Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> WordPress’ Template File Hierarchy Explained

Whilst doing some client work recently I needed to display a slightly different archive for each category. The solution, I thought, was to throw if statements (ie if is category archive for ‘Cheese’ then use, else if is ‘Bananas’ use this etc etc) at the category.php file. The trouble was, after doing this twice, it became clear that it was getting very quickly impractical.

This left me rather stumped, and after a bit of pondering, I thought the only solution was to create a load of pages and use custom page templates. Turns out I was wrong. WordPress, of course, has a better solution, as I found out the other day…

When WordPress loads any page, it looks at the theme files and if there is a file for the specific page that is loading, it uses that. If there isn’t, it will look for the next template file down the hierarchy. This is the WordPress template file hierarchy. I’ll run through all the hierarchies later, but going back to my little problem, it turns out the hierarchy for category archives is category-id.php, category.php, archive.php then index.php. This means I’ve got a solution! By creating a separate page for each category id, I can have my slightly different code without throwing if statements all over the place! Good ‘ol WordPress. Always got a smart answer!

I digress. Here are the template hierarhies:

Homepage

home.php, index.php

Single Post

single.php, index.php

Pages

(page templates), page.php, index.php

Category archive

category-id.php, category.php, archive.php, index.php

Author archive

author.php, archive.php, index.php

Date archive

date.php, archive.php, index.php

Tag archive

tag-slug.php, tag.php, archive.php, index.php

Search

search.php, index.php

404

404.php, index.php

After writing this, I found the codex has a great diagram:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy

It’s amazing all the little features WordPress has that you just didn’t know about! Any awesome tips you’ve got? Why not share said tips with the world by leaving a comment below.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> WordPress’ Template File Hierarchy Explained

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> 10 Ways To Improve Your WordPress Blog’s SEO

Some argue that SEO, or search engine optimization is a whole load of tosh, and whilst they may have a point to an extent, there are a couple of easy things you can do that should improve your blog’s SEO. That said, take everything with a pinch of salt; don’t implement these features and elect to shoot up search rankings. From my time blogging, the only thing I’ve found really helps is getting backlinks from large blogs. Anyway. Let’s get to it: to easy methods to improve your WordPress blog’s SEO.

1. Write brilliant content

Let’s get this clear before we move on – there is simply no better way to improve your search engine ranking than writing great content. Simple as that. SEO is not a substitute for writing brilliant stuff.

2. Leave worthwhile comments

An increasing number of blogs are DoFollow, which means search engines see the link as a backlink (which is obviously good). With that in mind, if you read something that you find interesting, then leave a comment and potentially it’ll have a benefit to your ranking. However, (regular readers will know what is coming!) under no circumstances should you leave a comment that says anything like: “thanks. I try out on my new blog. BIG BLOG LINK”.

I don’t know if there are ten commandments in blogging, but that should be one of them; if you are going to leave a comment then make it worthwhile! Offer something constructive; perhaps your own thoughts or tips on the subject. By all means say thanks, but make sure that that is not all you say.

3. Make “blogging friends”

One of the things I love about WordPress is the community. It’s not been too long since I “joined”, but it is immediately noticeable how willing people are to help, offer tips etc etc. However, one of the things I have found really valuable is help from other WordPress bloggers; I’m an author on WPHacks, and Kyle’s help has been simply brilliant – his advice has been priceless, and from an SEO perspective, having WPHacks linking to my site has undoubtedly helped.

The tip here: go guest posting! Find the biggest site In your niche and go and write for it! Not only will you get a backlink, but you might even gain some more visits out of it!

4. Use Header tags correctly within posts

So far we’ve focused more on tips that you can’t really apply directly into your blog, but here is one you can do straight away: use Header tags and use them correctly. If your post has seperate headings (like this one!) then tag them appropriately. Below is a guide to how you should head things up:

H1 – this tells Google this is the most important thing on the whole page. For that reason, it should contain post titles, not your blog’s title. The following code will do the trick:

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

H2 – this is the second most important content on the page, so should be used for sub-headings (as they are being used in this post). You can set headings by clicking on ‘Paragraph’ in the visual editor (as shown in the image).

Using header tags correctly to increase WordPress SEO

H3 – use for sub sub headings and sidebar elements

H4 – sub sub sub headings and perhaps go this low for sidebar elements.

5. Create a sitemap

Sitemaps tell search engines: here is my content. By giving search engines your content, it gets indexed and you get visits. Or something like that. The point is that sitemaps are an essential part of a blog’s SEO strategy and there is no excuse for not having one. Thankfully for WordPress users, you can easily create a sitemap with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin! Install it, set it up and tell Google where your new sitemap is. Done.

6. Use a search engine friendly title tag

Don’t underestmate the importance of a good title tag. Making sure your title matches the content of your post accurately is highly important; when people are searching, if you’ve got a great post on the subject but your title is about your cat then it won’t be found! The code below is an SEO’d title tag that you can copy straight into your current theme:

><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | <?php bloginfo('description'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_search() ) { ?>Search Results for <?php /* Search Count */ $allsearch = &new WP_Query("s=$s&showposts=-1"); $key = wp_specialchars($s, 1); $count = $allsearch->post_count; _e(''); echo $key; _e(' &mdash; '); echo $count . ' '; _e('articles'); wp_reset_query(); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_404() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | 404 Nothing Found<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_author() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Author Archives<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?><?php wp_title(''); ?> | <?php
$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->cat_name;
?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_page() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | <?php
$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->cat_name;  ?>|<?php wp_title(''); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_category() ) { ?><?php single_cat_title(); ?> | <?php $category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->category_description; ?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_month() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Archive | <?php the_time('F, Y'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_day() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Archive | <?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if (function_exists('is_tag')) { if ( is_tag() ) { ?><?php single_tag_title("", true); } } ?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?>
</title>

(via ProBlogDesign)

As if that weren’t enough, the next tip will let you customize your title tag even further…

7. Don’t use SEO plugins, use single post meta boxes!

An increasing number of themes are coming with options for adding meta data, changing the title etc etc. The good news is they’re really easy to implement yourself, as I explain in this post (complete with something you can download, copy and paste into your own theme yourself!). What it does is create a box on your post writing page which you can fill out and when saved, you’ll create a number of custom fields with the values of what you typed in. Read the full tutorial on creating in post meta boxes here.

Investing in seo services is one area that is often overlooked by larger companies.

8. Use alt tag on images

Without an alt tag, search engines can’t tell what a certain image is. Again, WordPress users have got it easy; they can just fill out the description when they upload an image and hey presto. It’s an easy thing to do, so make sure you do it!

9. Super SEO for your comments

With thousands of WordPress plugins available, it is very easy to think to yourself “Do I need this plugin that does something I could very easily implement myslef”. Why you shouldn’t use as many plugins as you can find is a post for another day, but for now take my word for it; it’s a bad idea to install a lot of plugins. However, there are some situations where you’re allowed to use a plugin. This is one of them. The SEO Super Comments plugin dynamically generates pages for all your comments, making them indexable by search engines. Now you can rank higher for “Hi. Great post. Thanks. [big link]!”

10. Use “Pretty Permalinks”

The final tip for today is use Pretty Permalinks! Under the settings tab in the WordPress backend, click ‘Permalinks’. You’ve then got a number of options, but I’d suggest you use a ‘Custom Structure’ and have either /category/post-name/ or /post-name/. The code below will do either:

<!-- for /category/postname/-->
/%category%/%postname%/

<!-- or for /postname/-->
/%postname%/

So there we are. Ten tips to improve your blog’s SEO. Now go and reap the rewards!

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> 10 Ways To Improve Your WordPress Blog’s SEO

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Make A Widget Ready Footer In WordPress

One of my favourite features of both Biblioteca and WPShout has to be the footer. With three columns and being widget ready, it’s pretty awesome!

How do you create something like this? It’s actually pretty simple. First, you need to create the boxes with some CSS. I’m sure I’m doing this really inefficiently, but hey nevermind. Do it this way and it’s easier later on to replace a box with a widened other box.

.footerinside {
	width:292px;
	padding:10px;
	float:left;
	margin:10px 10px 10px 0;
	background:#fff;
	height:460px;
}
.footerinside p {
	font-style:italic;
	color:#555;
	font-size:80%;
}
.footerinside li {
	margin-left:20px;
	padding:5px 0;
	list-style:square;
	}

.footerinsideright {
	width:292px;
	padding:10px;
	float:right;
	margin:10px 0 10px 0;
	background:#fff;
	height:460px;
}

.footerinsideright p {
	font-style:italic;
	color:#555;
	font-size:80%;
}
.footerinsideright li {
	margin-left:20px;
	padding:5px 0;
	list-style:square;
	}

Next, open up your footer.php file and add the following:

 <div class="footerinside">
		<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Footer Left') ) : ?>
		<h3>Widgetised area</h3>
		<p>This is a widgetised area. To fill it with 'stuff', use the Footer Left widget</p>
		<?php endif; ?>
	</div><!-- end footer left -->

	<div class="footerinside">
		<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Footer Center') ) : ?>
			<h3>Best of <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></h3>
			<p><b>The best of <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></b> - the most commented posts.</p>
		<p>This is a widgetised area. To fill it with 'stuff', use the Footer Center widget</p>

		<?php endif; ?>
	</div><!-- end footer central -->

	<div class="footerinsideright">
		<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Footer Right') ) : ?>
		<h3>Widgetised area</h3>
		<p>This is a widgetised area. To fill it with 'stuff', use the Footer Right widget</p>
		<?php endif; ?>
	</div><!-- end footer right -->

What we’ve just added are three widget ready areas to our footer. You’ll need to activate these widget ready areas using the functions.php file, as we discussed last week:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Footer Left',
	    'before_widget' => '',
        'after_widget' => '',
        'before_title' => '<h3>',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

	if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Footer Center',
        'before_title' => '<h3>',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

	if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Footer Right',
        'before_title' => '<h3>',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));	

And with that, we’re done! You’ve now added to your WordPress theme an awesome three column footer which is widget ready! Any questions, feel free to leave a comment. And want a theme with this built in? Check out Biblioteca.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Make A Widget Ready Footer In WordPress

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over.

I know I’m being controversial, but that’s kinda the point of this article; to create some discussion!

A couple of weeks ago I launched my second WordPress theme, Biblioteca. The response has been. Erm. A little flat. Question is why? The answer, I believe is because it’s becoming nigh on impossible for someone who isn’t one of the “big premium theme developers” to release a theme successfully any more. Let me expand.

There was a time when releasing a theme was great. It’d get a good bunch of attention from the whole WordPress community and you’d do well out of it. Then something changed. Everyone thought I could do that! And suddenly WordPress themes came pouring out into the wild. For the average user, it was great – they could just Google “WordPress Themes” and come up with thousands upon thousands of themes to choose from.

After that, something else changed too. Premium themes took off like a rocket (and a large one at that) as theme developers realised hey, I could make a theme… and then instead of giving it away, sell it! With sites such as Themeforest, it was so easy for just anyone to create and sell themes. So anyone did just that. They sold their themes. Some were more successful than others and very quickly certain leaders in the market emerged – for no particular apparent reason – and these leaders struggled to stay ahead, introducing the GPL licence onto their themes and creating affiliate programmes that splattered banners on a ton a blogs. If you want to get ccsp or network+ certification the our security+ training is right solution for you.

These leaders then consolidated themselves and haven’t really looked back since. Well, they did so a couple of times to rasp at the competition. But that was an exception.

But these days you’ll still often find free themes about although these themes will be often used to promote other premium themes. Sites such as, this one releasing free themes in an attempt to contribute to the community – it just doesn’t happen so much any more. For good reason too – the themes just go unnoticed and unloved. Unless they’re released by one of the “big developers” that is. Jeff from WPTavern on the topic:

I have to agree. Over the past two years of being involved in WordPress,  it’s been hard to find themes which come out of nowhere that are free which blow my mind in terms of doing something innovative. Instead, the innovation has been tied to either established commercial theme authors or new commercial theme businesses. I see the same names over and over again when it comes to themes. Perhaps I’m not looking in the right places for the free, inspiring innovation. I do keep an eye on the WeblogToolsCollection.com theme release posts which is the source for new theme releases and unfortunately, most of those themes seem to be on the same level as two years ago in terms of design, functionality, etc.

Taking a look at the big picture, I don’t see anyone routinely reviewing themes that are on the WordPress.org theme repository. Instead, I see sites writing blog posts announcing when one of these commercial theme authors releases a new theme along with affiliate links to that commercial theme business. This makes up a large percentage of the coverage that is presented to theme authors. The only way to change that is for someone who is dedicated to pointing out free, quality themes that don’t have a vested interest in any particular commercial theme business. Good luck finding that.

The future? It’s not looking good. The reason people made free themes was because they wanted to promote their blog. But that promotion just isn’t going to happen any more. So why bother? I believe some themes would do better if they were released as premium themes. And that’s not going to change. Free WordPress themes? Forget it. It’s over.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over.

