files is necessary.

The edit you need to make is outlined, conveniently, under the Directions section. All you do is insert a template tag that this plugin creates into your header.php file in the place where you would like your Dynamic Header images to appear.

This is the Template Tag:

<?php show_media_header(); ?>

…and I placed it at the top of my header DIV…

<div id=”header”>
<?php show_media_header(); ?>

The next step is to either edit a post/page or to create a new post/page. Once in edit/write mode on a post or page, you will see the Dynamic Headers option at the bottom. Simply choose the image you want to display in the header for that post or page, and publish. Remember, the images you choose from will have already been added above.

Choose Header in Edit/Write Mode

For my testing purposes, I edited the “Contact Us” page on my development site. This is what the page looks like normally:

…and after I edited the page and choose a header image…

Can it get any more simple!?

Why Use It?

Using this plugin will allow you to target your header images to match the content of your posts and pages. At first thought, it’s mostly for aesthetic reasons. If have a post about my family, on that post I could have a header image showing a group photo from a family reunion. On another post about my dog’s latest visit to the dog park, I could have a header image showing a collage of images of just my dog.

However, you may want to use this plugin’s features as an extra marketing tool for your site, or even for your other sites. Let’s suppose you want to use a header image to advertise some specific part of your site. For instance, if I have a post detailing how to add an affiliate store to your WordPress site, then at the top of any post that discusses anything to do with affiliate marketing, I can have a header that advertises that part of my site. Are the wheels turning?

There’s only one shortfall with this idea. If you advertised an area of your site (or another one of your sites) using this method, there is no way to hyperlink these dynamic header images that I’m aware of. Using the example above, I would want to link my header image to a page, post, or category archive page that deals with affiliate marketing. To my knowledge, this cannot currently be done in with regular images that is. EDIT: I was just notified by Dan Cannon that this functionality is planned for future versions!

This plugin also accepts Flash files, which I am guessing could contain url links. I have not tested this as I am not familiar enough with Flash creation to try, but if this is the case, would it then be possible to create not only header images with links, but completely different Flash navigation menus and insert those into your theme files as well?

What do you think? How could the Dynamic Headers plugin be used other than what is described above?

Related posts:

• Enter Our Ultimate WordPress Giveaway Now
• iThemes Releases Deep Order Premium Web 2.0
• How to Troubleshoot CSS Styles on a Live WordPress Website

About a week ago I shared a tidbit of information concerning my web development secret. To my delight, it was very well received and there is genuine excitement about it. As a big thank you to all who read this and have visited the project page, I would like to bring you in on some of the decisions surrounding this site’s development (you will also learn more details about the site and it’s eventual contents).

I have created a survey, and would be very honored if you could take a couple of  minutes and give me your opinions. Your input will directly affect the content and direction of this site.

The survey can be found on the project page here, or directly here.

Related posts:

• I Have a Web Development Secret – Can You Help Me Break the Silence?
• WordPress Books Giveaway!
• Project Community WordPress Theme – Help Make a Great Theme!

Read Parts One, Two, and Three.

HTML 5 and Web Standards for Video

This is the fourth post in my series about using video with WordPress. However, this post doesn’t specifically target WordPress related video, so much as it targets video on the web in general, and the exciting news about the upcoming video web standards in HTML 5.

Jay Dedman, in his usual style of keeping up with all things video, posted this message on the original Videoblogging list. The short story is that he shared a link to a video detailing the upcoming video web standards posted by Tristan on StandBlog.org and produced by Paul Rouget.

The implications of video web standards in HTML 5 are very exciting indeed. Have a look at the video to see what I mean.

Related posts:

• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part One
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Three
• Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part Two

Super Secret Development Project

Ok, so I tried to make that title draw you in a bit. Did it work? However, it’s true, I have been quietly working on a secret development project, and although it’s not quite ready, I’d like to give the WPM readers the first chance to learn about it, then hopefully, pass it on.

Go here, sign up for email or RSS updates, and then sit back and relax. You’ll get an email describing more about the project within 24 hours via Feedburner.

