Ping Problem?

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Since version 2.7 of WordPress, there have been several issues that Pingbacks in WordPress don't work. WordPress works with it in the request-function (wp-includes/cron.php), not to be confused with the wp-cron.php. There is a time limit of 0:01 seconds set, which is not sufficient under all conditions. It is known and the developers of WordPress have not changed the entry intentionally, with the reference that it runs smoothly under many configurations, see Trac ticket 8923.

This problem in 2.8 continues to be an issue in various installations. Who wants to change the value should set it to 1, and should no longer have problems. All other users can only hope that it will be changed in 2.8.1.

Original code in WordPress 2.8

$cron_url = get_option( 'siteurl' ) . '/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron';
wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array('timeout' => 0.01, 'blocking' => false, 'sslverify' => apply_filters('https_local_ssl_verify', true)) );

after change the value

	
$cron_url = get_option( 'siteurl' ) . '/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron';
wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array('timeout' => 1, 'blocking' => false, 'sslverify' => apply_filters('https_local_ssl_verify', true)) );

Set Meta Links For WordPress Plugins

Posted in:

In the past I explained in the article „How To Improve WordPress Plugins“ , how you can expand Plugins with useful functions and therefore optimize their usage. One of the suggestions was a simple link to the options page of your Plugin.
With WordPress 2.8 the Plugin page will be a little bit different and now there will be a hook, which you can use to enter a link, which is even more convenient.
Continue reading …

Joomla to WordPress – Content Converter!

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

More and more people using WordPress as CMS nowadays and replacing systems like Joomla on their website. Marco from solariz.de provides a handy script to convert your Joomla content to your WordPress installation.

convert-joomla-wordpress

One Click Solution?

No, for sure not. This process is not just click and done. Users, who don't have any experience with PHP shouldn't try it out and rather ask someone who has some knowledge of PHP.

How to use the converter?

First adjust the config.php and upload all files to your webserver.

/*
* Configuration for your Database and stuff
*/

$SQL['HOST'] = "sql.lan";   // Normaly localhost
$SQL['USR'] = "DBUser";
$SQL['PWD'] = "12345678";

// Joomla realted ->
$SQL['JOOMLA_DB'] = "solariz_de"; // Database name of Joomla
$SQL['JOOMLA_PRE'] = "jos_";    // Table Prefix of Joomla Tables

// WordPress realted ->
$SQL['WP_DB'] = "solariz_wp"; // Database name of WordPress
$SQL['WP_PRE'] = "wp_";       // Table Prefix of WordPress Tables

$DEFAULTS['POST_AUTHOR']   = 1; // User ID of target Author (1 usualy admin)
$DEFAULTS['POST_CATEGORY'] = 5; // I suggest to create a category named e.g. Import

The possibilities for adaptation are indicated by the comments. It is important that POST_AUTHOR and POST_CATEGORY ID`s in WordPress exist. So first create a blank WordPress installation. Ideally, without any content so there won't be any conflict. Now create a category and a user and put in their ID`s in the config.php of the converter. For example user ID 1 (usually admin) and a category called "Import" with the ID 5.

The converter finds all the Joomla Article belonging to this category. If you have many categories in Joomla you can limit the using query in index.php to select just certain articles of a specific category, and then you can run the script once for each category.

In index.php at line #46, you can find the responsible query to read the articles:

// WHERE `sectionid`='1'
$query = "SELECT * FROM `".$SQL['JOOMLA_PRE']."content` ORDER BY `created`";

Here you can, as mentioned above, add a WHERE statement to limit the selecting articles.

WordPress uses multiple tables in order to save the entries. In order to avoid a conflict, you should ensure that all articles in the target WP installation are previously deleted.

The Conversion

After you adjust the script to your settings, you can run index.php . If you have any suggestions for a better solution or better code, please leave a comment and Marco will try to implement the improvements.

You can download the Script at the bottom of his German article. Alternativ, but not under maintenance: very simple converter Script helping to migrate Joomla to WordPress

Different Favicons For Backend And Frontend

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Do you have the same problem? We all have a lot tabs open, especially of our own blogs and all tabs look the same, since there is the same favicon for backend and frontend in your tabs. It can be annoying to click around to find the admin tab between all the opened tabs of some posts of your blog. As you can see on this screenshot:

favicon-wpengineer

A little hack in your functions.php of your theme can help you with this problem:

/* Different Favicon for Backend */
function favicon4admin() {
 echo '<link rel="Shortcut Icon" type="image/x-icon" href="' . get_bloginfo('wpurl') . '/wp-content/favicon.ico" />';
}
add_action( 'admin_head', 'favicon4admin' );

In this case we put the admin favicon in our wp-content folder. Done!

favicon-wpengineer2

It can be a little helpful hack for your daily work. Of course, the text in the tabs are different most of the time, but not always, and a different looking favicon is more visible.

An easy tool to create a favicon is available at dynamicdrive

WordPress Proxysupport

Posted in: WordPress Hacks

Who is using WordPress in an intranet environment, will quickly realize, that despite internet connection, no feed content gets loaded in the backend. In general, it's because of the proxy of the company. So far WordPress wasn't particularly flexible in this case. As of WordPress 2.8 that will change and new constants make ensure that you now can enter the proxy directly to wp-config.php.
Continue reading …