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> 10 WordPress Plugins That Every WordPress Blog Needs

I’ve never been a fan of plugins that do a job you could quite easily do yourself. For example, why use the All in One SEO Pack when you can have your own meta boxes (maybe not the best example…)? And why use a silly Analytics plugin when it’s perfectly easy to open up your footer and paste the code?! I must stop before I rant any more. However, recently I’ve been one over by some plugins that do a job you couldn’t easily do yourself and really add to the overall WordPress experience. In this post are 10 WordPress Plugins that every WordPress blog needs.

1. WordPress Database Backup

Perhaps the most important plugin you’ll ever come across, WordPress Database Backup offers you the invaluable opportunity to backup your database automatically and regularly – as the above pic shows, you can schedule backups to an email address of your choice – set it and forget it. Until you find you’ve lost your database, that is. At which point you should promptly find it.

2. Subscribe to Comments

Subscribe to Comments adds a little box to the end of your comments form giving users the option to be notified by email when more comments get added. It’s a simple but effective way to increase reader involvement and keep those readers coming back and back.

3. SEO Super Comments

SEO Super Comments, as the plugin’s page says:

Since now [I think it's meant to say up to now] all comments normally drain page rank even when nofollowed (bad for your site) the whole idea of using them to generate links back to your site instead and get free indexable content along the way, looks just much more appealing.

Basically, it takes all the comments on your blog and makes a dynamically generated page for them, so that the contents of the comment get indexed by search engines and so create you get additional content. Pretty cool, no?

4. CommentLuv

The final comment plugin that every WordPress blog needs is CommentLuv. See that little bit at the bottom of the image above? That’s CommentLuv. The plugin’s page again:

Comments are a wonderful thing to receive on your blog, with CommentLuv for WordPress and WordPress MU you can give something back to your community straight away by including a titled link for their last blog post or tweet on the end of their comment.

Basically, it’s just a link back to the comment author’s latest post, and that’s pretty much it. Simple, but an effective way of giving your readers something in return for a comment.

5. Akismet

Akismet is the spam stopping plugin. It comes bundled with WordPress, but even so, many users don’t use it. Install it and forget it; Akismet is a brilliant spam-stopping plugin that is essential for any blog that doesn’t want to end up choked with spam.

6. WP Super Cache

Super Cache is a really brilliant plugin that generates static .html pages for WordPress, thus reducing the server load and making your pages load faster when you hit the frontpage of Delicious, Digg or the like.

The image above is a screen of Laughing Squid’s stats – over 200,000 hits in a single day, and the site stayed up, thanks to Super Cache.

7. Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps is a neat plugin that generates a Google, Ask, Yahoo and Bing compliant sitemap for your WordPress blog. Without a sitemap, a search engine doesn’t necessarily know that your content exists. With a sitemap, it, well, does. The plugin is really easy to use with a number of options that present you with a number of options. With the plugin installed, don’t forget to set up your sitemap with Google Webmaster Tools.

8. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (or YARRP for short) is a really brilliant plugin that generates related posts based on a number of  different factors (below).

From the plugin’s page:

An advanced and versatile algorithm: Using a customizable algorithm considering post titles, content, tags, and categories, YARPP calculates a “match score” for each pair of posts on your blog. You choose the threshold limit for relevance and you get more related posts if there are more related posts and less if there are less.

9. WP Security Scan

WP Security Scan is another great plugin. It ‘scans’ your WordPress install for potential vulnerabilities and fixes them/flags them up! Whilst it doesn’t cover all bases, not to any extent, it is worth having, just to check for those obvious vulnerabilities. Security Scan checks the following:

• passwords
• file permissions
• database security
• version hiding
• WordPress admin protection/security

10. RSS Footer

RSS Footer is the final plugin that evey WordPress blog needs. At it’s most basic, it adds ‘Post from: [site name]‘ to the bottom of your RSS feed, but if you’re clever, you’ve made yourself social media links to show to your most loyal readers: your RSS feed readers. Clever, eh? The plugin has an extensive options page that allows you

And finally

There we are. Ten WordPress plugins that every blog needs. Make sure you subscribe by RSS to find out which WordPress plugins every blog doesn’t need!

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> 10 WordPress Plugins That Every WordPress Blog Needs

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Add Your Own Gravatar To WordPress

This is quite a useful tip that lets you add your own gravatar to your WordPress blog/theme/site. For example, here on WPShout, if the user doesn’t have a Gravatar then the following gets displayed:

This tip applies especially to magazine themes, where the standard ‘bloggy look’ is something that designers try and get as far away as possible from.