I hope you find it intriguing, and if you know someone else who would be interested, please do me a favor and Tweet, Facebook, Stumble, or otherwise digitally socialize it.

Related posts:

• Do you want to help guide the development of my latest project?
• How to Split a Post or Page into Many
• The Four Hour Work Week and WordPress Do-Gooders

Some time ago, I wrote about Simple:Press – The Forum Plugin for WordPress. When I first posted about this plugin, I hadn’t yet made use of it, but shortly after, I experimented and quickly became a huge fan. Yes, there are other solutions out there, but Simple:Press has the power and flexibility of other open source forum solutions, while integrating seamlessly with your existing WordPress users and database.

The Forum Plugin for WordPress

Better still, the development of this plugin has been non-stop since it’s creation, so you can be fairly certain that it will continue indefinitely. Just look at some of the features:

• Fully integrated with WordPress user registrations and logins
• Creates ‘pretty/seo friendly’ permalinks
• Underpinned by a powerful user and permission system
• Can create private forums
• Forums can be ‘Members Only’ or can allow for Guests
• Private Messaging system
• Admins can allow for post moderation (approval)
• Built in Search tool
• Fully customisable skins and icons
• Most rendering functions are ‘pluggable’
• Member Profile updating – users can change own passwords
• Choice of Editors (RTE, HTML, bbCODE)
• Options Signatures, Signature Image, Avatars, and Rankings
• A variery of Template Tags – recent posts etc
• Progammable Hooks for user extension
• Optional Spam Prevention tools
• Optional Cookies to track Guests and Members
• Fully Localised for language support
• Optional and various RSS feeds and email subscription to topics
• Various display options to suit your needs and theme
• An Admin toolset to perform many tasks from within the forum itself
• Blog Posts and Forum Topics can be linked
• Support for the Democracy Polls plugin
• Support for the Gravatars 2 plugin
• Forum Statistics – including who is online
• Complete uninstall/removal option
• Support for the All In One SEO Pack Plugin (Browser title bar)
• View Admins New Post Queue from ALL views with ‘Quick Reply’
• Right-to-left language support in the TinyMCE editor
• Topic Status Tracking
• Custom Smileys
• RTE Toolbar Customisation
• Pre-registration Policy display option
• Post Ratings
• Add Custom Profile data items
• ‘Watched’ topics
• Multiple forum Admins
• Members List

Get Simple:Press here. If you’re using this plugin, or about to try it out, the WPM readers would be happy to here of your endeavors. Feel free to leave your comments below:)

Related posts:

• Do You Need a Simple WordPress Forum?
• Simple:Press Forum Updates are Coming
• Yet Another Paypal Plugin for WordPress – It Might be Just What You Need

If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you probably know that most of my posts don’t dive too deep into personal details. However, over the past few months I’ve made some connections through my site that have made me more aware of how easy it can be to make a difference in the world, right from my coffee table. That felt really good, and I plan to continue.

Several years ago I became involved with the (then fairly new) videoblogging community. I was moved by much of what I saw, but mostly by the idea that I was now able to get a more intimate and personalized view of people from around the world, and every walk of life. I briefly posted my own videos, became involved in videoblogging projects, but life happened and other pursuits took precedence on my time. However, I never stopped watching videoblogs and listening to the videoblogging community.

That’s how I became aware of InvisiblePeople.tv. , featuring video interviews with people who are homeless. I am restraining my writing because I want to get to my point, but to keep it simple, these stories moved me, deeply. I highly suggest you summon the courage to watch a few and ask yourself how you can help. That’s what I did…

I had been watching this videoblog for several months, when an episode was posted about a girl named Brianna.

Brianna - Girls Guide to Homelessness

I’ll let you learn of Brianna’s circumstances for yourself by watching the video, but when I saw her story, I knew I could help, although not financially. Brianna had been blogging about her situation for some time, and using the internet to make connections and learn how to survive…better and safer. Since I’m an internet junkie, web developer, and WordPress fanboy, I knew I could enhance her blogging life by offering her a free domain name, hosted WordPress blog, ongoing support, and technical guidance in the future. That’s what I did, and she accepted. After I had her new site configured, we worked out a migration plan to get her posts from Blogger to WordPress, and the new site was born. I hope you’ll take a look and follow her progress.

My hope is that Brianna will continue to persevere and succeed in whatever she pursues, but also that she will continue her blogging with the knowledge that she is changing the world and affecting others in a very positive way.

Thank you Brianna.

Related posts:

• More Proof of How the Power of Blogging Can Change Lives
• WordPress for Nonprofits – The Why, What, and How
• The Real Deal On How To Create Your Own Blogging Success Story

You may remember my post from last week describing Justin Tadlock’s amazing Query Posts Widget Plugin, and you may have seen the video showing a quick overview of this plugin’s functionality here or here. When I created that first post and video, I knew the possibilities were numerous, and I had read about using this plugin in conjuction with widgetized page templates, but I was having trouble getting my head around the concept. Mostly because I hadn’t taken advantage of widgetized page templates yet. If you aren’t familiar with widgetized page templates, download the Hybrid theme.

I have seen the light folks, and I’ve created video to show you the true power of combining the Query Posts Widget plugin, a Widgetized Page Template, and the Widget Logic plugin. It’s 9:52 long, but it’s filled with information. If you have any comments about the plugins or the video, please leave a comment below.

Related posts:

• Query Posts Widget: WordPress Plugin – Video Overview Tutorial
• How to Change Your WordPress Theme Without Losing Your Widgets (or your composure)
• Dynamic Header Images in WordPress – The Ultimate Solution

Justin Tadlock has just released what I consider to be one of the most powerful, unique, and user-friendly WordPress plugins I have ever seen. It’s named Query Posts Widget and it’s designed to do just that, query posts. If you’re new to WordPress or aren’t familiar with developer terminology, you may not know exactly what this plugin is for by reading it’s name only.

A description from Justin’s site:

This widget has everything you’ll ever need to show posts on your site without touching code. It’s like having a WordPress developer ready to do your bidding all wrapped up in a widget. All you need is a theme that’s widgetized, which I believe is pretty standard these days.

What does the Query Posts widget do?

It lets you displays posts by nearly any criteria you can imagine using the query_posts() function, except you don’t need to know anything about PHP to use it. You can do all kinds of neat things:

* Posts by tag.
* Posts by category.
* Posts by author.
* Posts by time/date.
* Posts by custom field key and/or value.
* Choose any number.
* Order by various terms.
* Show pages.
* Show the full post, excerpt, or even order them in a list.
* And much more…

Making sense now? I’ve yet to test the true power of this plugin, but I whipped up a quick little overview video so you can get a better visual of just what this plugin does. Please keep in mind that this video only explains the tip of the iceberg of what this widget plugin can do:

Make sure to it the “Full Screen” button on the lower right of the video for a better viewing experience.

How do you think YOU would use this plugin on your site? Are you already? Leave a link and explanation below.

Related posts:

• Query Posts Widget Plugin + Widgetized Page Template + Widget Logic = WordPress Gold
• How to Change Your WordPress Theme Without Losing Your Widgets (or your composure)
• Secondary HTML Content Plugin Video Overview

Hey there fellow WordPress freaks! The information contained in this post isn’t necessarily about WordPress itself, or themes, or even plugins; but I had to share this with my readers because I’ve found it to be very useful and to have a very supportive community around it.

As referenced above, today’s post is about ResourceSpace, an Open Source Digital Asset Management application. Gulp! That’s a mouthful eh? Let’s cut to the chase…

Note: Make sure to read through to the end to read my personal experience with ResourceSpace and further support links.

What is it?

ResourceSpace is a web-based, open source digital asset management system which has been designed by Montala to give your content creators easy and fast access to print and web ready assets.

In other words, you can manage your images, pdfs, videos, documents, etc. in one location and it is searchable using the metadata contained in these files. It will also automatically create previews and different resolutions and make them available for download to whoever you choose.

What are the Benefits and Features?

