Blogging Pointers

Have you found a plugin you just have to have? Don’t know how to install it? Great news WordPress has made this a very easy task for us to complete.

After downloading the plugin you will want to upload it to your server. For this I use fireFTP for the FireFox web browser. A quick search of Google will return many other choices for FTP programs. Ftp or “file transfer protocol�? programs simply transfer the selected files from your personal computer to your web server and vise versa.

Using your ftp program upload all of the files and folders included with the download to your wp-content/plugins folder on your server. Be sure to keep the structure of your downloads the same so you don’t cause problems with the functioning of the plugin.

After finishing your upload open up the WordPress administration panel yoursite.com/wp-admin and click on the Plugins option from the top menu. Scroll down to the newly installed plugin and activate it. You should now be ready to go.

Most WordPress Plugins come with some sort of options or help page that can usually be found under the Options tab in Admin. panel. Alternatively, make sure to check out the read me file typically included with the download. The authors website is also a good place to look for support or difficulties with a selected plugin. Happy Blogging!!!

wordpress plugins, wordpress, tutorials, installing plugins

Would you like to add an affiliate link or maybe a link to your other website from your sidebar navigation within your WordPress blog. This tutorial is going to teach you just that, so follow along and you will soon be blogging freely.

Step 1

Open up your Wordpress Administration panel, usually found at (http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/).

Step 2

Go to Presentation/theme editor and open up the sidebar.php file. You should now be looking at the file that contains the php for your themes sidebar.

Step 3

Scroll down until you find the menu section in which you would like to place the link. For instance if you are placing the link under Categories, you should be able to find a snippet of code that has something like:

<h2>Categories</h2>

On the theme I am using for reference it looks like this:

<h2>Categories </h2>
<ul class=�?menublock�?>
<?php list_cats(0, �?, ‘name’, ‘asc’, �?, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0,�?,�?,�?,�?,�?) ?>
</ul>

Most themes I have seen do have the sidebar items set in an “uncategorized list�? or <ul> as this example is. If I wanted to add my personal link to this code I could simply (more…)

Many people are looking to add a horizontal navigation bar to the top of their WordPress blog pages. These nav bars can be very helpful in displaying important information site wide. I will mention that the installation will vary from theme to theme, but with this tutorial you should be able to get your navigation up and running.

Step 1

Open up your Wordpress admin panel and travel to Presentation/Theme and click on your desired theme for this project.

Step 2

Next go to Presentation/theme editor and open up your header.php file. Scroll to the bottom of this file and add:

<div id=�?navigation�?>
<ul id=�?nav�?>
<li><a href=�?<?php echo get_settings(’home’); ?>/�? title=�?Home: <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?>�?>Home</a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages(’sort_column=menu_order&title_li=’); ?>
</div>

If you would like to add a link to your RSS feeds you can add this:

<li><a href=�?<?php bloginfo(’rss2_url’); ?>�?>RSS</a></li></ul>

And if you don’t wish to show the sites pages but instead say outside links, you would remove: (more…)

One of the coolest perks of using WordPress for your blog is the limitless customization options. The one major option at your fingertips are themes (or templates) that can instantly change the look and feel of your entire blog. WordPress themes are widely available free of charge under the GNU License and come in all sorts of styles, colors and topics.

Where do you find WordPress Themes?

When starting your search for the perfect WordPress theme, keep in mind what your plans are. If you are interested in creating your own look, you don’t need to focus as much on appearance as you should the overall layout. You can always change the appearance. If you are still a little uncomfortable with jumping into the CSS and PHP, find a nice design that fits your subject and slowly make changes as you learn.

The first place I go when looking for a WordPress theme is the Theme Viewer. Here you will find so many different possibilities for the overall (more…)

A question I have often heard come up, is how do you add an image to your WordPress post. WordPress version 2.1.3 has made this task pretty easy for us. Images can really dress up a post quite nicely or they can be used to help convey a message if you are writing a tutorial for example.

We should start by choosing an image that you wish to use. The next step is to start the post. Lets open up your Wordpress admin. panel and go to Write - Write Post and you should be looking at a blank post entry. I usually start by filling in the post title and then write the actual post itself. From here we have a couple of options:

1. Use an image already stored on your server. If you are going with this option you can place your cursor where you would like your image to be inserted and click the “insert/edit image�? icon at the top of your WordPress editor(it has the picture of a little tree). A window should open up with your available options:

(more…)

Most, if not all, WordPress themes have a simple “h1″ text link in the header with a background image corresponding to the theme, (shown in picture). If you are like me this will just not do. I feel that placing your own logo for not only branding purposes, but design as well, is a crucial starting point when building your own blog. Many visitors view your logo as a representation of the site because it is often times the first thing they will notice when entering your page. This aids in the branding of your site across the web, every time someone sees this logo.

