It's been quite busy lately in our daily life. Many projects, family and so on, but no worries, new interesting tutorials, news and tips are already in the pipe! Additionally Frank and I were at the CeBIT last week to meet old friends and built new contacts. Frank, second left on the photo, was there to work at the WordPress-Deutschland booth and help to show how powerful WordPress and BuddyPress is. It was pretty cool to see many WordPress interested people, some were Experts and others didn't know anything at all about WordPress. It was a big unknown for them, but they were amazed about the features, possibilities, userfriendly administration and of course - the price. If you work with WordPress quite a long time and you have other WordPress experts around you, it doesn't happen very often to introduce WordPress to completely novices 20 times a day, who didn't have a no clue what they can expect. It was fun to see their dropping jaw and their big surprising eyes. They were hooked immediately!

We also like to thank our supporters on our website, we are still amazed by the great support and like to recommend their services to our loyal readers since they are all WordPress related:

ThemeShift provides one of the most beautiful, powerful and state of the art WordPress Themes available these days. Take a look at them!

WishList Member is a powerful membership script that can turn any WordPress blog into a full blown membership site. Very interesting, you have to check it out. WishList Member belongs to our loyal sponsors, we are very glad to have them and to provide our readers a great membership plugin.

wpSEO is a great Plugin for better SEO on your WordPress installation. Check it out and you will love it as Google will love your blog from now on. Of course we are using it on WP Engineer too. WP 2.9 ready and with over 70 setting to optimize your blog. Now with affiliate program to participate on the success of wpSEO.

MakeBetterWebsites is a great gallery with a fine selection of high quality websites. All websites are handpicked and most of them I have first seen on this website instead of the usual suspects, seen on many other websites over and over again. Only high quality websites are seen on this website.

If you also want to have a great design for your website, just get a PageLines Theme. They have superior themes for WordPress that make it simple for you to have an awesome, fully-featured website that is easy to set up and manage.

WPWebHost have a March special going on, 30% off! They tailor made their servers and configuration for WordPress hosting. Now you can get the best compatibility and maximum performance for every of your WordPress-powered sites hosted with them. One Click WordPress Installation, install new WordPress on your site with just a click of your mouse through their Control Panel.

Download this book to become a Pro in WordPress! 400 Pages of Practical Information. A Lifetime Subscription, when you buy this book, you will instantly get the most current version. But also, you are getting a lifetime subscription to all updated (PDF) copies of the book. And lots of Code Samples!

Freaking affordable but not cheap WordPress themes, nothing can beat that price, only for $5!

If you also interested to support our website, please go to BuySellAds.com and promote your service or product on WP Engineer. Maybe not this month, but maybe next month we have a spot just for you available.

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WordPress 3.0 Background settings

Now you have the option to set positon, repeat and attachment.

WordPress 3.0 Header Image

8 header images are available in the new theme TwentyTen.

WordPress 3.0 Menu Settings

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• Hide The Comment Pagination
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Adjust HTML-Filter

The default editor is set to always generate xHTML 1.0 and thus not all tags are allowed; a classic example are iframes, which you use for Google Map for example. Sure there are other approaches via short code, etc., but this is not the today topic. Merely as an example, allowing the tag iframe, with various attributes, and the Tags must be added to the variable $ext.

function fb_change_mce_options($initArray) {
	// Comma separated string od extendes tags
	// Command separated string of extended elements
	$ext = 'pre[id|name|class|style],iframe[align|longdesc|name|width|height|frameborder|scrolling|marginheight|marginwidth|src]';
 
	if ( isset( $initArray['extended_valid_elements'] ) ) {
		$initArray['extended_valid_elements'] .= ',' . $ext;
	} else {
		$initArray['extended_valid_elements'] = $ext;
	}
	// maybe; set tiny paramter verify_html
	//$initArray['verify_html'] = false;
 
	return $initArray;
}
add_filter('tiny_mce_before_init', 'fb_change_mce_options');

Customizing the function of the buttons in your Editor

A way to expand the block formats (theme_advanced_blockformats) or modify and disable a few buttons in your editor (theme_advanced_disable).

function fb_change_mce_buttons( $initArray ) {
	//@see http://wiki.moxiecode.com/index.php/TinyMCE:Control_reference
	$initArray['theme_advanced_blockformats'] = 'p,address,pre,code,h3,h4,h5,h6';
	$initArray['theme_advanced_disable'] = 'forecolor';
 
	return $initArray;
}
add_filter('tiny_mce_before_init', 'fb_change_mce_buttons');

Change language of spelling

In our third case, we adapt the language of the spelling checker, in our example we will now allow German and English only.

function fb_mce_external_languages($initArray){
	$initArray['spellchecker_languages'] = '+German=de, English=en';
 
	return $initArray;
}
add_filter('tiny_mce_before_init', 'fb_mce_external_languages');

The default values of WordPress

Following the values that are used in the standard of wordpress which gives an insight into the possibilities for the transfer of the array.

'mode' => 'specific_textareas'
'editor_selector' => 'theEditor'
'width' => '100%'
'theme' => 'advanced'
'skin' => 'wp_theme'
'theme_advanced_buttons1' => 'bold,italic,strikethrough,|,bullist,numlist,blockquote,|,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,|,link,unlink,wp_more,|,spellchecker,fullscreen,wp_adv'
'theme_advanced_buttons2' => 'formatselect,underline,justifyfull,forecolor,|,pastetext,pasteword,removeformat,|,media,charmap,|,outdent,indent,|,undo,redo,wp_help'
'theme_advanced_buttons3' => ''
'theme_advanced_buttons4' => ''
'language' => 'de'
'spellchecker_languages' => 'English=en,Danish=da,Dutch=nl,Finnish=fi,French=fr,+German=de,Italian=it,Polish=pl,Portuguese=pt,Spanish=es,Swedish=sv'
'theme_advanced_toolbar_location' => 'top'
'theme_advanced_toolbar_align' => 'left'
'theme_advanced_statusbar_location' => 'bottom'
'theme_advanced_resizing' => true
'theme_advanced_resize_horizontal' => false
'dialog_type' => 'modal'
'relative_urls' => false
'remove_script_host' => false
'convert_urls' => false
'apply_source_formatting' => false
'remove_linebreaks' => true
'gecko_spellcheck' => true
'entities' => '38,amp,60,lt,62,gt'
'accessibility_focus' => true
'tabfocus_elements' => 'major-publishing-actions'
'media_strict' => false
'paste_remove_styles' => true
'paste_remove_spans' => true
'paste_strip_class_attributes' => 'all'
'wpeditimage_disable_captions' => false
'plugins' => 'safari,inlinepopups,spellchecker,paste,wordpress,media,fullscreen,wpeditimage,wpgallery,tabfocus'

Related posts:

• Disable HTML Editor In WordPress
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• New Feature for WordPress 2.9 – WordPress Image Editor
• List All Users in WordPress
• Use Metaboxes In Your Theme Or Plugin

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The above screenshot should illustrate what the little extension does. The following code must be put in a Plugin or be copied into the functions.php of the theme.

if ( !function_exists('fb_AddThumbColumn') && function_exists('add_theme_support') ) {
 
	// for post and page
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails', array( 'post', 'page' ) );
 
	function fb_AddThumbColumn($cols) {
 
		$cols['thumbnail'] = __('Thumbnail');
 
		return $cols;
	}
 
	function fb_AddThumbValue($column_name, $post_id) {
 
			$width = (int) 35;
			$height = (int) 35;
 
			if ( 'thumbnail' == $column_name ) {
				// thumbnail of WP 2.9
				$thumbnail_id = get_post_meta( $post_id, '_thumbnail_id', true );
				// image from gallery
				$attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $post_id, 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image') );
				if ($thumbnail_id)
					$thumb = wp_get_attachment_image( $thumbnail_id, array($width, $height), true );
				elseif ($attachments) {
					foreach ( $attachments as $attachment_id => $attachment ) {
						$thumb = wp_get_attachment_image( $attachment_id, array($width, $height), true );
					}
				}
					if ( isset($thumb) && $thumb ) {
						echo $thumb;
					} else {
						echo __('None');
					}
			}
	}
 
	// for posts
	add_filter( 'manage_posts_columns', 'fb_AddThumbColumn' );
	add_action( 'manage_posts_custom_column', 'fb_AddThumbValue', 10, 2 );
 
	// for pages
	add_filter( 'manage_pages_columns', 'fb_AddThumbColumn' );
	add_action( 'manage_pages_custom_column', 'fb_AddThumbValue', 10, 2 );
}

Related posts:

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• About WordPress Post Thumbnail
• The Ultimative Guide For the_post_thumbnail In WordPress 2.9
• WordPress 2.9 add_theme_support and has_post_image
• Display Always All Subpages in Sidebar

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After Justin had been playing with these types, we check out the possibilities of types for "Movies".

Simple Solution

function post_type_movies() {
	register_post_type( 'movies',
                array( 'label' => __('Movies'), 'public' => true, 'show_ui' => true ) );
	register_taxonomy_for_object_type('post_tag', 'movies');
}
add_action('init', 'post_type_movies');

More parameters for meta-boxes

Of course there are a number of parameters for this function and so the behavior and appearance of the corresponding edit page can be controlled quite easily, a small sample with additional meta boxes:

function post_type_movies() {
	register_post_type(
                     'movies', 
                     array('label' => __('Movies'), 
                             'public' => true, 
                             'show_ui' => true,
                             'supports' => array(
                                        'post-thumbnails',
                                        'excerpts',
                                        'trackbacks',
                                        'custom-fields',
                                        'comments',
                                        'revisions')
                                ) 
                      );
	register_taxonomy_for_object_type('post_tag', 'movies');
}
add_action('init', 'post_type_movies');

The default arguments

// Args prefixed with an underscore are reserved for internal use.
$defaults = array(
    'label' => false,
    'publicly_queryable' => null,
    'exclude_from_search' => null,
    '_builtin' => false,
    '_edit_link' => 'post.php?post=%d',
    'capability_type' => 'post',
    'hierarchical' => false,
    'public' => false,
    'rewrite' => true,
    'query_var' => true,
    'supports' => array(),
    'register_meta_box_cb' => null,
    'taxonomies' => array(),
    'show_ui' => null
);

• label - A descriptive name for the post type marked for translation. Defaults to $post_type
• public - Whether posts of this type should be shown in the admin UI. Defaults to false
• exclude_from_search - Whether to exclude posts with this post type from search results. Defaults to true if the type is not public, false if the type is public
• publicly_queryable - Whether post_type queries can be performed from the front page. Defaults to whatever public is set as
• show_ui - Whether to generate a default UI for managing this post type. Defaults to true if the type is public, false if the type is not public
• inherit_type - The post type from which to inherit the edit link and capability type. Defaults to none
• capability_type - The post type to use for checking read, edit, and delete capabilities. Defaults to "post"
• edit_cap - The capability that controls editing a particular object of this post type. Defaults to "edit_$capability_type" (edit_post)
• edit_type_cap - The capability that controls editing objects of this post type as a class. Defaults to "edit_ . $capability_type . s" (edit_posts)
• edit_others_cap - The capability that controls editing objects of this post type that are owned by other users. Defaults to "edit_others_ . $capability_type . s" (edit_others_posts)
• edit_others_cap - The capability that controls publishing objects of this post type. Defaults to "publish_ . $capability_type . s" (publish_posts)
• read_cap - The capability that controls reading a particular object of this post type. Defaults to "read_$capability_type" (read_post)
• delete_cap - The capability that controls deleting a particular object of this post type. Defaults to "delete_$capability_type" (delete_post)
• hierarchical - Whether the post type is hierarchical. Defaults to false
• supports - An alias for calling add_post_type_support() directly. See add_post_type_support() for Documentation. Defaults to none
• register_meta_box_cb - Provide a callback function that will be called when setting up the meta boxes for the edit form. Do remove_meta_box() and add_meta_box() calls in the callback
• taxonomies - An array of taxonomy identifiers that will be registered for the post type. Default is no taxonomies. Taxonomies can be registered later with register_taxonomy() or register_taxonomy_for_object_type()

Including Custom Taxonomies

In the following example we include in our Post-Type a Taxonomy with two possibilities; own Tags and categories for Post-Type Movies, the classical tag, without hierarchy and one as category, tag with hierarchies.

function post_type_movies() {
	register_post_type(
                'movies', 
                array(
                        'label' => __('Movies'),
                        'public' => true,
                        'show_ui' => true,
                        'supports' => array(
                                     'post-thumbnails',
                                     'excerpts',
                                     'trackbacks',
                                     'custom-fields',
                                     'comments',
                                     'revisions')
                )
        );
 
	register_taxonomy( 'actor', 'movies', array( 'hierarchical' => true, 'label' => __('Actor') ) ); 
 
        register_taxonomy( 'production', 'movies',
		array(
                         'hierarchical' => false,
			 'label' => __('Production'),
			 'query_var' => 'production',
			 'rewrite' => array('slug' => 'production' )
		)
	);
}
add_action('init', 'post_type_movies');

Definitely a very interesting and useful feature which provides many possibilities to play around with.

Related posts:

• Custom Fields in your Feed
• WordPress 3.0 Custom Background Support
• Sort Posts With The Help Of Custom Fields
• Create Your Own WordPress Login Design
• Numbering your comments, pingbacks, trackbacks or all

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add_custom_background();

After that, there is in your backend under Appearance the menu Custom Background available.

After uploading an image, you have the option to activate "Tile the background" and delete the background image.

Here the result with the new Theme Twenty Ten.

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• Sort Posts With The Help Of Custom Fields
• New Screenshots Of WordPress 3.0
• Display Private Posts to Logged in Users

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You can adjust and expand the options as you like. A good overview is the wp-admin/options.php.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Toscho's basic settings
Plugin URI: http://toscho.de/2010/wordpress-grundeinstellungen-per-plugin-setzen/
Description: Some useful default configuration settings. See 'wp-admin/options.php' for more options.
Version: 0.2
Author: Thomas Scholz
Author URI: http://toscho.de
*/
 
function set_toscho_defaults()
{
    $o = array(
        'avatar_default'            => 'blank',
        'avatar_rating'             => 'G',
        'category_base'             => '/thema',
        'comment_max_links'         => 0,
        'comments_per_page'         => 0,
        'date_format'               => 'd.m.Y',
        'default_ping_status'       => 'closed',
        'default_post_edit_rows'    => 30,
        'links_updated_date_format' => 'j. F Y, H:i',
        'permalink_structure'       => '/%year%/%postname%/',
        'rss_language'              => 'de',
        'timezone_string'           => 'Etc/GMT-1',
        'use_smilies'               => 0,
    );
 
    foreach ( $o as $k => $v )
    {
        update_option($k, $v);
    }
 
    // Delete dummy post and comment.
    wp_delete_post(1, TRUE);
    wp_delete_comment(1);
 
    return;
}
register_activation_hook(__FILE__, 'set_toscho_defaults');
?>

Here you can download the Plugin by toscho.

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• Quick View on WordPress Settings
• Set options on activation Themes

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Now you can create a author-michael.php or author-123.php, which will be called via the WordPress Template Hierarchy in connection to the author with user_nicename michael or ID 123. Basically the same funtionality as we known for categories.

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// onyl css, when post has a gallery
function gallery_stylesheet($posts) {
	if ( empty($posts) )
		return $posts;
 
	$found = false;
 
	foreach ($posts as $post) {
		if ( stripos($post->post_content, '[gallery') )
			$found = true;
			break;
		}
 
	if ($found)
		wp_enqueue_style( 'gallery-stylesheet', get_bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') . '/gallery.css', false, false, 'screen' );
 
	return $posts;
}
add_action('the_posts', 'gallery_stylesheet');

You can also use this to load scripts,

// onyl js, when post has a gallery
function my_script($posts) {
	if ( empty($posts) )
		return $posts;
 
	$found = false;
 
	foreach ($posts as $post) {
		if ( stripos($post->post_content, '[my-script) )
			$found = true;
			break;
		}
 
	if ($found)
		wp_enqueue_script( 'my-script', get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/js/my_script.js', false, false, true );
 
	return $posts;
}
add_action('the_posts', 'my_script');

For more information, to include JavaScript and CSS files, there is another post about this topic.

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• Create Your Own WordPress Login Design
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• Pages & Subpages – Is Parent?

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This makes it easy to realize a forward even in the backend of WordPress. Two different examples will illustrate this. The difference lies in the query of the URL, which will be checked.

/**
 * Redirects to another page, with a workaround for the IIS Set-Cookie bug.
 *
 * @link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q176113/
 * @since 1.5.1
 * @uses apply_filters() Calls 'wp_redirect' hook on $location and $status.
 *
 * @param string $location The path to redirect to
 * @param int $status Status code to use
 * @return bool False if $location is not set
 */
function wp_redirect($location, $status = 302)

In our first example, we use the content of the variable $pagenow, which always contains the page name and so allows a clean check. In both functions, the function admin_url() is queried, because that is only since version 2.6 in the core of WordPress. Depending on the version, you can save this query and also there are other functions of this kind, which facilitate the setting of the address, see this Post.

function fb_redirect_1() {
	global $pagenow;
 
	if ( 'plugins.php' === $pagenow ) {
		if ( function_exists('admin_url') ) {
			wp_redirect( admin_url('edit-comments.php') );
		} else {
			wp_redirect( get_option('siteurl') . '/wp-admin/' . 'edit-comments.php' );
		}
	}
}
if ( is_admin() )
	add_action( 'admin_menu', 'fb_redirect_1' );

The second option is a little different and checks on the URL to the global variable $ _SERVER and thereby the key REQUEST_URI. This is useful for example when querying the dashboard in the admin area, because this is not always given back with a value of $pagenow, means you reach the Dashbaord partly via index.php, or directly via wp-admin/.

function fb_redirect_2() {
 
	if ( preg_match('#wp-admin/?(index.php)?$#', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) ) { 
		if ( function_exists('admin_url') ) {
			wp_redirect( admin_url('edit-comments.php') );
		} else {
			wp_redirect( get_option('siteurl') . '/wp-admin/' . 'edit-comments.php' );
		}
	}
}
if ( is_admin() )
	add_action( 'admin_menu', 'fb_redirect_2' );

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• WordPress 2.8 Insights, The Favorite Actions
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• WordPress 2.8 body_class, automatic_feed_links

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Since WordPress 3.0 is still in development, there might be many changes until the final release.

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But there are users who do not need this tab and like to deactivate it globally. Therefore, I have a solution, how you can disable it in your editor.
Alternatively, you can use the Plugin Adminimize, which offers such a possibility per role, just put it in the settings.

Since there is no hook or an option, you have to hide the area via CSS. This has the disadvantage that, while the tab is no longer visible, but if the cookie or a Plugin says to enable HTML, the editor has a problem showing us either the two editor tabs simultaneously, or no buttons. You need to explicitly set the editor.

In our first step we hide via CSS the tab and the buttons of the HTML editor. This stylesheet must be loaded in the admin, while you can go several ways: either you write it in the header (Hook admin_head) or load an external css via function wp_enqueue_style().

#editor-toolbar #edButtonHTML, #quicktags {
       display: none;
}

The better way is you hide the tab via JavaScript and load this on the Hook admin_footer.

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
       $("#edButtonHTML").remove();
});

In a further step you must set the default editor, therefore you can use a hook and function, which sets the default to the value tinymce.

function my_default_editor() {
	$r = 'tinymce'; // html or tinymce
	return $r;
}
add_filter( 'wp_default_editor', 'my_default_editor' );

Alternatively, a snippet for the implementation in Plugins or Themes.

add_filter( 'wp_default_editor', create_function('', 'return "tinymce";') );

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• Disable Flash Uploader

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You all probably know what happened in Haiti, we just don't want to stand on the sidelines without doing anything. We want HELP!

Micha, Frank and I will spend 50 Euros each. Also Frank added his complete donations in 2009 (almost 150 Euros), he got from users for his Plugins plus he adds the same amount from his private account. And he started a fund-raising campaign on his German blog today, which brought in 200 Euros so far. So we have 650 Euros in total. We know, it's not much, but maybe with your help, we can get even more for our donation account. We would greatly appreciate your donation to help the people in Haiti.

Just transfer, whatever amount you like, to the account below and we will make sure it will go to the people in need!

The victims will be very thankful for every penny and we will show our appreciation with a list of the ten highest private donations and 10 highest donations from our sponsors or other businesses in a coming post. If you are a private person or a company, we will mention your name or company on a coming post next week! Of course, only if you want to.

Please let us be proud of the WordPress community and join us to help!

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WordPress provides the jQuery library. The calling of all the necessary files and scripts will take place within the template, which takes care to output the contact form. This call we'll do with the functions of WordPress - so we make sure that the files really are loaded only once. WordPress takes care of the correct order and of the dependencies.

First we create a template, I call it contact-page.php and it must be stored in the folder of your themes. This includes calling the necessary scripts and the associated stylesheets. Basically, you only need these four calls to store in the page.php of your theme, assign a new name for the file and put a comment to get recognized by WordPress (at the beginning the file). The following describes the syntax of the example of page.php in the default theme Kubrick.

<?php
/**
 * Template Name: Contact Page
 *
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Default_Theme
 */
 
wp_enqueue_script( 'jquery.contactable', get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/contactable/jquery.contactable.js', array('jquery') , 3.1, true );
wp_enqueue_script( 'jquery.validate', get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/contactable/jquery.validate.pack.js', array('jquery') , 3.1, true );
wp_enqueue_script( 'my_contactable', get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/contactable/my_contactable.js', array('jquery') , 3.1, true );
wp_enqueue_style( 'contactable', get_bloginfo('template_directory') . '/contactable/contactable.css' );
 
get_header(); ?>
 
    <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn" role="main">
 
        <div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
        <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
 
            <div class="entry">
                <?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;</p>'); ?>
 
                <div id="mycontactform"> </div>
 
            </div>
        </div>
 
    </div>
 
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
 
<?php get_footer(); ?>

As you can see in the syntax, I have saved all files of the jQuery Form Plugnis in the folder contactable in the folder of the theme. Therefore, your paths may have to be adjusted. Right now it looks like this in my theme:

• default
  • contactable
    • jquery.contactable.js
    • jquery.validate.pack.jss
    • my.contactable.js
    • contactable.css
  • style.css
  • contact-page.php
  • ...

I only added the file my.contactable.js; this takes care to call the form and can be filled with parameters. Their content is as follows:

jQuery(document).ready( function($){
    $('#mycontactform').contactable({
        name: 'Name',
        email: 'E-Mail',
        message : 'Message',
        recipient: 'example@domain.com',
        subject: 'Contact Form',
        recievedMsg : 'Thanks for your message.'
    });
});

If all files are stored and are adapted to your needs, then you only need to create a page in the admin area of WordPress. Give the page a name, if you want fill it with content and select a template - in our case the Contact Page. After saving the page, you should view it in the front end and click on the small label and the form will appear and can be filled out.

Through the call with the help of WordPress functions and the right parameters, the scripts are now integrated in the footer of the site. The jQuery library will not be called, it will be added by WordPress if it is not there yet, by the dependence of the parameters for the key jquery. By using a template with all calls, all the scripts and stylesheets are only involved if the page is called by WordPress. If you want the form snippets on all sides, you can insert the call in the header.php or functions.php.

You do not want to use this feature, then either don't use that CSS, or add your own design or you can fit the JS to your own needs. The same applies for additional fields in the form, this must be adapted to the content of the files.

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• Easy Way For Advertisement In WordPress
• Identify Authors With Gravatars
• Customize Your WordPress-Feeds
• Change the WordPress Message
• Disable WordPress Feed

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Hey WP Engineer folks!

I have a little issue I'm trying to resolve on CSS-Tricks, regarding comments. In my discussion settings, I have it set to automatically turn off comments on everything after one-month. However, on certain things, specifically the snippets pages which all share a common page template, I want the comments to be left on forever.
This seems like the job for some fancy functions.php work that you guys are the masters at

Ok Chris, here is our solution (copy the code in your functions.php and change the $cat values):

/**
 * Close comments on an old post.  Hooked to comments_open and pings_open.
 * small modifications on the default functions of WordPress
 *
 * @param bool $open Comments open or closed
 * @param int $post_id Post ID
 * @param int $cat Category ID (cat_ID), set '' or empty for all categories
 * @param int $days_old Days to close comments, set '' for use value from settings
 * @return bool $open
 */
function wpe_close_comments_for_old_post( $open, $post_id, $cat = array(1, 4), $days_old = '' ) {
	if ( !$open )
		return $open;
 
	if ( in_category($cat) )
		return $open;
 
	if ( '' === $days_old )
		$days_old = (int) get_option('close_comments_days_old');
 
	if ( !$days_old )
		return $open;
 
	$post = get_post($post_id);
 
	if ( time() - strtotime( $post->post_date_gmt ) > ( $days_old * 24 * 60 * 60 ) )
		return false;
 
	return $open;
}
add_filter( 'comments_open', 'wpe_close_comments_for_old_post', 10, 2 );
add_filter( 'pings_open',    'wpe_close_comments_for_old_post', 10, 2 );

Thanks Chris for your idea and please send us an email if you also have a nice idea how we could make WordPress even better.

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• Exclude Subcategories in a Loop
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• Quick Tipps For WordPress Query
• Related Posts on Category
• New Category Templates in WordPress 2.9

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In this article I want to show an example in which are the main pages in a horizontal navigation. The related sub-pages are displayed in the sidebar when you click on the main page.

For better understanding we take the following page structure:

• Home
• Software
  • Image Editor
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • Gimp
  • Content Managment Systems
    • WordPress
    • Drupal
    • Joomla
• Hardware
• About us

The pages Home, Software, Hardware and About us are in the horizontal navigation. When the user clicks on Software, for example, all the subpages of Software should be shown in the sidebar.

WordPress provides for such a task the template tag wp_list_pages() with several parameters. Since we don't want to display all pages, only the parameter child_of is interesting for our purpose. The parameter child_of followed by an ID lists all subpages of the current page, if there exist subpages.

<?php wp_list_pages('child_of='.get_the_ID().'&title_li=<h5>'.__('Pages').'</h5>'); ?>

Now we come to the real problem. If you click on Content Management Systems in the sidebar, only the pages WordPress, Drupal and Joomla will be displayed. The Parent Pages are gone. Logically, since it displays only the children of the current page, which is Content Management Systems. But we always like to have to top page displayed too. Fortunately there is a function get_post_ancestors, which returns all parent pages in an array. Try the following:

<?php
$my_page = get_the_ID();
$anchestors = get_post_ancestors($my_page);
var_dump($anchestors);
 
// click on Software
array(0) { }
 
// click on Content Management Systems
array(1) { [0]=>  string(2) "63" }
// 63 is the ID of Software
 
// click on WordPress
array(2) { [0]=>  string(2) "65" [1]=>  string(2) "63" }
// 65 iis the ID of WordPress
?>

This would go on forever, even in more deeply nested hierarchy. Important for us are 2 things: the top page is always at the end of the array and it can return an empty array. So we just go to the end of the array and for the case that there is no parent page, we display all the subpages of this page. We write a function in our functions.php because it is easier to maintain, and may also be used in several sidebars:

function wpe_highest_ancestor(){
    global $post;
 
    $ancestors = array($post->ancestors);
    $page_ancestors = end( $ancestors );
    if ( !empty($page_ancestors) ) {
        $child_of = $page_ancestors;
    } else {
        $child_of = $post->ID;
    }
 
    return $child_of;
}

Now we use this function in our sidebar:

<ul class="sidebar">
  <?php wp_list_pages('child_of=' . wpe_highest_ancestor()); ?>
</ul>

If you want to have the name of the top-level page in the sidebar, you can use the following code:

<ul class="sidebar">
  <?php
  $child_of = wpe_highest_ancestor();
  wp_list_pages('child_of='.$child_of.'&title_li=<h5>'.esc_attr(get_the_title($child_of)).'</h5>');
  ?>
</ul>

As you can see, it is relatively easy to achieve appropriate solutions with WordPress.

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• Support WPEngineer!
• WordPress Widget-Areas with Description
• Quick Tipps For WordPress Query

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We also like to thank our sponsors and guest authors, if you like to be one of them, please contact us and we will get in touch with you. Also thanks to everyone that our Advent Calendar was a huge success! Without the help of our readers, guest authors and sponsors we wouldn 't have had such a success with it!

We wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Alex - Frank - Micha

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• WordPress Admin UI Ideas
• Use WordPress 2.7 Offline

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Here a screenshot of all setting possibilities:

And this is how it would look like on your blog:

Even though, this idea seemed to be easy to realize. It was a piece of work. I don't want you to be bored, so I'm not explaining the whole code, but I just want go in detail on some details, what I had to consider to make this Widget workable.

I check the date if it's valid ( 2009/02/30 doesn't exist). Then I had to avoid division by zero, if the Widget is active but doesn't include any values yet. For the correct formatting of the saved money depending on the language I used the Wordpress function number_format_i18n:

$saved = number_format_i18n($packs * $price, 2);

Unfortunately, there is no feature in WordPress, which displays the currencies correctly (but I guess, this is probably not necessary). Therefore, I added a field "Currency position" with the values "before" and "after", so that the currency will be displayed properly, depending on the country. The year field automatically displays the current year minus 5 years, so that the widget is also current in 100 years.
The rest are fields for entering the text output before and after values.

Installation

Unzip file wpe_quit_smoking_widget.zip and copy it to wp-content/plugins/ , then activate it in your backend. After that the Widget will be available in your Widgets area.

Please Note: The Widget needs WordPress Version 2.8 or higher, otherwise it won't be displayed.

Download

Download WPEngineer Quit Smoking Widget

Have fun with the Widget and good luck with your goal to stop smoking! The team of WP Engineer wish you all Happy Holidays!

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• Deactivate WordPress Default Widgets

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if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
    register_sidebar(array(
        'name' => 'My Lorem Ipsum Sidebar',
        'description' => __('Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.', 'your_textdomain'),
        'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget' => '</li>',
        'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ));
}

A more comprehensive example with two widget areas, one area for the sidebar and an area for the footer.

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {
    register_sidebar(array(
        'id' => 'sidebar',
        'name' => 'My Lorem Ipsum Sidebar',
        'description' => __('Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.', 'your_textdomain'),
        'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget' => '</li>',
        'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ));
 
    register_sidebar(array(
        'id' => 'footer',
        'name' => 'My Lorem Ipsum Footer',
        'description' => __('Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.', 'your_textdomain'),
        'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget' => '</li>',
        'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ));
}

This may be used as follows in the templates, it's being used in the footer.php of the widget area My Lorem Ipsum Footer.

<div id="footer">
    <ul>
        <?php dynamic_sidebar('footer'); ?>
    </ul>
</div>

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• Advent Calendar – 24 Days Tips And Tricks Each Day! Today: WordPress Comment Form Widget
• Build A WordPress 2.8 Widget With The New Widget API
• WordPress 2.8 Widgets Options Page – First Screenshot!
• Add WordPress Dashboard Widgets

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But even with this feature you should check for the existence of the function and offer an alternative. Only then you can leave the user the freedom to choose which WordPress version he wants to use. The functions of extensions, plugins and themes should be checked for their existence, then the functionality of the theme is secured, even if a function is not available. Similarly should it be handled with post thumbnail.

I would like to show two suggestions for alternatives below, and I refer to the detailed article about the topic images in Easier And Better Solutions To Get Pictures On Your Posts.

After adding the following syntax in the functions.php of the themes, you have a Metabox in the posting or page area ready and can easily be used.

if ( function_exists('add_theme_support') )
  add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');

The output of the image is in the theme at the spot where it should appear, simply use the template tag: the_post_thumbnail().

if ( current_theme_supports( 'post-thumbnails' ) )
  the_post_thumbnail(array(300,200));

Important, if you work with additional markup, then you need a query, which checks, whether there is a thumbnail for the post. Otherwise, you have unnecessary markup, which has no content.

<?php
if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?>
  <span class="my_image">
    <?php the_post_thumbnail(array(600, 400)); ?>
  </span>
} ?>

To have an alternative for installations prior to WP 2.9, you can take different approaches. The two following examples are providing just ideas: either using the custom fields, field name is post-image ...

if ( function_exists('has_post_thumbnail') && has_post_thumbnail() ) {
  the_post_thumbnail(); // @param: array(height, width)
} else {
  $myimage = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'post-image', true); // via custom field
  if ($myimage) {
    echo '<img class="wp-post-image" src="' . $postimage . '" alt="Post Iage" />';
  }
}

... or in the example below, the first image from the photo library. You can find more about it in a separate post.

if ( function_exists('has_post_thumbnail') && has_post_thumbnail() ) {
  the_post_thumbnail(); // @param: array(height, width)
} else {
  // via mediathek
  $attachments = get_children( array(
                  'post_parent'    => get_the_ID(),
                  'post_type'      => 'attachment',
                  'numberposts'    => 1, // show all -1
                  'post_status'    => 'inherit',
                  'post_mime_type' => 'image',
                  'order'          => 'ASC',
                  'orderby'        => 'menu_order ASC'
                  ) );
  foreach ( $attachments as $attachment_id => $attachment ) {
    echo wp_get_attachment_image( $attachment_id );
  }
}

Check if the theme support the function:

if ( current_theme_supports( 'post-thumbnails' ) ) {
  ...

In addition, you can check whether the theme supports the function and explicit use for posts (post) or pages (page). Very interesting, if you want to bring additional features in the post edit section of the back end, which is dependent on this feature within the theme:

if ( current_theme_supports( 'post-thumbnails', 'page' ) ) {
  add_meta_box( ...

In this context, you can also integrate external files with new features.

require_if_theme_supports( 'post-thumbnails', ABSPATH . WPINC . '/my-post-thumbnail-function.php' );

Related posts:

• New feature in WordPress 2.9 – the_post_image()
• Display Post Thumbnail Also In Edit Post and Page Overview
• The Ultimative Guide For the_post_thumbnail In WordPress 2.9
• WordPress 2.9 add_theme_support and has_post_image
• Sticky Function in WordPress 2.7

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Nonetheless, certainly worth a look and now and then a help to quickly look into the settings of the blog. Alternatively, the plugin WP Developer Assistant can help here, because it also allows a glimpse into the serialized data.

Example-URL: http://example.com/wp-admin/options.php

Alternatively you can also add a menu link. Add the following snippet in to the functions.php of your theme or create a Plugin.

function all_settings_page() {
	add_options_page( __( 'All Settings' ), __( 'All Settings' ), 'administrator', 'options.php' );
}
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'all_settings_page' );

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What is it good for?

Apparently some of you publishing posts less than 10 times per day. Shame on you ... not!
WordPress, however, assumes that you can not even stop, so write it in the RSS feed:

<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>

In plain English: Every feed reader should check once an hour, if you finally wrote something again.

Anyone who wants to relieve his server from such a thing, can change that. In the functions.php you write this two lines:

add_filter( 'rss_update_period',    create_function( '', 'return "daily";' ) );
add_filter( 'rss_update_frequency', create_function( '', 'return 4;' ) );

A few feed reader keep it by that but other don't. But even if there is only one: You've saved a few resources that you can use somewhere else.

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• Set Meta Links For WordPress Plugins
• Amazed By Such A Great Support And Feedback!

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We are glad that our readers like our posts on WP Engineer and our sponsors recognizing the value of being displayed on WP Engineer. Just to get to know our sponsors a little bit better, we will introduce them shortly. We hope that you find the services and offers of our sponsors interesting and useful. All of them are WordPress or Design related, I guess a good fit for our readers:

WishList Member is a powerful membership script that can turn any WordPress blog into a full blown membership site. Very interesting, you have to check it out. WishList Member belongs to our loyal sponsors, we are very glad to have them and to provide our readers a great membership plugin.

wpSEO is a great Plugin for better SEO on your WordPress installation. Check it out and you will love it as Google will love your blog from now on. Of course we are using it on WP Engineer too. WP 2.9 ready and with over 70 setting to optimize your blog.

MakeBetterWebsites is a great gallery with a fine selection of high quality websites. All websites are handpicked and most of them I have first seen on this website instead of the usual suspects, seen on many other websites over and over again. Only high quality websites are seen on this website.

If you also want to have a great design for your website, just get a PageLines Theme. They have superior themes for WordPress that make it simple for you to have an awesome, fully-featured website that is easy to set up and manage.

Originally wpseek.com was built as some kind of gateway for the little Firefox plugin "WordPress Helper" to handle all kinds of search requests.

You can add wpseek.com as a search engine in your favorite browser. Look at the upper right of your browser.

Do you still need something for Christmas or it's too late for shipping or you even want to make yourself a great gift? Download this book, a great handbook to become a Pro in WordPress! 400 Pages of Practical Information. A Lifetime Subscription, when you buy this book, you will instantly get the most current version. But also, you are getting a lifetime subscription to all updated (PDF) copies of the book. And lots of Code Samples!

Here you'll find some of the most beautiful, powerful and state of the art WordPress Themes available these days. Their premium themes are very easy to install, edit and customize. They assist you in their support forums and provide several tutorials to get you started.

If you also interested to support our website, please go to BuySellAds.com and promote your service or product on WP Engineer. Maybe not this month, but maybe next month we have a spot just for you available.

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You can provide 4 picture formats to the function (change the width and height values to your need):

// the thumbnail 
the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100)); 
 
// medium resolution
the_post_thumbnail(array(300,200));
 
// large resolution
the_post_thumbnail(array(600, 400));
 
// original
the_post_thumbnail();

You can set how the images should align. It is also possible to assign an own class:

//  left align
the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100), array('class' => 'alignleft'));
 
//  right align
the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100), array('class' => 'alignright'));
 
//  center
the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100), array('class' => 'aligncenter'));
 
// align right and the class  'my_own_class'
the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100), array('class' => 'alignright my_own_class'));

The 3rd possibility is the control of the images size with an array of height and width:
For this purpose we suppose that the settings for thumbnail is 150x150, for medium 300x200 and for large 600x400.

// thumbnail scaled to 60x60 pixel
the_post_thumbnail(array(60,60), array('class' => 'alignleft')); 
 
// original thumbnail
the_post_thumbnail(array(150,150), array('class' => 'alignleft'));
 
// medium resolution scaled to 200x133 pixel
the_post_thumbnail(array(200,200), array('class' => 'alignleft'));
 
// large resolution scaled to 400x266 Pixel
the_post_thumbnail(array(400,345), array('class' => 'alignleft'));

We see that the image proportions are always maintained, even if one specifies crooked values.

For the Theme Designers is this not necessarily easier, because no one knows what the user will put in his settings o his library. One way to approach this problem, to query the options for the various sizes:

// width of the thumbnails
get_option('thumbnail_size_w');
 
//  height of the thumbnails
get_option('thumbnail_size_h');
 
//  height of the medium resolution
get_option('medium_size_h');
 
//  width of the large resolution
get_option('large_size_w');
 
//  1 = Crop thumbnail to exact dimensions, 0 = Crop off
get_option('thumbnail_crop')

You can change these values in your theme.

$w = get_option('thumbnail_size_w') / 2;
$h = get_option('thumbnail_size_h') /2;
 
the_post_thumbnail(array($w, $h), array('class' => 'alignleft'));

Here another example: If the size of a thumbnail is bigger than 100x100 and crop is activated, then the thumbnail should be resized to 100x100, otherwise use the original thumbnail.

if(get_option('thumbnail_size_w') > 100 && get_option('thumbnail_crop') == 1) {
    the_post_thumbnail(array(100,100));
}else{
    the_post_thumbnail('thumbnail');
}

Have fun with post thumbnails! But be aware, that each post thumbnail requires 2 data base queries. On a page with 10 posts that would be 20 more queries.

Related posts:

• About WordPress Post Thumbnail
• How To Start Blogging?

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But there is a much easier way, if you use the template tags provided by WordPress - in our case we use the function query_posts. Below you can see an example, which includes a custom field in the query, and also sort the posts with the help of this custom field. A short, easy to understand code with effective result:

query_posts('meta_key=my_day&meta_compare=<=&meta_value=20&orderby=meta_value&order=DESC');

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