Benefits

• Your users serve themselves so your internal workload is reduced.
• Resources are found easily and quickly.
• You can respond faster to external resource requests
• It’s much easier to send your resources to those that need them without using up your own bandwidth: suppliers receive links via e-mail so they can download the resources themselves directly from the system.
• Higher quality resources are promoted so use of your best resources is encouraged.
• A centralised and well organised repository encourages the re-use of purchased resources.
• Only a web browser is needed – no cumbersome client software installations.
• Collaboration is encouraged through the use of shared resource collections and searches.
• Discover and respond to trends by using the detailed reporting and statistics functionality.

Features

• Intuitive interface – a visually rich, user focused interface to support you in accessing and organising your resources
• Pure web interface – manage and share your resources through your browser, no application install required.
• Standards based – works with current browsers on all the popular platforms.
• Simple and advanced search – the main search panel is available on every page allowing quick and intuitive access to the resources while the comprehensive advanced search lets you to focus your search and you are looking for. Use the ‘search for similar’ options to find other resources based on those you have selected.
• Intelligent search ordering – resources are scored against each keyword using user search activity
• Resources – detailed resource information, thumbnails and visual previews help you find the best and most relevant resources.
• Organisation, collaboration and distribution – tools to organise your resources, share with colleagues on projects and distribute to others; no longer any need to e-mail large files.
• Direct access to resource files – resources can be downloaded to your computer in a variety of sizes so your users can choose if they require high quality print files or lower quality screen / web resolution files.
• Themes – pre-selected groups of the best resources.
• Permissions – set resource access level by user group.
• Research services – allows specific requests to be made to a central resources team.
• Archiving – resources can be archived and are then not visible in the main search.
• User contributions – allow your users to submit resources directly, which can then be processed by a central team before being made available to other users. Ideal for remote-working photographers.
• Multilingual – the application is multilingual capable with most major European languages supported.
• Batch file editing means it’s easy to work with the metadata for large groups of resources.
• Batch file upload using SWFupload – upload large resource sets using nothing but your browser.
• Automatic thumbnail creation for hundreds of image and document types including JPEG, GIF, PNG, PDF, TIFF Photoshop PSD, InDesign, OpenOffice using ImageMagick. Support for most digital camera raw formats using dcraw (view full list)
• Automatic video thumbnails and Flash video previews for most video file types using FFmpeg.
• Page by page browsing of PDF files using Ghostscript.
• Automatic EXIF/IPTC/XMP header import and export using ExifTool.
• Minimal hosting requirements – uses PHP/MySQL technology which is supported by all major hosting providers.
• Plugin support – third party developers can create plugins to extend functionality.
• Open source – released under a BSD style license and is therefore completely free of charge, and you are free to develop the product further without any restrictions.

Are you starting to see why this could be useful?

I decided to post here about ResourceSpace for several reasons:

• This software solved a need for a client of mine, and saved them thousands of dollars
• The developers and community around this software have proved to be very helpful and patient with someone new to this type of functionality, and were willing to help me out one on one in order for me to move forward.
• I believe this software will become the default open source DAM (digital asset management) because of the two reasons above, and as more people learn of it, hopefully more and more developers will contribute.
• Lastly, because the ResourceSpace group asked for satisfied users to help spread the word;)

No Open Source software is without it downfalls. Can you give us the inside scoop on your experience?

Sure. First of all, it’s different from what you may be used to with WP; in functionality, server requirements, configuration, and theming. I had a hard time breaking out of the WP way of thinking when working with this software. It took a few days and several posts to the group to understand both what some things were for, and how to configure them. It was only after working with it for many hours that I started to realize the full potential, and I’m pretty sure I have much more to discover.

There are two themes available with the initial download, and again, when I say themes, you’ll have to break out of the WP thinking. I found the themes to be somewhat difficult for me to create, as I am not a Photoshop expert and much of the changes involved editing the existing images used. I would prefer to be able to edit and create a theme using pure CSS, and maybe that’s possible, but not in the time frame my client had in mind. Having said that, the two themes provided proved to be configurable enough for me to use for the purpose I needed.