In this short tutorial I am going to show you how to remove the default text link and change the current background image to include your own custom logo. For the process of creating your own logo, you will most likely want one of the many graphics programs available. I personally use Photoshop cs2, however this is a pretty expensive program. Gimp and Paint.Net are both great open source(free) image editing programs that are very popular among many users. Now on to the tutorial.

1) Lets start by opening your WordPress administration panel and going to Presentation - Theme editor - Header, you should now be looking at the code for the header.php file. Just under the <body> tag you should see <div id=�?header�?> and below this there should be a call to the blog info. This should look something like:

<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?>
<?php bloginfo(’description’); ?>

Removing these two snippets of code will remove the default text links in your themes header to clean it up a little.

2) Now with that out of the way, we are going to begin adding your own logo. Lets open Presentation - Theme editor - Stylesheet and you should be looking at your style.css file. Once you have this open scroll down and (more…)

I have been asked several times how to add a background image to your WordPress post. Well it is actually not very difficult and if used correctly it can add a great deal of style to your blog.1) We are going to start by opening up your WordPress admin. panel and going to Presentation - Theme editor - Single Post, you should now be looking at the single.php file. Scroll down on this page until you find:

<?php the_content; ?>

Wrap this in a div tag like this:

<div id=�?post_bg�?><?php the_content; ?></div>

2) Now lets go to Presentation - Theme editor - Stylesheet and add:

#post_bg {
background: url(’images/post_bg.gif’) no-repeat;
}

Make sure that the background url is pointing to the destination of your background image. If you have a small image and would like to display it lets say on the right side of the post, you can use:

#post_bg {
background: url(’images/post_bg.gif’) no-repeat;
align: right;
}

Instead of post_bg you can name this anything you like as long as it remains the same across all pages.

3) Alternatively, if you would also like to display this background on the posts shown on your blogs homepage, you can (more…)

Do you know that many people haven’t even looked at their WordPress blogs registration or login pages. There are way to many bloggers that use a theme at face value, in other words the what you see is what you get syndrome. My advice, if you are going to build your own blog make it unique to you and don’t stop designing at the home page, take your designs site wide. With this in mind, lets go so far as to customize our very own Wordpress login page. After all, at some point in time your readers are likely to see it.

Before we start this tutorial, we need to locate and download two files from your server.
<ul>
<li>/wp-login.php</li>

<li>/wp-admin/wp-admin.css</li> </ul>

In a text editor, such as Notepad, open your wp-login.php file. Scroll down the page or do a search and find the reference to WordPress, should be just under the <body> tag, such as:

<h1><a href=�?<?php echo apply_filters(’login_headerurl’, ‘http://wordpress.org/’); ?>�? title=�?<?php echo apply_filters(’login_headertitle’, __(’Powered by WordPress’)); ?>�?><span class=�?hide�?><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></span></a></h1>

and change it to:

<h1><a href=�?<?php echo apply_filters(’login_headerurl’, ‘http://www.cssforwordpress.com’); ?>�? title=�?<?php echo apply_filters(’login_headertitle’, __(’CSS for WordPress’)); ?>�?><span class=�?hide�?><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></span></a></h1>

Make sure you change the site url and title to your own, unless you don’t mind sending me some extra traffic. You can now save and upload this file to your server. Next, open up the wp-admin.css file in your text editor and scroll down to #login, which should look something like this:

#login {
position: relative;
background: url(’images/login-bkg-tile.gif’) no-repeat top center;
color: #fff;
margin: 5em auto 1em;
padding: 20px 0 0;
width: 425px;
_width: 390px;
}

#login form {
background: url(’images/login-bkg-bottom.gif’) no-repeat bottom center;
padding: 0 50px 25px;
_width: 325px;
_margin: 0 auto;
}

#login #login_error {
background: #0e3350;
border: 1px solid #2571ab;
color: #ebcd4e;
font-size: 11px;
font-weight: bold;
padding: .6em;
width: 310px;
margin: 0 50px;
text-align: center;
}

This is where you can add or change (more…)