WpVeda

Organize Series Plugin for a WordPress blog

Aditya Kane — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:43:45 +0000

Many times in your blog you write a multiple posts on similar topics. For instance you might write a lengthy tutorial on some topic and break it down into 5-6 posts. This is where having a series plugin on your WordPress blog is quite useful. I have used the Organize Series plugin and really felt it was a great way to create post series in WordPress. Here is a screen shot of how related series posts are shown.

Installing the Organize Series Plugin

Before installing the Organize Series plugin make sure you have backed up your WordPress blog’s database. This is a basic precautionary step used before installing any new plugin on WordPress.
Now download the plugin from WordPress plugin directory. Plugin is supported by WordPress 2.8 onwards.
It will be .zip file. Unzip the file and a folder “Organize-Series” which should be extracted to ../wp-content/plugins/
Go to the Plugins Menu on WordPress and activate the plugin for your blog. (see image below)

How does Organize Series work?

Once the plugin is activated there will be a new option under the Settings menu. This new option will be Series Option. Click on Series Option which is under Settings and the page that loads up will show you various properties for us to tweak how the plugin will manage series of posts on the blog.

Settings for Organize Series Plugin.

Automation Settings: First part of settings is Automation settings. We can select Display list of post page, series navigation links, displaying meta information with posts and toggling between using custom CSS. That apart Automation Settings also allows specification of permalinks for the table of contents URL.
Template Tag Options:This section allows us to customize the format of various displays of the series information. If you are editing this part of the settings you need some knowledge of HTML/CSS.
Series Icon Options: This section creates allows tweaking the width of the series icon on table of contents page and post page respectively.

Organizing Posts in Series.

Now that the settings are done we can start specifying certain posts to be included in particular posts. Just open a post in the edit mode and we can see a new option.
Here the post has new option below the editing area which is titled Series which allows creating a new series or even specifying which existing series the post can be organized under.
Added option is to keep add a number the post which specifies its positing in the entire series content table.

Displaying Series on WordPress Blog

Now that we have arranged some posts in a series we can display them on the blog theme with the help of widgets. This widget can be found under Appearance.
The widget named Series widget can be dragged and dropped into the sidebar.
There are many options which include showing the posts according to links or even in a drop down menu.

Summary

This plugin allows creating a series of a new post which is being published or even older group of posts which have already been published. A post in a series really becomes a great reference point and this plugin also creates a permalink which displays all the posts in a series. So all we have to do to share a series is simply share the permalink of the series!

Download Link: Organize Series plugin

Organize Series Plugin for a WordPress blog is a post from: WpVeda

Add custom column to managing posts panel

Umesh — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 08:18:47 +0000

WordPress wp-admin shows you a list of posts and pages with their details such as title, author, categories, tags, comments, date.

Sometimes you might want to add new customized column to this page, such as ‘Author Gravatar’, ‘Views’ or ‘Thumbnails’. This post will demonstrate how to go about it.

Here we are going to add post author gravatar column to post management page without the need of any third-party plugin.

We can add this column using theme or plugin. From the below image you will get overview what I am going to explain you.

First we need to register the column which we are going to add. Register column using "manage_posts_columns" filter.

add_filter( 'manage_posts_columns', 'rt_add_gravatar_col');

function rt_add_gravatar_col($cols) {

$cols['author_gravatar'] = __('Gravatar');

return $cols;

}

The function ‘rt_add_gravatar_col’ takes one argument ‘$cols’. Which is an array of the default registered columns.

Now we have to add action ‘manage_pages_custom_column’ to display new column. You can add action hook as follows:

add_action( 'manage_posts_custom_column', 'rt_get_author_gravatar');

function rt_get_author_gravatar($column_name ) {

if ( $column_name  == 'author_gravatar'  ) {

echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), '35' );

}

}

The function ‘rt_get_author_gravatar’ takes one argument ‘$column_name’ which is the name of the column. WordPress get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), ’35′ ) gives you gravatar of an author. As I used the ‘get_avatar’ function code you can use any other function code.

You can use the filter 'manage_pages_columns‘ for page management and action ‘manage_pages_custom_column‘ to display the column.

Similarly for custom post types you can use ‘manage_movie_columns’ filter and ‘manage_movie_custom_column’ action. Here I am used movie as custom post type. Replace ‘movie’ word with your custom post type.

Hopefully this will help you add a custom column to the post and page overview. Do drop in your views and suggestions through your comments.