It’s super easy to do – upload the your gravatar image you want (to be displayed when people don’t have an avatar) to /your-theme/images/, having resized it to 100×100 pixels. Then, open up your functions.php file and add the following code (changing the gravatar’s filename if necessary):

<php if ( !function_exists('fb_addgravatar') ) {
function fb_addgravatar( $avatar_defaults ) {
$myavatar = get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/gravatar.jpg';
//default avatar     $avatar_defaults[$myavatar] = 'Exciting new gravtar';
return $avatar_defaults;
}
add_filter( 'avatar_defaults', 'fb_addgravatar' ); } ?>

And you’re done.

Code via WPWebHost.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Add Your Own Gravatar To WordPress

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Handy WordPress Code Snippets

There are certain snippets of WordPress code that you seem to end up using over and over again. In this post are ten great snippets that will make coding that bit easier.

1. List pages and categories in a drop down menu, excluding certain categories and limit the number of sub categories

This snippet will output categories in an unordered list, ordered by ID, categories limited to three levels deep and you can exclude certain categories by ID, separated with a comma.

<ul> <?php wp_list_categories('orderby=ID&order=ASC&depth=3&title_li=&exclude='); ?> </ul> 

Source – Codex For example, say I wanted to have a depth of 2 and exclude categories 12 and 13, I’d do so like this:

<ul> <?php wp_list_categories('orderby=ID&order=ASC&depth=2&title_li=&exclude=12,13'); ?> </ul>

If I’d prefer to list pages then simply change wp_list_categories to wp_list_pages.

2. Display the most popular posts, based on number of comments

A quick and easy plugin-less way to display a blog’s most popular posts is displayed below and can easily be integrated into any theme.

<ul> <?php $result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count,ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , 5"); foreach ($result as $post) { setup_postdata($post); $postid = $post->ID; $title = $post->post_title; $commentcount = $post->comment_count; if ($commentcount != 0) { ?> <li><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($postid); ?>" title="<?php echo $title ?>"> <?php echo $title ?></a> {<?php echo $commentcount ?>}</li> <?php } } ?> </ul>

ProBlogDesign link

3. Display the latest sticky posts

A must for any ‘Magazine’ theme; sticky posts are becoming a replacement for the infamous and annoying ‘featured’ category. With the code below, you can display the latest sticky posts.

<?php /* Get all sticky posts */ $sticky = get_option( 'sticky_posts' ); /* Sort the stickies with the newest ones at the top */ rsort( $sticky ); /* Get the 2 newest stickies (change 2 for a different number) */ $sticky = array_slice( $sticky, 0, 2 ); /* Query sticky posts */ query_posts( array( 'post__in' => $sticky, 'caller_get_posts' => 1 ) ); ?>

Justin Tadlock link

4. Display meta information, including author, tags, number of comments and date published

Meta information is one of those things that every theme needs, but is just another little annoyance that needs sorting. The code below will display “Published by author on date, with x comments and tagged: tags.

Published by <?php the_author(); ?> on <?php the_time('n/d/y'); ?>, with <?php comments_number('no', 'one', '%'); ?> comments and tagged: <?php the_tags(); ?> 

5. Create a widgetised area with instructions on how to make use of it if no widgets are in use

I’m a big fan on making everything as easy as possible for the end user and one of the best ways to do this in WordPress is by widgetsing everything. However, the aforementioned end user might not quite realise how many widget areas you’ve popped into your theme – with the code below you can widgetise an area and then display a message instructing the end user how to make use of these widget areas if no widgets are in place.

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Widget Area') ) : ?> <h3>Widgetised area</h3> <p>This is a widgetised area. To fill it with 'stuff', use the “Widget Area” widget</p> <?php endif; ?>

You’ll also need the following code in your functions.php file:

<?php if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) register_sidebar(array( 'name' => 'Widget Area', 'before_widget' => 'you might want a <div class...> here', 'after_widget' => 'and a closing </div> here', 'before_title' => 'you might want a <h3> or <h4> here', 'after_title' => 'and </h3> or </h4> here', )); ?>

6.  Show breadcrumbs of Home / Post Category / Title

Breadcrumbs are great ways of showing your readers other posts in the same category, and you can display a breadcrumb of Home / Category / Title with the code below:

<?php bloginfo(‘home’); ?> / <?php the_category(); ?> / <?php the_title(); ?> 

7. Display (valid) social media links in a table

A great trick to add to your single.php file – a plugin-less way to have social media links at the bottom of posts. This trick requires you to have some social media icons, which you can find in abundance by Googling. Upload these icons to /your-theme/images/, naming them ‘socialmediasitename.png’ (ie delicious.png, reddit.png). The code below will probably look best after the content on your single posts. You’ll need to change the Twitter link to include your Twitter username.

<table border="0"> <tr> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://delicious.com/post?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&amp;title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($id)); ?>" title="Bookmark this post at Delicious"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/delicious.png" alt="Share on Delicious" /></a></td> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Submit this post to Digg"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/digg.png" alt="Share on Digg!" /></a></td> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&amp;title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($id)); ?>" title="Share this post on Reddit"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/reddit.png" alt="Share on Reddit!" /></a></td> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds2.feedburner.com/nometech" title="Subscribe by RSS"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/rss.png" alt="Subscribe by RSS!" /></a></td> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&amp;title=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($id)); ?>" title="Share this post at StumbleUpon"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/stumbleupon.png" alt="Share on StumbleUpon!" /></a></td> <td><a rel="nofollow" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=<?php echo urlencode("RT @AlexDenning: "); ?><?php the_title(); ?> --> <?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Share this article with your Twitter followers"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/twitter.png" alt="Share on Twitter!" /></a></td> </tr> </table>

8. Include jQuery the right way

This is a tip that has been doing the rounds recently but still very few people actually do it! The code below will include WordPress’ own copy of jQuery:

<?php wp_enqueue_script("jquery"); ?> Must be before wp_head. 

Source – Digging into WordPress

9. Give the <body> tag class of type of page, post/page ID and category

This is a great snippet that comes from the Thematic framework and needs to go into your functions.php file. What it does is add a class with the type of page, post/page ID, category etc etc. You’ll need the following in the functions.php file:

<?php // Generates semantic classes for BODY element function thematic_body_class( $print = true ) { global $wp_query, $current_user; // It's surely a WordPress blog, right? $c = array('wordpress'); // Applies the time- and date-based classes (below) to BODY element thematic_date_classes( time(), $c ); // Generic semantic classes for what type of content is displayed is_front_page() ? $c[] = 'home' : null; // For the front page, if set is_home() ? $c[] = 'blog' : null; // For the blog posts page, if set is_archive() ? $c[] = 'archive' : null; is_date() ? $c[] = 'date' : null; is_search() ? $c[] = 'search' : null; is_paged() ? $c[] = 'paged' : null; is_attachment() ? $c[] = 'attachment' : null; is_404() ? $c[] = 'four04' : null; // CSS does not allow a digit as first character // Special classes for BODY element when a singular post if ( is_singular() ) { $c[] = 'singular'; } else { $c[] = 'not-singular'; }

Download the whole snippet here And then replace

<body> 

with

<body class="<?php bodystyle(); ?>" > 

in the header file. With that done, you’re ready to rock.

10. Use custom fields to display images (and resize them with timthumb), with an alternate image if no images exist.

This is one of my favourite snippets that I use on a regular basis, even here on WPShout – it lets you set a custom field, ‘Image’ which then gets resized with timthumb (which you need to have uploaded to /yourtheme/scripts/) and displayed as a thumbnail on your archive pages/homepage. There’s an added twist though; if the custom field ‘Image’ isn’t found then an alternate image gets displayed. The code snippet below will do all of that:

<?php $postimageurl = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Image', true); if ($postimageurl) { ?> <img src="<?php bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?> /scripts/timthumb.php?src=<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, "Image", true); ?>&h=250&w=250&zc=1" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /> <?php } else { ?> <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/noimage.jpg" alt="No image available" /> <?php } ?>

Wrapping up

So there we have it. Ten code snippets that you might not have otherwise thought about using that you can easily insert into your theme. Not only are they easy to insert, but they’ll also take your WordPress themes to that lucrative next level. As always, any questions, points arising etc etc from this post, feel free to leave a comment and if you enjoyed this post, why not follow me on Twitter or subscribe by RSS?!

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Handy WordPress Code Snippets

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Using Tags Effectively in WordPress

Tags are a great way of associating the same type of content together, and they’re something that many bloggers use regularly, but using them effectively? That’s what this post will tell you how to do.

Using the same tags

Tags only really work if you use the same tags over and over again. For example, if you wrote a post about cheese, you might tag it ‘Cheese’. Write a second post about cheese, tag it ‘Cheeses’ and the tags become useless. Bascially, you must tag similar posts with the same tag.

Putting this in real terms: on my other site, Nometet.com, each post gets tagged with the game it is related to:

And as you can see, you’re left with a rather nice tag cloud. Had some games been tagged ‘Assassin’s Creed’ whilst others ‘Assassins Creed’, you wouldn’t get the same look. Heck, it’d look like the one here on WPShout!

Implementing the tags

Within the loop

With tags made, you’ve now got a number of options for implementing the tags. Used within the loop, you can display tags with the template tag

 <?php the_tags( $before, $separator, $after ); ?>

Obviously, this is going to output the current post’s tags, with options for text before, between and after. Say you wanted to have ‘Tagged: tag 1, tag 2, tag 3.’ You’d need the code:

<?php the_tags('Tagged: ',', ','.'); ?>

With all the commas that looks slightly unclear, but look at it this way and it’s a bit clearer: each section is in quotation marks ‘ ‘ , with a comma ‘,’ between the sections.

Outside the loop

Outside of the loop, you can display a rather lovely tag cloud. The good news is that it’s really easy to do. The easiest way is through widgets: if your theme is widgetised, under Widgets you can drag and drop the tag cloud widget, give it a title and save it. You’ll then have a nice tag cloud. Simple.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a WordPress development blog if we just left it with widgets! Lets achieve the same thing with the template tag:

<?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?>

Of course, by using a template tag, you’ve got the added advantage of being able to customise – as the codex shows, the tag has a ton of options:

smallest – The smallest tag (lowest count) is shown at size 8
largest – The largest tag (highest count) is shown at size 22
unit – Describes ‘pt’ (point) as the font-size unit for the smallest and largest values
number – Displays at most 45 tags
format – Displays the tags in flat (separated by whitespace) style
orderby – Order the tags by name
order – Sort the tags in ASCENDING fashion
exclude – Exclude no tags
include – Include all tags
link – view
taxonomy – Use post tags for basis of cloud
echo – echo the results

The ones that we’re interested in are ‘smallest’ and ‘largest’ – they let you choose the minimum and maximum number of entries a tag must have in order to be displayed. Say I wanted a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 10, I’d need the following:

<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=2&largest=10'); ?>

Concluding

And with that, we’re done. Hopefully you’ve not got a solid understanding of how tags work and how you can implement them effectively into your WordPress theme.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Using Tags Effectively in WordPress

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> The Perfect Widget Ready WordPress Theme

After releasing my own WordPress theme, Biblioteca, it’s become apparent to me that these days theme users don’t really want to touch the theme files at all. They’d much prefer a comprehensive theme options page. One of the ways you can make your theme further customisable is with widgets. Widgets allow users to add parts to a theme, which is why they’re a good way to add customisability to your theme. As the codex shows, there are a heck of a lot of widgets available!

Most WordPress themes will have something widgetised, but most of the time it’s just the sidebar, and at most it’ll be a single area. Theme developers! Listen up! It’s really easy to widgetise, as we’re going to explore today:

The anatomy of a WordPress widget

When creating a widget ready area, you’ll first need to open up your funtions.php file and add the following code:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Main Sidebar',
        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

As you can see, you’ve got a number of options. First is the ‘name’. Each widget area should have a different name that relates to where it is located. After that, ‘before’ and ‘after’ widget. This gets added, obviously, before and after the widget, and here we’ve added an opening div with the class ‘widget’. The final two options are ‘before’ and ‘after’ title. Again, obviously, these get displayed before and after the widget title. Here we’ve applied an h3 tag with the class ‘widgettitle’.

Next, as this is the ‘Main Sidebar’ widget area, open up the sidebar.php file and add the following:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Main Sidebar') ) : ?>
<p>This area is widgetised! To make use of this area, put some widgets in the 'Main Sidebar' section.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

This tells WordPress if the widget area ‘Main Sidebar’ exists, display the contents here, if it doesn’t display some particularily useful instructions on how to make some widgets appear here.

With that done, under ‘Appearance’, click on widgets and you’ll see something like this:

With one widget ready area, it’s really easy to add more…

Widgetising your sidebar in WordPress

Adding a second widget area is just a case of changing the title of the widget ready area; we can add a second widget ready area with the following in the functions.php file:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Second Sidebar',
        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

You’ll see we’ve changed the name of the area to ‘Second Sidebar’, and we can add this second sidebar to our theme with the following:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Second Sidebar') ) : ?>
<p>This area is widgetised! To make use of this area, put some widgets in the 'Second Sidebar' section.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

And with that we’ve added a second widgetised area to the theme.

Widgetising the homepage

Widgetising the homepage is much the same as the sidebar – pop the following code into your functions.php file:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Homepage Widget Area 1',
        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

And then the following into index.php or home.php file:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Homepage Widget Area 1') ) : ?>
<p>This area is widgetised! To make use of this area, put some widgets in the 'Homepage Widget Area 1' section.</p>
<?php endif; ?>

Advanced widgets

Of course, you can take your theme’s widgets to the next level with a couple of advanced tricks! This final trick comes via Thematic and SM. What we’re going to do is add a widget area after the second post, within the loop:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
    register_sidebar(array(
		'name' => 'Homepage Widget Area 2',
        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',
        'after_title' => '</h3>',
    ));

With that done, you need to add the following to your index.php/home.php file:

<?php if ($count==2) { ?>
<?php dynamic_sidebar('Homepage Widget Area 2') ?>
<?php } ?>
<?php $count = $count + 1; ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

In conclusion

As we’ve proved here, it’s really easy to go crazy nuts and widgetise everything in your theme, so there’s no excuse not to! Be sure to subscribe by RSS so you catch an upcoming post, where we’ll run through creating an awesome columned and widgetised footer! Any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> The Perfect Widget Ready WordPress Theme

Lots of posts on WPShout are art directed, so you may wish to view this in your browser --> Free WordPress Theme: Biblioteca

After (possibly) months of development and endless Twitter updates, my new WordPress theme framework, Biblioteca, is here. I’ve got a heck of a lot to say about this, so first we’ll have a look at the features.

The features

Biblioteca is a theme framework. But it’s not like Thematic of Hybrid, nor is it trying to be. I like to think of Biblioteca as a theme framework for designers. And developers too. How? Biblioteca is based on the WPShout theme, which in turn was based on Mimbo. I took the WPShout theme and added a whole host of advanced features, making it great for the average end user but also great for designers and developers. The original aim for the theme was to “provide rapid developnent for future themes” with a ton of options for the end user. Let’s delve into the features:

• A practical theme framework that offers a solid starting point for any WordPress theme.
• Plug and play – works out of the box, with an extensive options page.
• Awesome SEO. Everyone talks about their theme having ‘awesome SEO’, but Biblioteca doesn’t just let you believe it, it has options for setting the post title and description.
• Featured content gallery – Biblioteca uses Chris Coyier’s jQuery slider.
• Extensive options page – pictured below, the options page lets you change a ton of options, from the width of the sidebar to the contents of the footer to the ads in the sidebar to your Analytics tracking code.
• Magazine look – you want a fancy featured content gallery? Biblioteca has one. Enable/disable it from the opions page.
• Tech blog look – you want a couple of posts featured below the main featured content gallery? Biblioteca has got one of them; it’s widgetised too.
• Bloggy look – you just want a blog? Biblioteca can do that as well. Just set the options in the options panel.
• Drop down navigation – Biblioteca has some rather nice drop down navigation.
• A ton of widgets - Biblioteca has an ever expanding number of widget ready areas in all sorts of places that allow you to easily pop text just about anywhere.
• Fancy footer – the three column footer here on WPShout is often complimented and you too can have one – Biblioteca has one which you can enable/disable from the options page.
• Auto image resizing – set an image to display on the homepage and it’ll automatically resize itself.
• Multiple layouts – through the options panel you can change the layout, having
• The list goes on – just download it and see for yourself!

The options page

Perhaps Biblioteca‘s crowning feature, the options page, as I’ve previously mentioned, has a ton of options. See for yourself:

Biblioteca also has in post SEO options which allow you to change things such as the title tag and meta description:

Demo

Check out the demo here.

Read more

Support, licensing, FAQs etc are all on this page.

Download

To download the theme, click here. It’d be great if you subscribe by RSS and follow me on Twitter too in order to be notified of updates and tutorials showing you how to use the theme. Whilst you’re here, why not check out the other great stuff WPShout has to offer? Popular articles include:

• A to Z of WordPress .htaccess Hacks
• Create An Awesome WordPress Theme Options Page (part 1)
• 10 Tips to Improve Your WordPress Theme
• 10 Awesome Things To Do With WordPress’ Custom Fields
• Create An In-Post (Theme) Options (Meta) Box in WordPress

That’s all for now. Be sure to check back regularily for updates!

This is a post from WPShout. If you enjoyed the post, please head over to the site and share or leave a comment! --> Free WordPress Theme: Biblioteca