Articles by Richard

Some themes do not include an ‘edit post’ or ‘edit page’ link!

It’s hard to believe that such a simple addition can be forgotten and it’s so useful!

A small snippet of code rectifies the problem easily. Here’s how you do it …

• Login and go to Admin>presentation>theme editor
• Open file ‘Single.php’ Single post file in the list
• You can enter the edit link wherever you think best
• example; find the line

<?php the_content('<p>Read the rest of this entry »</p>'); ?>

and add beneath it

<?php edit_post_link('(Edit Post)', '', ''); ?>

• Save the page and refresh a full blog post page to see your edit link under the post
• Repeat the same process for a page by editing the ‘Page template’ file in the same way

TreeMagic Cypress is a new lightweight browser plugin for WordPress. Install, configure, then double click any word, or select a group of words on the page. On mouse-up a small popup appears adjacent to the selected text that gives you instant access to define, expand and explore related resources. It does not replace or interfere with existing hyperlinks, but adds an instant and powerful reference compliment to all your texts, regardless of formatting and styles.
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WordPressHelp offers several handy features to authors and readers. We have selected a few plugins that help to create increased readability and connectivity within the post contents. Here is a brief summary of plugins used, what they do and how to use them Read the rest of this entry »

I discovered this by accident and it worked! I had a blank white page on my local WP test site after installing a plugin or maybe another problem, who knows? I could not even login, as the admin pages were just stuck loading.

Any way if you append your base URL with this “wp-admin/plugins.php?deactivate-all=true” it allows you to deactivate all plugins from the outside of admin. I did this and now my site is functional again. Of course you get the login screen first, to authenticate the call

Prior to this, I could not get past the login screen even to disable stuff in admin in the usual way.

The full url call looks like this on my machine. http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/plugins.php?deactivate-all=true

Writing and manging content in Worpress using Mimbo theme

- Required: Wordpress 2.3 - Mimbo theme installed, active and configured. - Image manager plugin installed and configured. - Basic image resizer software such as PhotoFiltre

The Mimbo theme makes extensive use of front page images. It does this by utilizing the powerful wordpress ‘custom fields’ feature to add exclusive images to excepts displayed in the front page of the site. There is no auto-resize feature in this process and in order for the page to look presentable, these images need to be correctly prepared and optimized to load quickly and fit into the layout dimensions of the template. Image preparation can be done locally using an ordinary and free image/photo manipulation software such as the gimp or http://photofiltre.free.fr/ In addition, Wordpress has an excellent browser based image manager http://www.soderlind.no/archives/2006/01/03/imagemanager-20/ that provides all the cropping, resizing, compression and formatting required. We will make extensive use of this tool, as it simplifies the whole process.

NOTE If you are going to use pictures generated from original high quality digital photos or artwork, you do need to add an extra step in the process. High quality images usually provide excellent resolution and dimensions. This is essential for print and artwork display, but is quite unsuitable for website use. A web page has to display images by transferring digital information to your browser. Put simply, the more digital information the image has, the longer it will take to render that image in the browser. Original digital images are often many megabytes in size, which is way too big and would take several seconds to load on a page. Likewise their dimensions are often far to large for the web page template. Many people make the mistake of resizing their images into a smaller dimension, without optimizing the digital data. This means, the images are still too large and render slowly on the page.

This applies to moving the site within your own webspace, or if you want to move it to another host server. I have read a few versions of how to this and many details have been missed that are important.

Notes

1. When moving a site you have to consider if you have ever modified (hacked) any core files in wordpress

2. If you have and you want to maintain the functionality you must copy these over to the new installation

3. WordPress stores all user data in the wp-content folder and sub-directories and its database. This means all plugins, themes, images and other added fies will be in wp-content folder. NOTE. Some plugins DO put files elsewhere. Be aware!

4. If your file mods/ hacks are in the wp-content folder then carry on as below.

5. If you have hacked/modified files anywhere else, these must be copied over separately.

6. If you have no special mods/hacks, simple ignore the above.

Preparation on the old site

1. log into the original site as admin

2. Deactivate all cache settings and cache plugins. Make sure all cache files are cleared/ deleted.

3. If you have Askimet installed make sure you delete any spam comments in the moderation queue.

4. Log in to the FTP account and copy the wp-content folder and config.php to your desktop.

5. Copy any other files from other locations if they have been modified! (see notes above)

6. Some plugins are poor at removing their database tables and configs from the database. Login to phpMyadmin and delete any tables that are no longer being used by your existing activated plugins.

7. Now optimize your database using the cpanel or other utility

8. Make a database backup, using cpanel, phpmyadmin, db backup, or some other utility.

WordPress for Wiki prototype

According to Wikipedia:

A wiki is software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. These wiki websites are often also referred to as wikis; for example, Wikipedia is one of the best known wikis.^[1] Wikis are being installed by businesses to provide affordable and effective Intranets and for Knowledge Management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.^[2]

Why wordpress as a wiki?
Put simply, WordPress is probably the finest Internet publication system available. It efficiently broadcasts posts to search engines and social networking services and provides excellent visibility, both in design, code structure and connectivity. To combine these well established features and the collaboration qualities of a wiki like setup produces a good combination of high visibility and group authoring requirements.

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