Add custom column to managing posts panel is a post from: WpVeda

No related posts.

HttpFox – a helpful Firefox Add-on for Debugging

prasad — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:22:58 +0000

Debugging had never been this easier like today. Different debugging tools and add-ons have really made programmers life easier. Let it be a Firebug, xDebug etc..

HttpFox is one of such add on which can potentially help you to debug your code. Especially in debugging a query string.

What does HttpFox do?

Well, many times it happens that our page request goes through number of pages and gives the response in the form of web page. While programming we are passing many values as query string parametes but are not sure whether they are passed properly or not.
Most times these values which we sent as query string parameters gets manipulated in between and most times we end up appending values which are really not required. This certainly adds to the GET or POST overhead.
HttpFox will help you to know different page requests and what all pages get loaded and parameters uppended to it. To see this you just have to open HttpFox as you open firebug. But unlike firebug, HttpFox needs to be started by clicking on green button as shown in following screenshot.

How to use HttpFox?

Once you start HttpFox, you are ready to debug.
Now you can click on a link which you want to debug and a result will be shown in HttpFox window (refer screenshot)
You can see query string parameters various other pages and scripts being loaded during this page request

What does HttpFox do that Firebug Cannot?

You may be wondering that why to use another addon, when firebug gets the job done.
There is a reason. Firebug though offers these facilities it becomes bulky. So for URL, Headers, Cookies etc why not have separate add-on like HttpFox?
That really makes sense doesn’t it? You can find more reviews here.

Installation

Installation is simple. Go to HttpFox Firefox Addon Page and click on “Add to Firefox” button.

This will take some time and prompt you with “Add-on installed”. Restart Firefox browser and you are ready to go.

HttpFox icon after installation

Summary

This is the basic functionality that is discussed. Beyond this HttpFox also provides other tabs like Headers, Cookie, Query String, POST Data, Content which you can further explore. So enjoy debugging!

HttpFox – a helpful Firefox Add-on for Debugging is a post from: WpVeda

No related posts.

[Solved] Homepage Redirecting to The Latest Page Issue

Rahul Bansal — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:28:14 +0000

There is an issue with Redirection plugin for wordpress. Redirection plugin is used to create redirect rules without any technical knowledge.

About the issue…

Whenever you create a latest page inside wordpress, all visitors to your homepage get redirected to the newly created page. This used to happen before also, but seems like the issue has become severe after wordpress 3.0 release.

There may be some bug in the plugin, which results in a rule being added to its (plugin) database as you can see in screenshot below. You can see following screen by going to “WordPress Dashboard >> Tools >> Redirection” menu and then clicking on “Modified posts” group.

As you might have noticed, there is rule with URL ‘/’ (slash) being added under “Modified posts” module in Redirection Plugin. This rule is responsible for homepage redirection.

Temporary Solution

Just select all rules made for ‘/’ (slash) as highlighted in below screenshot. Yes, there can be more than 1 rule for ‘/’ (slash) i.e. homepage redirection.
Click on “Delete” option. You will be asked for confirmation. Just click“Yes” and you are done!

Now, this will solve problem only temporarily. Next time you create a new page, chances are this issue will surface again. So if you edit/create pages quite frequently, you may like to go for permanent solution listed below.

Permanent Solution

On Redirection Plugins’ Settings page, click on “Modules” links.
You will see 3 modules as shown in above screenshot. Click on “WordPress” module.
On next screen you will see 2 groups – “Redirection” and “Modified Posts”. Click on “edit group” link, next to the “Modified Posts” group. (see screenshot)
When you will click on “edit group” link, you will see few more options. Uncheck option saying, “Disabling a group will disable all items contained within it” (see screenshot)
Just click Save button and you will no longer face this issue again.

This solution actually disables a feature of Redirection Plugin, which is being used by many of us unknowingly.

Every-time we manually edit slug of a published wordpress post or page, Redirection plugin create necessary rules inside “Modified Posts” group.

Summary

This issue is already open as a bug in Redirection plugin’s bug-tracker. Hopefully, this will be solved in near future.

By the way, those weird redirections rules don’t get added all the time. But if they do, you can use solutions mentioned above.

[Solved] Homepage Redirecting to The Latest Page Issue is a post from: WpVeda

Results: Winner of Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie

Aditya Kane — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 21:19:00 +0000

Last week we had announced a giveaway contest of Premium WordPress Theme from Theme Junkie. We had a pretty good response to the contest with over 60 re-tweets. Overall 26 contestants took part in this giveaway and the time to announce the winners is here.

