WP Engineer » Advent Calendar

New Ideas For 2010? Now It’s Your Turn!

Alex — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:33:35 +0000

We wish all our readers a Happy, Successful and Healthy New Year! We hope you enjoyed WP Engineer 2009 and you will keep reading our blog in the common years! To make WP Engineer more interesting for you, we would like to hear from you, what you like to read on our blog!

2009 past by very fast and the number of our daily visitors grew very fast too, thanks to everyone! For all your comments, ideas, suggestions, criticism and compliments. We greatly enjoyed providing you tips and tricks about WordPress. And we would greatly appreciate if you can provide us with new ideas and suggestions what we could write about in 2010. We like to have a user driven content - unique, new, interesting, helpful and informative posts, which the vast majority of our readers find useful and worth reading. So leave your ideas in our comment area and we will try to accomplish your wishes.

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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24th Door – The WPE Quit Smoking Widget

Michael — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:12:19 +0000

For the last door in our Advent Calendar I had something special in mind. This year is coming to an end and I'm sure some of our readers want to quit smoking next year. To support their goal, I created a WP Engineer Quit Smoking Widget.

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!

WordPress Widget-Areas with Description

Frank — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:12:09 +0000

Using WordPress version 2.9, there is now a possibility that we can write more detailed description for the widget areas. This is especially interesting when you define different widget areas, depending of categories or because the theme author defines various widget areas, that allows adjustments in more areas than just the sidebar. I do this for example in the theme Greyfoto, where the footer area is also equipped with widgets.

In the following example code we define a widget area, called My Lorem Ipsum Sidebar, which contains „detailed“ information.

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' => '',
        'after_widget' => '
',
        'before_title' => '',
        'after_title' => '
',
    ));
}

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' => '',
        'after_widget' => '
',
        'before_title' => '',
        'after_title' => '
',
    ));
 
    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' => '',
        'after_widget' => '
',
        'before_title' => '',
        'after_title' => '
',
    ));
}

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>
        ('footer'); ?>
    </ul>
</div>

About WordPress Post Thumbnail

Frank — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:03:45 +0000

This is a complement to our previous post The Ultimative Guide For the_post_thumbnail In WordPress 2.9. In WordPress Version 2.9 probably the most discussed feature is the post thumbnail. Important for this function, it is only working when it is explicitly enabled in the theme. This can be done with the following little snippet in the functions.php of the theme: add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');.

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.


if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?>
  
     the_post_thumbnail(array(600, 400)); ?>
  
} ?>

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 ' . $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' );

Quick View on WordPress Settings

Frank — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:50:56 +0000

In all versions of WordPress, there is the possibility to view all settings within the admin area of WordPress, but a menu link doesn't exist. The page options.php enables to have a quick look at various options and also allows you to save settings.
However, it must be said, WordPress stores more data in serialized form, which also is a good thing, but those you can no longer edit on this page.

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' );

Optimize Syndication Frequenzy

Frank — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:42:04 +0000

Today a standard becomes 9 years old. But hardly ever noticed: The Syndication-Module 1.4.1 of RDF Site Summary 1.0.

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:

>hourly>
>1>

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.

Guest Post

This post is written by Thomas Scholz - toscho.de and is a post in our Advent Calendar on WP Engineer about WordPress.
Thank you very much from my part to Thomas.
If you also like to have your interesting post published on our website, please let us know on our contact page. Of course we will appreciate your contribution!

Amazed By Such A Great Support And Feedback!

Alex — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:12:36 +0000

Today is our 19th day of our Advent Calendar and we just want to say thank you to our readers, who have given a great feedback to our tips on our Advent Calendar and we have quite a lot more people reading our blog since the start of our calendar, about 30% raise. We also like to thank for the big support of our sponsors, we are especially happy that our spots for ads are sold out for this month!

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.

The Ultimative Guide For the_post_thumbnail In WordPress 2.9

Michael — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:50:48 +0000

WordPress 2.9 RC1 is released and the new post thumbnail function will not change until the final version hopefully.
I was chatting a little bit with Sergej Müller last night and we were trying some things out. We found out the following things:

Edit: Some little changes, see Matt's comment.

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.

Sort Posts With The Help Of Custom Fields

Alex — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:43:33 +0000

Quite often, a WordPress developer likes to have posts sorted according to a custom field. If you would write a SQL-statement, it would be quite complex, since you need to JOIN two database tables (wp_posts und wp_postmeta).

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');

Guest Post

This post is written by Sergej Müller wpseo.org and is a post in our Advent Calendar on WP Engineer about WordPress.
Thank you very much from my part to Sergej.
If you also like to have your interesting post published on our website, please let us know on our contact page. Of course we will appreciate your contribution!

Extend the User Contact Info in WordPress 2.9

Michael — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:19:25 +0000

Joost de Valk wrote about a month ago a really great article about his idea, to expand the user contact fields (thanks Joost!). In version 2.9 you are able to use this possibility. Here a little example, how you can use this functionality.

First you write your own function in your functions.php of your theme.


function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
  // Add Twitter
  $contactmethods['twitter'] = 'Twitter';
  //add Facebook
  $contactmethods['facebook'] = 'Facebook';
 
  return $contactmethods;
}
add_filter('user_contactmethods','my_new_contactmethods',10,1);
?>

This function does nothing more than expand the array $contactmethods with the fields twitter and facebook. The value behind the fields is used as a label for the input fields. You can also remove existing fields, here the field of YAHOO IM:

  // Remove Yahoo IM
  unset($contactmethods['yim']);

This fields can be displayed on the author page.


$current_author = get_userdata(get_query_var('author'));
?>
 echo esc_url($current_author->twitter);?>" title="Twitter"> Follow me on Twitter

Alternatively you can also use the template tag the_author_meta.

the_author_meta('facebook', $current_author->ID)

That's all behind the 16ht door of our Advent Calendar. Have fun expanding your contact fields.

WP Engineer » Advent Calendar

New Ideas For 2010? Now It’s Your Turn!

Related posts:

24th Door – The WPE Quit Smoking Widget

Installation

Download

Related posts:

WordPress Widget-Areas with Description

', 'after_title' => '

', 'after_title' => '

', 'after_title' => '

Related posts:

About WordPress Post Thumbnail

Related posts:

Quick View on WordPress Settings

Related posts:

Optimize Syndication Frequenzy

What is it good for?

Guest Post

Related posts:

Amazed By Such A Great Support And Feedback!

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.

Related posts:

The Ultimative Guide For the_post_thumbnail In WordPress 2.9

Related posts:

Sort Posts With The Help Of Custom Fields

Guest Post

Related posts:

Extend the User Contact Info in WordPress 2.9

Related posts: