Redesigning Poles Apart Design, I used the Datafeedr Random Ads V2 plugin as a random image rotator. The plugin requires that I add PHP code to a template page which I didn’t want to do because I wanted the image rotators to appear in specific posts. I could make that happen by installing and enabling another plugin that enables me to use PHP code within a post, but sometimes using PHP code within a post can cause unexpected issues, plugin or no. So, I thought, oh yeah, shortcodes. Shortcodes are pieces of simplified code that represent PHP code/functions without having to use actual PHP in the place you put the shortcode. Actually, you can use shortcodes for output of regular text, html and even CSS. A shortcode comes in this format [shortcode-post-title-here]. Here’s how to add a PHP function into a post from any plugin that requires a specific function call (which is almost all) to generate whatever content the plugin is for.
[Read more →]

I didn’t get a cell phone until I was in my mid twenties. I refused to. I was definitely not anti-technology, just anti-reach-me-anywhere-anytime! Now of course, three phones later, I love my iPhone and can’t seem to leave it at home without feeling I’m missing an index finger. A ghost limb, if you will. Or perhaps I just like shiny objects (ha ha). Seriously though, since having my iPhone now strapped to my hip, I’ve found so many actually useful iPhone apps ’cause as much as I love new shiny things, I hate excess and prefer practical additions to my life, not glossy ones with no purpose. [Read more →]

Broken Link Checker is a great, great, great plugin because it saves you mucho, mucho, mucho time and headache keeping your site up to date with correct information, specifically, updated links. The plugin basically shows you a list of broken links under the Tools section of your WordPress dashboard. It shows you the post that the broken link was found in, the text it’s linked to, gives you the option of discarding the post, unlinking the text, and editing the post. But, the best, best, best part is that you can click “edit” to edit the link right there instead of having to fish for it within HTML code or in visual mode! Thank you Broken Link Checker!

I have a client who would very much like to choose which WordPress posts they publish to be sent to their facebook and Twitter accounts with a click of a button or checkbox. You’d think woth the onlaught and frenzy of Tweeting and spuerpoking, their would be a buffet of WordPress plugins to post blogs to facebook and Twitter to choose from. And there are, and none of them seem to work right. The closest I got to getting a plugin to do what I needed was using the “supr by StumbleUpon” plugin which allows you to post a a blog post to both facebook and Twitter.  It works for facebook, though a bit buggy. But the Twitter function doesn’t work at all. I found this all quite frustrating so I created a quick work around without having to create my own bloody plugin!
[Read more →]

I know, it’s been a while since I posted an article here at WordPress PAD. I have a good excuse, I’ve been hard at work developing websites using WordPress as a CMS (and blog). In the past few months I have learned a great deal about what WordPress can and cannot do…mostly what can be done to it with a little grease, time and patience.

With that said, working on a current project where I had to implement a bbpress forum with a current wordpress blog installation, I realized that bbPress, although a sister software of WordPress, is not the best solution for WordPress forum integration for two reasons. One, it’s quite buggy and two, it’s not a smooth integration. [Read more →]

I like simplicity because of it’s elegance. Awkward moments and people, unnecessarily complicated tasks, and so forth are my pet peeves. With that said, when WordPress 2.6 came out and I noticed I couldn’t simply float left or right my images in my post, let’s just say I had a little “fit”. I love WordPress, but this is a silly bug that shouldn’t even exist. I could fix this by adding style="float:left;" to each image, but that could prove to be annoying after a while. So, here’s a simple solution. Add the default styles for the alignleft, alignright, etc. classes that WordPress assigns to your images when you click the left, right, center, etc. buttons anyway:
[Read more →]

If you’ve been searching for a new WordPress theme recently, or have done so in the past, chances are you’ve visited themes.wordpress.net. It’s not a bad theme directory and it is quite substantion. It’s just not very user-friendly. Fortunately, WordPress is working on a new themes directory that will make it easier to search for themes and, if you’re a theme developer, upload your themes as well.
[Read more →]

Three upgrades in less than a couple of months is a little annoying, but WordPress aims to please so I forgive. Anyway, the latest greatest version of WordPress is here, WordPress 2.6. There are quite a few little fixes, but I’ll highlight the major ones that are the most useful to most of us:

[Read more →]