Here is a video of selection of the winner through Random.org.

Congratulations to Jaydip Parikh on winning the Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie giveaway.

Also a big thank you to all the participants listed below for your support towards WpVeda.

The folks who took part in the contest.

Hesham
Kimberly Castleberry
raza rahil hussain
Karthikeyan
MostlyBlog
Ricky@ webhosting coupons
Manveer Singh
ravi
Jaydip Parikh
Shivendu Madhava
Sauravjit
arun kamath
Rohit Sane
Akash Malik
Shashank
Mezanul
Deanna
kosaidpo
Sahil Malhan
Sourav
Joy
Simrandeep Singh
Izulcybercafe
Avi Singh
yuvraj
Maximilien

Subscribe to wpVeda or follow us on Twitter and keep reading about what is latest with WordPress.

Results: Winner of Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie is a post from: WpVeda

How to Create or Find WordPress API Key

Harsh Agrawal — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:34:38 +0000

Few WordPress plugins like Akismet, Wp.com Stats needs your WordPress API key to work. For many new WordPress users, finding API key is tough at times. This post is useful for budding bloggers who stepped into WordPress recently. This post will guide you on how you can find your WordPress API key.

Create an account at WordPress.com:

WordPress.com is a free blogging platform by Automattic and you can create a free account by going to WordPress.com. Remember this is most useful step in order to get your API key.

Once you have created your free WordPress.com profile, login to your profile and click on this link. You will find something similar to this, I have blurred my API key in this screenshot.

Wordpress API key

Part, after Your WordPress.com API key is: Your API key, and this is the one you need to use to activate important plugin like Akismet.

How to Create or Find WordPress API Key is a post from: WpVeda

Retweet and Comment to Win Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie

Harsh Agrawal — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:25:00 +0000

ThemeJunkie is one of the popular Premium WordPress theme club and we are giving away complete package of ThemeJunkie Themes to one lucky winner.

ThemeJunkie have many popular WordPress theme in their garage and few of them are Portal WordPress theme, Mashable Style WordPress theme: Freshlife and many more.

If you win this contest, you will be eligible to download all the themes mentioned in their theme club here.

How to Participate to Win Contest?

We are making this contest very simple. All you need to do is follow given steps and you can be one of winner to grab complete premium theme package.

1. Follow Wpveda on Twitter @wpveda

2. Retweet this post and comment with your tweeted link:

RT @wpveda Retweet to Win #Wordpress Premium Theme package http://su.pr/2CwFPr

3. Optionally you can Join Wpveda on facebook by hitting the like button on right sidebar.

When this contest will end and how Winner will be selected?

One lucky winner who followed all the steps mentioned above will be selected via Random.org and winner will be announced on 1st July 2010.

Retweet and Comment to Win Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie is a post from: WpVeda

Akismet: WordPress Spam Comment Detector Plugin

Harsh Agrawal — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:25:36 +0000

When ever we Install WordPress, we have a list of some most essential plugins which every WordPress blog should have. In this post I’m going to talk about one WordPress plugin name Akismet which I believe is one of the most essential plugin and every blog should have from day one.

What is Akismet WordPress plugin?

Akismet WordPress plugin catches spam comments and trackbacks on your blog. It uses Akismet Web services to find comments and trackbacks spam.

If you just started with wordpress, this is the first plugin which you should install to fight against comment spam in WordPress.

Here is a screenshot of Akismet plugin and see what it did for me in last 1 and half year.

Aksimet WordPress Plugin Stats

Download Akismet plugin

In the next post, I will be talking about how to configure Akismet WordPress plugin.

Akismet: WordPress Spam Comment Detector Plugin is a post from: WpVeda

JavaScript/jQuery Snippet to check if a function exists

Rahul Bansal — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:14:33 +0000

I am working on a very complex wordpress theme from last few weeks and on the way learning many new things.

To keep load time of this new theme in check, I am using many ‘if’ statements in header.php to control which javascript library/jquery plugin loads on which page. So before making JavaScript/jQuery function calls, it became essential for me to check if function exists in current environment.