If you would like to learn more about ResourceSpace, you can visit the main site here, or the online documentation wiki here, or the Google group here. Make sure to comment here if you’re already using ResourceSpace, if you’re new to it, or with any questions you may have.

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Are you a freelance graphic artist, designer, or web developer? Do you have a need to bill clients for any service at all? If you’re using WordPress to power your site (and you should be), then you’ll be interested in the WP-Invoice plugin from TwinCitiesTech.

WP-Invoice

From the plugin summary:

WP-Invoice lets WordPress blog owners send itemized invoices to their clients. Ideal for web developers, SEO consultants, general contractors, or anyone with a WordPress blog and clients to bill. The plugin ties into WP’s user management database to keep track of your clients and their information.

Once an invoice is created from the WP admin section, an email with a brief description and a unique link is sent to your client. Clients follow the link to your blog’s special invoice page, view their invoice, and pay their bill using their credit card.

Credit card payments may be accepted via Authorize.net, MerchantPlus’ NaviGate, or PayPal. For recurring billing we have integrated Authorize.net’s ARB API that will allow you to setup payment schedules along with invoices.

I applaud TwinCitiesTech for making this plugin available to the WordPress community, great stuff guys! Grab the plugin from TwinCitiesTech.

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Caution: This is a completely non-WordPress related post.

I was contacted by a representative from New Video today, letting me know that the documentary “Kurt and Courtney” is now available on iTunes. I asked if they would be so kind as to offer a free copy to my readers, and lovingly, they obliged.

Kurt and Courtney

This chilling documentary investigates the apparent suicide of Kurt Cobain. Director Nick Broomsfield talks to conspiracy theorists, grudge-carrying
ex-boyfriends and estranged parents of Courtney Love who all suggest Love might have had Cobain murdered.

It couldn’t be easier to get your free copy, I’m simply asking for a little post and link love back to WordPress Modder. Write a post about WPM, insert a link back to any page on the site, leave a comment here, and at the end of Febuary, I’ll draw the names out of a bowl.

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I feel lucky to have several posts on my site that consistently drive huge amounts of traffic, and create interaction between myself and my readers. Of those, the series of posts entitled Extending WordPress by Using the Power of Video – Part One, and Part Two, take up a large portion of that traffic.

This post is number three in this series, and if you are truly interested in using the power of video to enhance your site, read on.

This post is all about Kaltura. I have known about Kaltura for some time, and have been following it’s development, and I’m happy to say that the integration with WordPress seems to be at a rather mature state. So, what is Kaltura?

In a nutshell:

Kaltura is – The 1st Open-Source Platform for Video Creation, Management, Interaction, and Collaboration

There are many facets of the Kaltura platform. There are business solutions and there are self-serve solutions. What we’re interested in here is the Kaltura Interactive Video Plugin available for download in the WordPress Extend plugin depository. By adding this one plugin to your WordPress powered site arsenal, you immediately take a huge leap in the capabilities available to you, and the readers of your blog. Take a look at the highlights list:

• Upload, record from webcam and import all rich-media directly to your blog post;
• Edit and remix videos using Kaltura’s online full-featured video editor;
• Easily import all rich media (video, audio, pictures…) from other sites and social networks, such as YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, CCMixter, Jamendo, New York Public Library etc. and;
• Allow readers and subscribers to add video and audio comments, and to participate in collaborative videos;
• Manage and track interactive videos through the management console;
• Complete administrative capabilities. You decide who can add and edit videos;
• Supports more than 150 video, audio and image file formats and codecs
• Three different video player styles to choose from
• Custom sizing of the video player
• Advanced sharing options for videos
• Easy installation that takes just 4 steps and a few minutes.

Take a moment and think about the possibilities. What kind of site can you create using open source video? What extra functionality can you offer your visitors?

Feel free to leave a comment below the very long screenshot and let’s brainstorm. Oh, and you never know, I just might be up to something myself using this plugin…hint, hint.

Kaltura - Open Source Video Plugin

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