Entries Tagged as 'WordPress Guide'

Change WordPress Header Font Size And Color

Changing the font in the header of WordPress blog theme can be done if you know what files to edit. However the code to edit can (and will) vary in all themes. This WordPress guide will help you figure out what code your header is using to call for the blog name and description and how to edit it.

The first step is to make your WordPress theme’s files writable. To do that you must change the permissions in your hosting account. I suggest connecting to your hosting account with an FTP client, and browse to the theme and change the permissions on the whole theme’s folder and all the files within it to 777. Otherwise you may need to change one file at a time if doing so in the control panel of the hosting account. The path to the theme is the blogs directory then wp-content/themes/your-theme. You could just make the whole themes folder writable.

From within the WordPress dashboard, click Presentation or Design, then Theme Editor. Almost all theme editing is done in the stylesheet (style.css) file, and all other files are just displaying the settings that are specified within the stylesheet. There are exceptions to this but beyond the scope of this WordPress guide.

WAIT!!! Before doing any editing copy the contents of the file and paste it into a text file like Notepad for safe keeping before you attempt to edit it. If you screw things up you can paste the original back in to restore your file. Remember this is extremely important and I take no responsibility for what you may do to your WordPress blog!

On the right side of the Theme Editor are all the files associated with your active theme. Finding the correct code to edit to change the font of the header is in the header.php file. While you don’t need to edit this file the clues to what the header is calling for from the themes stylesheet can be found in the header.php file. Below is the code from the header file found in the default theme.

<div id=”header”>

<div id=”headerimg”>
<h1><a href=”<?php echo get_option(’home’); ?>/”><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></a></h1>
<div class=”description”><?php bloginfo(’description’); ?></div>

The code between the <h1> tags is the clue we are looking for that calls up the name of the blog. The blog name in the header is styled by the <h1> tags, and the description is being called from the <div class=”description”>. Now that we know what is styling these two items we can edit the style.css file to change the way these two items are displayed. Remember that this case is specific to the WordPress default theme and you need to look at your specific themes header file to determine what code you need to work with. In most cases the <h1> tags call up the blog name but the description or Tagline can be called almost anything.

Now click the themes style.css file on the right side of the Theme Editor and look for the code from the header file. In this case it is

h1 {
font-size: 4em;
text-align: center;
}

#headerimg .description {
font-size: 1.2em;
text-align: center;
}

If you want to change the color additional styles can be added like this:

#headerimg .description {
font-size: 1.2em;
text-align: center;
color: #666666;

}

The h1 code and description can now be changed to a larger size or aligned differently, it can be aligned to the left, right or kept centered. The font color can also be changed by adding this code color: #666666; and changing the color code number to your liking. Make your changes and click Update File, then look at your blog to admire your work. You may need to refresh your browser to see any changes. There are numerous css styles that can be applied to the text in a stylesheet, far to many to place in this post. For css color codes check out CSS Color Chart or Google css color codes. For more styles that can be applied, a quick Google search for css font styles, can keep you busy experimenting for hours.
Thanks to Stephen from The Lazy Way To Buy And Sell Cars blog who asked for this guide and a million other questions on Ask Max



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How To Upload Plugins WordPress Guide

plugin2.jpgSome of the most common tasks for those of us who do it every day can be quite frustrating for others trying it for the first time. Uploading WordPress plugins can be one of those things that newbies find frustrating. I have had people ask here on the site and I see it in forums quite often. Someone will upload a plugin but it doesn’t show up in the dashboard. This WordPress Guide will walk you through the process of uploading a WordPress plugin and how to know when to upload the whole folder or a single file.

You should first read any installation instructions on the plugins site if available. Next download the plugin into a folder on your computer that you can find easily. I have a WordPress folder in my documents and in that I have other folders for themes and plugins. I like to keep the things that I can control organized. Then unzip and extract the plugin into the same folder.

plugin3.jpg

plugin4.jpg

 

This is the part that can confound the newbies so pay attention! Knowing what to upload depends on what you find within the extracted folder. Usually there is a folder within a folder and within that folder is either a single file ending in .php (there may also be a readme text file that does not need uploaded) or several files and maybe even several files and other folders. It all depends on the function on the plugin and how it was coded. Usually uploading the extracted folder will not work and you must keep opening the folders until you see if there is only one file or a group of files. The examples below show what I mean.

This first example shows that there is a folder within the extracted folder and within the second folder is the actual file to upload into the plugins directory.

plugin5.jpg

The next example shows a WordPress plugin with multiple files. Upload the entire folder one level up from the multiple files.

plugin62.jpg

Now you know what to upload but where do you upload them too? When you connect to your site with an FTP client, like FileZilla browse to the location of the WordPress files. Getting there depends on your hosting account. You will usually not see the root of your domain first when connecting. You should look for the www or public folder, then you may even see multiple domains (if you have them). Look for the directory your WordPress files are in and then find the wp-content folder and finally within that the plugins folder. You can see the full path for WordPress installed in the blog directory in the image below:

plugin7.jpg

After uploading the plugin go to the plugins panel and activate it. Now that you know how to do it this way how about a plugin that installs WordPress plugins and themes right from the dashboard? OneClick does just that and will work in most cases but if you have a highly functional plugin with multiple files and folders you still may need to resort to this method.



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WordPress Post Problems Page Not Found

WordPress can be one of the easiest content management systems to publish a blog or website on. It can also be one of the most frustrating. Out of the box WordPress is pretty stable, start adding plugins and customizing it and conflicts with plugins and hosting account settings can drive a blogger mad!

One such issue I came across recently on WordPress version 2.5 is a memory limit on a hosting account. This was causing the Google XML Sitemaps plugin to create issues when publishing a new post or saving changes to an existing post. Mike from Total Marketing Toolbox contacted me with this problem and I was able to track it down for him.

The problem was when a WordPress post was published or saved, in a Firefox browser the page would just go blank, or in Internet Explorer an error message can up ‘page could not be displayed’. It took some digging around but I figured it had something to do with a plugin. So first I deactivated all plugins and tried to recreate the issue after activating one plugin at a time. After isolating the plugin I checked the settings on it and got lucky. It told me that the sitemap could not be written and that I should check the servers memory limit. The plugins configuration page also has a setting to increase the memory limit. It was an easy fix to raise the memory limit and get the WordPress blog back in business.

If you encounter similar issues when publishing a new post first look at plugins that perform a function when publishing a post, like Google Sitemaps, or Smart Update Pinger.

Thanks to Arne Brachhold for writing such a great plugin, Google XML Sitemaps, and making it easy for us to track down and fix these little issues.



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Use WordPress Blogroll For Site Navigation

As WordPress grows more popular and more people are using it for more than just blogging more and more are using WordPress to run entire websites. This WordPress guide will show how to setup decent site navigation on the sidebar.

You could use the Pages widget that will show all the WordPress pages created in one big long list, this would be acceptable if you use WordPress for mostly blogging and don’t create very many pages. However if you converted an existing site to WordPress and want to copy your old HTML pages and make them new WordPress pages this option give very little flexibility. Your list of pages will grow long and you can’t separate them into different sidebar widgets.

blogroll1.jpgA more flexible option is using the Blogroll as site navigation and not showing the Pages sidebar widget at all. The Blogroll is a list of links you create and categorize that can show on the sidebar. There is limitation with this option too: While all the Blogroll links will show in their designated category, they will all show in one location on the sidebar. Again this may be acceptable to you if you have a few pages or links and don’t mind them all showing in one place. As show on the left the two sidebar items are all in the Blogroll but in two different Blogroll categories; Links and WPP PIPS Sites. These show as two different items but can’t be separated. Another possible issue with this option is the specific theme you are using may not separate the items as nicely as the example shows. But you will not know until you try it. If you want to use this option the sidebar widget to use will be called either Blogroll or Links depending on your theme.

So lets create a list of links; first go to Blogroll in the WordPress dashboard, and then click the Categories submenu. The default category in here is called Blogroll, I usually edit it and rename it Links, you can call it anything you want by clicking Edit on the right. Give some thought of the different categories you want to place the links into. Now create a new category by clicking Add New, while still in the Categories submenu. Make the name and slug the same and click Add Category. Next click Add Link in the upper dark blue submenu and add the name and address, then on the right make sure the correct category is checked, and only one category is checked! Under the category you can choose to open the link in a new window by ticking the Blank button for the Target. Finish by clicking Add Link.

So what if you want up to 9 different Blogroll or links categories and want to show the widgets in various different areas of the sidebar? You use a plugin of course! Single Bookmark Category List “This widget is especially useful when you want to spread out the display of your bookmarks into two or more separate sidebars”. Note the plugin author is calling them Bookmarks, while in the WordPress dashboard these links are called Blogroll. Installation of the plugin is typical, just place it in your wp-content/plugins folder and activate in the Plugins menu in the dashboard. If I recently installed your blog you may already have the plugin so check before you upload it again.

To use the Single Bookmark Category plugin after it is activated go to Presentation, Widgets. First remove the Blogroll or Links widget if it is in a sidebar by dragging it out of the sidebar and back to the lower Available Widgets area and click Save Changes. Next scroll down and click the drop down box next to the Single Bookmark Category Widgets. Choose the number of these you need and click Save. You should now have that many Bookmark From Category widgets in the Available Widgets area. Simply drag a Bookmark From Category widget into the area of the sidebar where you want it, click the little blue box to open it, (if you don’t see the open widget scroll up or down) and choose the Blogroll category you want to be displayed. Click the X to close the widget and then finally Save Changes.

You can now have more control over the Blogroll or links displayed on your WordPress sidebar using this simple but powerful plugin. This shows, once again, the simple flexibility WordPress provides.

If your WordPress pages are growing to large and cluttering up your sites top navigation or Pages sidebar widget check out this post: Choose WordPress Pages Displayed In Navigation Bar



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Configure FeedBurner and WordPress RSS Widget

flamocon_190h.gifThe instructions on the FeedBurner site show all of the steps involved in downloading and setting up the FeedBurner FeedSmith . There is one other step involved that isn’t mentioned that you may want to add to your WordPress blog. This will cover that other step.

First off if I installed your blog you should have the plugin installed and activated already. If I asked for your FeedBurner account then all of this is likely done for you as well. If not you will still need to sign up at FeedBurner.com and ‘Burn’ your feed. For that I have instructions with video on my other blog here: Setup FeedBurner On Your WordPress Blog .

After adding your new URL to the proper areas of your WordPress blog the other place to add it is in an RSS sidebar widget. Click Presentation, Widgets and drag an RSS widget, usually RSS 1, from the lower available area into the sidebar. Click the little blue box on the widget to open it, place your FeedBurner URL in, name it and choose how many items (posts) you want to display. Close the widget, and click Save Changes.

Don’t be afraid to check out all the different feed options over at FeedBurner, especially the email subscriptions. For that click the Publicize tab and look on the left side for them. Make sure to activate it after you grab the code!



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Tagging A WordPress Post Mutiple Tagging Plugins

The recent integration of tagging in WordPress has rendered one of my favorite tagging plugins obsolete. That and the lack luster default tagging WordPress offers I have yet to upgrade this site and many of my other WordPress blogs. Ultimate Tag Warrior was and is still my tagging plugin of choice on the WordPress blogs that I run, because I haven’t upgraded them yet. This gives you three different tagging options, you can choose to use one or all of them together.

After testing several WordPress tagging plugins I have found not one but three tagging plugins that work well together on WordPress Version 2.3.x. Having three tagging plugins may seem like overkill but hey the more the merrier right? If you don’t want to use all three then I will list them here in the order I recommend you try.

Before I jump in though I will try to clear up a bit of confusion. There are actually two different plugins with the same name called Simple Tags. From what I understand they are authored by two different people and one is completely different than the other. One is a simple one file plugin that adds Technorati tags in your post where ever you want them. The other is a full blown tag management plugin that enhances the built in functionality of WordPress.

Warning if you still use Ultimate Tag Warrior you really don’t need this plugin and should deactivate it before using trying to activate Simple Tags.

Up first is the most powerful Simple Tags plugin. After installing it like a normal plugin installation, it can be used right away with little configuration. You will have a Simple Tags sub menu under the main options menu. Clicking that will show all the options for the plugin and here your head can spin. But not to worry the plugin is ready to work right after activation with the exception of theme integration.

To use Simple Tags just look at the bottom of the write post box and you should now have two new options available to you. One is the red Display click tags option and below that is a tags suggestion Suggested tags from box.

tags.jpg

Clicking Display click tags will show a list of your tags to insert into the tags area, (if you have used tags in the past). You can also find more tags in the lower Suggested tags from area. Pulling suggested tags from your blog, Yahoo or the ‘Net’.

Theme integration is bit more tricky if you want a list of your tags to show below the post. For that you will need to place a bit of code into your theme, either in the single.php for single posts and or the index.php for the main blog page. There are many variable to use to show what you want after your posts but the most common is just a list of tags and that can be accomplished by placing this code into your theme:

<?php st_the_tags(); ?>

The area to place this varies for each theme but should be under the post comments area or above it if you wish.

tags1.jpg

For a complete list of options and instructions visit the Simple Tags plugin homepage.

Next up is a bit easier plugin to use and configure thats called Tagalize It. This plugin uses embedded tags right within the post. Using tags for self tagging that interlinks your blog to other posts with the same tags. And also tagging Technorati and IceRocket, two of the more popular blog directories online.

After activating Tagalize It there is one thing to configure depending on your blogs installation directory. The plugin is designed to be used on blogs in the /blog directory of a website. So if your blog is installed in the root or in a differently named directory you need to point the plugin to the correct directory.

To make the plugin work correctly you need to match the plugins configuration to your blogs directory. To check the proper configuration click Plugins, Plugin Editor, Scroll down and look for the Tagalize It plugin on the right. Change this code to match your blogs installed directory:

If your blog is in the blog directory, www.yoursite.com/blog, then it should look like this:

function tagazlie_it_tagger($tag, $swaptext, $intext) {
$self_loc = ‘/blog/tag/’;
$dir_loc = ‘/blog/search/’;$cat_loc = ‘/blog/category/’;

If your WordPress blog is installed in a directory other than blog then it should match the directory something like this:

function tagazlie_it_tagger($tag, $swaptext, $intext) {$self_loc = ‘/Your Directory/tag/’;
$dir_loc = ‘/Your Directory/search/’;
$cat_loc = ‘/Your Directory/category/’;

Finally if your blog is your main site and installed in the root directory then it needs to be like this:

function tagazlie_it_tagger($tag, $swaptext, $intext) {$self_loc = ‘/tag/’;
$dir_loc = ‘/search/’;
$cat_loc = ‘/category/’;

Using Tagalize It is very easy but it is an extra step when writing posts. Tagging keywords or phrases within the body of the posts actually makes them live links to either other posts tagged the same on your blog or to Technorati and IceRocket. You can tag the keywords in either the visual or code editor.

Tagging with Tagalize It is simply placing brackets before and after the word or phrase you want to tag. For self tagging I suggest to tag only the words or phrases that match one of the categories the post is in. For the Technorati and Ice Rocket tags you can use any terms you want but they should be related to the content of the post. This link -> is a self tagged tag, then this -> is a Technorati tag and finally this -> is an IceRocket tag. Below are examples of Tagalize It tags in this order Self tags, Technorati and IceRocket:

tags3.jpg

Finally we get to the last of the list which is the other Simple Tags plugin. This plugin is very simple to use to add Technorati tags within the post content area. You can add one tag or a comma separated list as shown below:

tags4.jpg

These are three good , you can use one two or all three together. I have tested them on Version 2.3.3 all together without a problem. However your blog may differ depending on other plugins installed. So be careful. At the time of this post I am still using WordPress 2.2 with UTW and Tagalize it. No Simple Tags for me yet! But now that I took the time to write this you did to read it, WordPress 2.5 is due out any time time now!



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Adding AdSense Code Into A WordPress Theme

Adding or embedding AdSense ads or any type of script or code into a is pretty easy once you understand where to place it. In order to do that you first need to know what some of the code in your means. This will show you what some of the themes code means and where you can embed scripts like AdSense, HTML code or even images.