Following are code snippets I am using frequently in this case…

JavaScript codes to check if function exists

if(typeof window.rtFunction == 'function') {
	// function exists, so we can now call it
	rtFunction();
}

Example: Calling md5 function

if(typeof window.md5 == 'function') {
	// function exists, so we can now call it
	md5(286);
}

jQuery codes to check if function exists

if( jQuery.isFunction(jQuery.fn.rtFunction) ){
	// function exists, so we can now call it
	jQuery(document).rtFunction();
}

Example: Say if you are using jQuery tabs plugin…

if( jQuery.isFunction(jQuery.fn.tabs) ){
	// function exists, so we can now call it
	jQuery('#tabs').tabs();
}

These two functions turned out to be life saver for me.

Thanks Paul for javascript codes and besh.jquery for jQuery codes.

I have found many more ways to optimize wordpress themes while working on this theme. I will surely post them starting next week, once we launch this new theme!

JavaScript/jQuery Snippet to check if a function exists is a post from: WpVeda

Nginx Rewrite Rules for W3 Total Cache Plugin

Nginx Rewrite Rules for W3 Total Cache Plugin

Rahul Bansal — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 10:38:15 +0000

We have been using nginx from long time to run our WPMU + domain mapping configuration for rtBlogs network.

Recently when we decided to switch from Wp Super Cache to W3 Total Cache plugin, we were stuck while translating apache’s (.htaccess) rewrite rules to nginx configuration.

Now, after some efforts we managed to get nginx working with W3 Total Cache plugin with following rewrite rules.

# if the requested file exists, return it immediately
if (-f $request_filename) {
	break;
}

## W3 Total CACHE BEGIN
set $totalcache_file '';
set $totalcache_uri $request_uri;

if ($request_method = POST) {
  set $totalcache_uri '';
}

# Using pretty permalinks, so bypass the cache for any query string
if ($query_string) {
  set $totalcache_uri '';
}

if ($http_cookie ~* "comment_author_|wordpress|wp-postpass_" ) {
  set $totalcache_uri '';
}

# if we haven't bypassed the cache, specify our totalcache file
if ($totalcache_uri ~ ^(.+)$) {
  set $totalcache_file /wp-content/w3tc-$http_host/pgcache/$1/_default_.html;
}

# only rewrite to the totalcache file if it actually exists
if (-f $document_root$totalcache_file) {
  rewrite ^(.*)$ $totalcache_file break;
}                 

##W3 Total CACHE END

# all other requests go to WordPress
if (!-e $request_filename) {
	rewrite . /index.php last;
}

Above codes will sit inside server{ location{ } } block.

Our original configuration file is too big and contains many unwanted things so I am not publishing it here.

Anyway, if you stuck somewhere, feel free to use comment form below.

Update: For those who are faceing issues with gzip (compression)…

I have a code block at the beginning of location /{} block in our nginx configuration file as below:

          location / {
               gzip  on;
               gzip_http_version 1.0;
               gzip_vary on;
               gzip_comp_level 3;
               gzip_proxied any;
               gzip_types text/plain text/html text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
               gzip_buffers 16 8k;
               .....
        }

Above code-block basically “asks” nginx to turn on compression when files with listed mime types (see line gzip_types) being served

When above lines are present in your configuration, you can altogether disable compression settings from w3 Total Cache as nginx webserver will automatically handle compression for those requests. Not tested though.

Nginx Rewrite Rules for W3 Total Cache Plugin is a post from: WpVeda

WpVeda

Organize Series Plugin for a WordPress blog

Installing the Organize Series Plugin

How does Organize Series work?

Settings for Organize Series Plugin.

Organizing Posts in Series.

Displaying Series on WordPress Blog

Summary

Related posts:

Add custom column to managing posts panel

HttpFox – a helpful Firefox Add-on for Debugging

What does HttpFox do?

How to use HttpFox?

What does HttpFox do that Firebug Cannot?

Installation

Summary

[Solved] Homepage Redirecting to The Latest Page Issue

About the issue…

Temporary Solution

Permanent Solution

Summary

Related posts:

Results: Winner of Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie

Related posts:

How to Create or Find WordPress API Key

Create an account at WordPress.com:

Related posts:

Retweet and Comment to Win Premium WordPress Theme from ThemeJunkie

Related posts:

Akismet: WordPress Spam Comment Detector Plugin

What is Akismet WordPress plugin?

Related posts:

JavaScript/jQuery Snippet to check if a function exists

JavaScript codes to check if function exists

jQuery codes to check if function exists

Related posts:

Nginx Rewrite Rules for W3 Total Cache Plugin

Related posts: