Fat footers are very handy for displaying additional information on your site. On a previous version of this website I used to display the latest blog posts, while on this newer version I opted to display the popular posts. I thought I would share these code snippets here.
Display Recent Blog Post
In your footer.php file, simply use the following code:
In an earlier post, I discussed the handy revision control plugin. Plugins are awesome and I truly have immense respect for plugin developers, but I do find them a bit tedious to maintain and sometimes a bit of an overkill.
I am constantly fiddling and updating over 30+ client sites at a time. If WordPress and plugin updates didn’t come out as frequently, I would be more than happy to load my sites with dozens of plugins, but I do find simpler non-plugin methods more handy.
I recently discovered that post revisions can be disabled or limited simply by adding the following bit of code to the wp_config.php file.
I recently worked with Magnify Digital on a website for a very interesting group of people in the Fraser Valley. These folks are concerned about Air Quality and thus have come up with a website and community to address these issues.
A big part of the website was the social media aspect. Thus facebook, twitter and youtube feature prominently on the website. There are plenty of WordPress plugins that allow you to display your latest tweets, but I wanted a simpler solution. The following piece of code proved to be just what I needed:
<?php
$username = "yourTwitterUsername";
$limit = "1"; // Number of tweets to pull in.
/* These prefixes and suffixes will display before and after the entire block of tweets. */
$prefix = ""; // Prefix - some text you want displayed before all your tweets.
$suffix = ""; // Suffix - some text you want displayed after all your tweets.
$tweetprefix = "<p>"; // Prefix - some text you want displayed before each tweet.
$tweetsuffix = "</p>"; // Suffix - some text you want displayed after each tweet.
$feed = "http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=from:" . $username . "&rpp=" . $limit;
function parse_feed($feed, $prefix, $tweetprefix, $tweetsuffix, $suffix) {
$feed = str_replace("<", "<", $feed);
$feed = str_replace(">", ">", $feed);
$feed = str_replace(""", "\"", $feed);
$feed = str_replace("'", "'", $feed);
$clean = explode("<content type=\"html\">", $feed);
$amount = count($clean) - 1;
echo $prefix;
for ($i = 1; $i <= $amount; $i++) {
$cleaner = explode("</content>", $clean[$i]);
echo $tweetprefix;
echo $cleaner[0];
echo $tweetsuffix;
}
echo $suffix;
}
$twitterFeed = file_get_contents($feed);
parse_feed($twitterFeed, $prefix, $tweetprefix, $tweetsuffix, $suffix);
?>
A few years ago, I was asked to teach how to use WordPress to students enrolled in the Electronic Media Design Program at Langara. The goal was to provide the students with enough knowledge and understanding of WordPress so that they can create an online portfolio.
Download the Basic Theme Files
Once the curriculum in place, my first decision to make was what theme to start with. At the time, WordPress version 2.6 was around and I didn’t particularly want to use the Kubrick theme. I always disliked it and found it too messy. I had built quite a few sites with a now defunct theme, and decided that if I removed all of the unnecessary code and style, this theme would be a great starting point for my class and all of my projects. Thus was born the Basic Blog theme.
This theme has all the functionality of a typical WordPress theme but very little styling. It’s a bare bones theme or a framework for you to work from and has the following following features:
Two column website measuring 960px wide.
Widget enabled.
Sidebar can be positioned on the right or left simply by switching the float direction in the CSS.
Can be used to create a website with blog and static pages or just static pages if no blog is required.
Requires no plugin.
Having gone through 3 intakes of students, I’ve had many opportunities to refine the theme. With the release of WordPress 3.0, I’ve now had to make further updates and the theme now also includes the following:
Custom post thumbnails
Custom menus
Easy jQuery integration
Excess information from header file is removed
Here’s a copy of the Basic Theme for you to download and play with. If you have any suggestions, comments on how it could be improved, please let me know.
I would also like to say thanks to Tzaddi and Catherine for providing their input on this theme and of course to all my EMD students who have thought me so much.
It would be nice if things stayed the same, but they don’t. In fact things like business goals, plans, strategies, constantly need refining and tuning. Over the years I’ve had many opportunities to grow develop and learn new skills. Of course these changes have consequences, one of which is the need for a website refresh.
Today is the launch of Bluelime’s fourth website re-design. I’ve revised and reduced the content to bring clarification of my skills. I’ve also cleaned up the blog. I know that some folks don’t believe in killing blog posts, but I just couldn’t have old, irrelevant info and I must confess, I’m addicted to the delete button.
I also inserted various jQuery elements. I’m not a jQuery ninja and I don’t think that I’ll ever be, but these few elements were easy enough to achieve and are here to showcase what can be done.
I’d like to thank Todd for editing my website content and Kathleen for her visual input.
Hope you like the new look. Let me know what you think.
Some of you might have disagreed with me when I answered No to the question ” Is WordPress a CMS?” I probably should have said Yes AND No…
I’ve been using WordPress for a number of years now. Version 1.2 might have been the first version I worked with. Originally built as a blogging platform, WordPress 1.2 mainly focused on Posts. The ability to display anything but your blog posts on your home page didn’t exist and I’m not even sure Pages were around. When compared to larger CMS built by Oracle, IBM and Microsoft some would argue that WordPress isn’t a CMS mainly because of the lack of approval process. Content types in WordPress are also limited, but WordPress 3.0, due for release anytime soon, is about to change that. Custom post type and menu management will offer us much more flexibility to manipulate content and thus enhance WordPress’s CMS ability. No changes in approval processes are expected for WordPress, but personally I don’t think that there’s a need for this. If this is all that it takes for WordPress to gain the title CMS, then I think it can do without. Organizations and companies looking for sophisticated approval processes usually have many layers of bureaucracy and probably won’t be looking for a free CMS anyway.
Looking back at an older versions of WordPress, it’s interesting to see how the platform and community has evolved. I’m not sure that Matt and the folks at Automattic perceived that one day WordPress would become much more than a blogging platform and be used as a CMS. I can only see great improvements and exciting features when I look at WordPress’s evolution and I won’t be looking at another CMS solution for a long time.
With only a week away from the sold out WordCamp Vancouver, Cameron Cavers, Dave Zille and I have been preparing our slides and questions for our upcoming panel. As you’ve probably heard me say before, WordPress is not only for blogs and we hope to demonstrate what can be achieved during our panel.
Having said that, we’d like to make sure that our presentation meets the audience’s needs. If you have your ticket for WordCamp Vancouver, are interested in learning more about how to use WordPress as a CMS and have a question, please leave a comment below or on the WordCamp blog post.
WordPress and most other blogging platforms allow you to organize your content in one of two ways: Categories and tags. I’ve often been asked about tags and so thought I would write my thoughts down. Personally, I don’t use tags. Here’s why.
Categories are easy to grasp
Sorting out your blog posts is crucial. This simple act alone will tell your readers what your blog is about. I currently have 291 posts organized in 22 categories. Visitors to my site can clearly see what my blog is about simply by scanning the category list. I like to think that these categories are similar to the sections of a book store or library. If you’re looking for the latest Neil Gaiman novel, you’re most likely to go in the Fiction section instead of the cookbooks. The same is true for your blog categories.
Thus when planning your blog, you should think of broad categories that will guide your users towards the content they are seeking.
Tags are too personal
On the other hand, tags aren’t very logical. As Michael Fields pointed out in his excellent article, tags are found on items sold at department stores and on Christmas presents. When applied to blog posts, they don’t make as much sense and are highly personal. Sites such as Delicious and Flickr use tags and I find myself frustrated to see that there is no proper tagging convention.
As a result I find myself only using categories and so far have never had a request asking me where are my tags? Perhaps that’s because my blog is simple and doesn’t have that many articles. A blog with numerous writers or that focuses on many different subjects may benefit from the combination of both tags and categories. In fact a complex blog may also benefit from Custom Taxonomy. Michael Feilds’s article describes how custom taxonomy can be used to organize your blog in new and exciting ways. I highly recommend that you have a look at it and learn about the many ways you can use tags appropriately.
During the 2010 SXSW Interactive Festival designers debated whether or not WordPress is killing web design. The idea is that WordPress and other CMS are constraining designers to think outside the box and turning them into lazy designers. I was quite pleased to hear that no one on the panel agreed with this statement. Brendan Dawes, one of the panel members pointed out that WordPress is simply a tool that manipulates data. Said in another way, Gina Bolton confirmed what I believe, which is that WordPress is highly customizable and can be made to do whatever you want.
One of my latest project consisted of converting a design provided by Mizu Creative into a WordPress site for Paul Sangha. The site included a photo gallery which required jQuery animation, a few different templates, random background images and flash on the home page. I’m very proud of this work, but more importantly, by the fact that it looks nothing like a WordPress site.
I’ve worked with many graphic designers in the past and when asked about constraints, my only suggestions is to keep the width of the canvas to 960px. This constraint is only there to ensure that the site will look good on most browsers, but even this is debatable and will depend on the target audience.
The Paul Sangha website is a great example which demonstrates that designers should not be constrained by the CMS.
Don’t you just hate it when you launch a site, hand it off, get paid and a few weeks later the client says, you know… I think I want to change the templates now. This is not working for me.
My first reaction when I hear this is, “crap, I didn’t do my job properly, how can I fix it“. And the reality is, that without user interaction, it’s often difficult to anticipate what they and the client will want and so this type of feedback should be expected and in fact welcomed.
My last project with Tod Maffin allowed me to learn a great deal from such a request for change.