In order to edit your theme from within the your themes files must writable. Do do that you need to change the permissions, or CHMOD of the themes files to at least 666 or 777. You could also work on them in the hosting accounts file manager or on your computer and FTP upload the changes files. I prefer to edit the theme from the dashboard.

Before you get started you should copy any file you are attempting to edit and save it in a text file on your computer. If anything goes wrong you can simply paste the unedited version back to undo any damage. You have been warned!

Starting from the top of the WordPress blogs main page, just above the post you can place your AdSense script like shown on this blog, a graphic, banner ad, both AdSense and a banner like shown on my other Work At Home Business Blog, or anything else for that matter. Keep in mind that Google will usually only show three AdSense blocks per page, so if you place AdSense into your WordPress theme and also in your posts and then in the sidebar, usually only the top three blocks will show. The remainder will be open space.

The place to add your code is in the main index template (index.php) and if desired can also be placed in the single post (single.php), page template (page.php), archives and if your theme has one the 404 template. Open one of the files and place your code just above the content which is code that looks like this:

Your Code Here

<?php if (have_posts()) : //Are there any posts? ?>

Other places to place the code are:

Below the post above or below the comments would be:

<?php if ( comments_open() ) : //if comments are allowed ?>

You can experiment with many different places, just be sure to backup any file you are attempting to edit, and that the AdSense code or banner fits in the area and that all HTML or script tags are properly closed. It would also be wise to view your changes in different browsers and different size windows to make sure it looks right.

For AdSense within a post I use and recommend the AdSense Deluxe plugin, check out the guide for it here: How To Use The WordPress Plugin AdSense-Deluxe.



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WordPress 404 Redirect And 404 Custom Message

The WordPress 404 error page or the 404 error message is probably the file or piece of code most neglected by WordPress theme authors. This short will show you how to spruce yours up a bit.

Keeping visitors on your WordPress blog should be one of your main objectives to blogging. When they find themselves on a dead end they may just leave. Why not entice them to look around a bit, redirect them to a different page, or place some AdSense on your 404 page and at least get paid when they leave your site.

First check yours out by typing in URL on your blog that you know doesn’t exist. Most WordPress blogs show something like this:

404.jpg

Well that is really wanting me to do something like… leave! WordPress handles 404 errors differently than an HTML site and creating a 404 redirect in your .htaccess file will not work, at least that I know of. The 404 error that is displayed is theme specific and has to be edited within the themes files. So switching themes means these changes will not follow.

Next determine if you have a separate 404.php file with your theme or if it uses some code in the themes main index file (index.php). From within the WordPress dashboard click Presentation then Theme Editor. Look on the right side for the 404.php file. If you have a 404.php file you can make the changes to it. If you don’t have a separate 404.php file you can create one or make the changes you want in the index.php file.

If you have a current 404.php file and want to redirect visitors to another URL. Or to make your own 404.php file to redirect your visitors to another URL place the following code into a text file, change the URL and save it as 404.php and upload it to your current WordPress themes directory:

<?php
header(”Status: 301 Moved Permanently”);
header(”Location:http://www.ChangeToTheURL.com”);
?>

Do not copy the code from the post! Click here to open the proper text file to copy.

Now if you want to display something more interesting on your 404 error page you can edit your 404.php file or find where in your index.php file to make the changes. To determine where the code is in the index.php file open it in the Theme Editor and look for this piece of code:

<?php else : //if there were no posts available ?>

You can now edit what you want between that bit of code in your index.php file and the next line of code. You can start by changing the text between the h2 tags shown below:

<h2>Error 404 - Not Found</h2>

You can also add a few links and more text below the h2 tags and even some AdSense code if you want. I added a search box for my blog and some AdSense. Make sure you backup any file you are editing first so if you don’t like your changes or break your blog you can restore it easily.

Here is a sample of what I used to create the 404 error message on this site: You can use this in either your index.php or 404.php file: Sample 404 Error You can add more space between items with a few more breaks <br/> if you like.

Well what started out as short guide has grown bigger than I thought and there are many other items you can place in the 404 error area of your blog. Just make sure you close all the tags and make a backup before you start hacking the code!



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