Posted by ljmacphee on April 7, 2008 under wordpress | 
I recently switched webhosting companies. One of the many little glitches that appeared was that when I would edit an entry in Wordpress it would erase all the new line and paragraph breaks.
I did lots of digging and found a zillion hacks only one of which works.
Log into Wordpress
Click ‘Users’ ( top row where you see the Dashboard button )
Click ‘Your Profile’ ( second row next to Authors & Users )
Uncheck ‘Use the visual editor when writing’
Click ‘Update Profile’
Now go to options->writing and change the size of the text box to about 30 or 40 lines.
It’s perhaps not the best work around, but it is the one that works.
Posted by ljmacphee on March 30, 2008 under blog information, blogging, wordpress |
I have to say this is the easiest of all the Wordpress upgrades I’ve done. Previously I had troubles if I didn’t delete the previous Wordpress install. Not this time.
I upgraded 8 blogs today. I just ftp’d the new files up to the server and everything went painlessly. Database upgrades took mear seconds, all the plugins I have installed work. The automatic update plugin worked flawlessly.
I find I like the new dashboard much more than I thought I would. I played with the release candidates last week and was so so on the new dash. However I find in actual use it is greatly improved.
The new editor alone is worth the upgrade. This one remembers where the line breaks and paragraphs are located.
The new multimedia is not yet ready to replace Coppermine or other galleries of that sort as I hoped but has greatly improved the ease of storage and embedding multimedia into your site.
I think it is a huge improvement over 2.3.x and highly recommend it.
Wordpress 2.5 information
Posted by ljmacphee on February 28, 2008 under hack your template, wordpress, wordpress template |
There has been much debate recently among bloggers who blog about blogging about whether to use full or partial posts on your front page. As you may have noticed many bloggers are putting the blog on page two and using more a portal type front page to the website. This allows you to show your visitors more posts. The hope is that you get more page views. Good posts that are old can resurface to the front of your website. It also makes it easier for visitors to find things of interest.
In your Wordpress blog it is very easy to switch between partial and full posts. Edit your Main Index Template and just change the line from one to the other.
For full posts use:
<?php the_content(’Read the rest of this entry . . .’); ?>
For excerpt use:
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
The Debate:
Full posts vs partial posts, on the homepage
Full posts or excerpts?
Increase your Alexa rank with post excerpts
Post excerpts on the homepage?
Read more links or full posts?
Cool Themes of this sort:
Jello wala mello
Revolution Magazine
Digs’em WordPress Theme
Here is a very simple demonstration using the Wordpress Classic Theme, you should be able to look at the changes I made to the style.css and index.php page and alter your own favorite theme to this format.
Download Magazine Style Classic WP Theme
Posted by ljmacphee on February 25, 2008 under archives, hack your template, wordpress |
I received a request for this on the ArchivesByCategory plugin page. Unfortunately there isn’t a plugin I can write that will paginate the archives one category to a page for you. But it is not too difficult to do with this plugin.
The plugin takes one category number from you and creates a link list of all the posts in that category.
You must create a separate archive page for each category. Since every template is different it is hard to give really detailed directions but I’ll try.In your theme find your archives.php page. Make a copy one for each category. archives1.php, archives2.php etc.
In archives1.php change
Template Name:ArchivestoTemplate Name: Archives 1change<h2>Archives</h2>to<h2>Category 1’s name</h2>Change<?php wp_list_categories(); ?>to<?php echo archive_of_posts(1); ?>
Now you have to do this for each archive page you want, one per category. The above example is for your first category. For your next category replace the 1s with 2s.Lastly go to your wp-admin->write->page section. Then go to the Page Template drop down menu. You will see an entry for each archive page you made. Create one new page for each template archive entry. Give the page a title ‘Archives for Category 1′ or what ever you wish to call it. Nothing else. The template will fill in the page for you.
Both the plugin and the default WP theme that have been altered are included in the file below. That way you can see what I have done. Do not upload the default theme to your WP site. Just upload the plugin.
The theme is just to make it easier for you to see what I have done.Archives example and plugin
I’ve done this on two of my blogs so far, Herself’s Houston Garden, and Herself’s House Plants. It is much cleaner and a much nicer way of sorting your archives. I hope to have all my blogs updated to this method in the next week or two.