Archive for 'WordPress Tutorials'

Basic WordPress Tutorials

Posted on 02. Feb, 2008 by Artur Kim.

Comments

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’ve already written a few tutorials and I would like to say to you that I definitely plan in writing a lot more. Unfortunately, there are no new tutorials from me in this post.

What’s up with the title then? Last week, I’ve announced the launch of iThemes, a premium WordPress theme site, and had mentioned their first themes series, which is called Essence. However, what I had failed to mention is that iThemes also has a blog, where tips and tutorials for using WordPress can be found.

Their first tip is “3 Ways to Use WordPress Pages More Effectively” and there’s already a good amount of tutorials posted in the site that are definitely worth checking if you are new to WordPress. They are pretty basic, so if you’ve been using WordPress for awhile now, they are definitely not for you.

Continue Reading

Displaying Related Posts in Single Posts

Posted on 16. Jan, 2008 by Artur Kim.

Comments

A few weeks ago, I’ve showed how to display the most popular posts in the sidebar. Another way of getting more interested readers and pageviews is to display related posts in single posts. This is great for the readers as well, because they’ll get exposed to content that is related to what they’ve just finished reading.

There’s more than one plugin that can help you display related posts, but the one that I currently use is the Related Posts plugin by Wasabi. The instructions regarding installation and usage are very good and easy to follow. The only problem that I see is that some people might not understand how to call the plugin. Well, it says that the plugin is called using related_posts();, but where do you put this?

To help you out, I’m providing step-by-step instructions according to how I’ve done it in this blog:

  1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels;
  2. Go to the Related Posts Options (Plugins>Related Posts Options);
  3. Add the following:
    / : <li> / </li>
  4. Open the single.php file of your current theme (wp-content\themes);
  5. Add the following after the div containing <?php the_content(); ?> (This should work for most themes. If it doesn’t for the one that you want, leave a comment or ask for support in the WPDesigner forums):
    <div class="related_posts">
    <h4>Related Posts</h4>
    <ul><?php related_posts(); ?></ul>
    </div> <!-- related_posts -->
  6. Your single posts now display a list of related posts!

Want to read more WordPress tutorials?

Continue Reading

Installing WordPress Locally

Posted on 11. Jan, 2008 by Artur Kim.

Comments

If you are developing a theme or plugin for WordPress, you should definitely install WordPress on your machine because it will save you time, hassle, bandwidth, and much more. It’s also good for when you are just starting a new blog or a new project because you’ll be able to preview it and fix any mistakes before it goes online. In this post, I’ve only written a tutorial on how to install WordPress locally on Windows. So, I apologize Mac users, I don’t have a tutorial for you. However, installing WordPress locally on a Mac is very similar to what I’ve written below if you use MAMP.

Installing WordPress Locally on Windows

Installing XAMPP Lite:

  1. Download and install XAMPP Lite (I downloaded the EXE (7-zip) version and extracted it to the root of my C drive);
  2. Go to the xampplite folder and open setup_xampp.bat (Press any key to continue when it tells you to);
  3. Open xampp-control.exe and start Apache and MySql (It’s inside the xampplite folder as well and all you need to do to start these services is press the corresponding ‘Start’ buttons);

(more…)

Continue Reading

Displaying the Most Popular Posts in the Sidebar

Posted on 29. Dec, 2007 by Artur Kim.

Comments

This tutorial assumes that you already know how to install plugins.

There are other ways to obtain the same result, but I’m providing step-by-step instructions according to how I’ve done it in this blog:

  1. Download the Popularity Contest plugin by Alex King;
  2. Edit the file popularity-contest.php:
  3. On line 39 (@define('AKPC_SHOWPOP', 1);), change it to 0 to not show each post’s popularity with the post content;
  4. On line 49 (@define('AKPC_SHOWHELP', 1);), change it to 0 as well to not show the little [?] that links to the explanation of what the popularity means;
  5. Install the Popularity Contest plugin;
  6. Popularity values can be changed in the Popularity Contest Options (Options>Popularity);
  7. Install the JAW Popular Posts Widget plugin by Thomas Watson Steen;
  8. Drag and drop the widget called “Popular Posts” to the desired sidebar (Presentation>Widgets);
  9. The title and the number of posts you would like to display can be edited in the widget options;
  10. Your blog is now displaying the most popular posts in the sidebar!

This is definitely a great way to expose your blog’s best content to your visitors, making them stay longer and getting more page views. (;

Want to read more WordPress tutorials?

Continue Reading

Using Themes and Plugins

Posted on 27. Dec, 2007 by Artur Kim.

Comments

Using Themes

  1. Download the theme zip file to your local machine;
  2. Extract the theme folder from the theme zip file;
  3. Upload the theme folder to where_you_installed_wordpress/wp-content/themes;
  4. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels;
  5. Click on the “Presentation” tab;
  6. Click on the theme that you want to activate;
  7. You’ve just installed a theme!

Using Plugins

  1. Download the plugin zip file to your local machine;
  2. Extract the plugin folder and/or files from the plugin zip file;
  3. Upload the plugin folder and/or files to where_you_installed_wordpress/wp-content/plugins;
  4. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels;
  5. Click on the “Plugins” tab;
  6. Click on the “Activate” link that corresponds to the plugin;
  7. You’ve just installed a plugin!*

* Some plugins require more steps, but they usually come with a readme file with instructions.

Want to read more WordPress tutorials?

Continue Reading

Timestamping Posts

Posted on 23. Dec, 2007 by Artur Kim.

Comments

Post TimestampWhat is timestamp?

Surprisingly, many bloggers don’t know about this neat WordPress feature. Timestamp lets you choose the date and time that your post will be published. A lot of well-known bloggers keep their blogs updated regularly by writing posts in advance and timestamping them. This feature is also good to be used when you go on vacation, write a few posts in advance and schedule them throughout it.
How to utilize this feature?

It’s very easy to use this feature. After you’ve written a post, before clicking the Publish button, look for a box in the right sidebar called Post Timestamp and do the following:

  • Check the Edit timestamp box;
  • Choose the date and time that you want the post to be published.

Then, hit the Publish button. Now, your post will only be published once the customized date and time comes.

You’ve just timestamped a post!

I thought that I had timestamped this post, but I apparently forgot to click the publish button. o.O

Want to read more WordPress tutorials?

Continue Reading

Adding a Favicon to Your Blog

Posted on 20. Dec, 2007 by Artur Kim.

Comments

What’s a favicon?

A favicon (favorites icon) is an icon associated with a blog/site. Most popular browsers display favicons as 16×16 pixel icons next to the URL in the address bar, next to the title in tabs, and next to the title as well in bookmarks.

The following is my current favicon: WP Themes Gallery Favicon

How to create a favicon?

First, create a 16×16 pixel icon using your graphics editor of choice. Then, you could either save it as favicon.ico or save it in another format and use an online favicon generator to do the conversion to .ico.

Links that might be useful:

Need inspiration?

How to add it to your blog?

Once you have your favicon ready, place it in the root directory. Most popular browsers will automatically detect and use the favicon.

For better results, add the following line to the header.php file of your theme, between the <head> and </head> tags:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”wp-content/themes/current_theme/favicon.ico” />

*change ‘current_theme’ to the name of the theme that you are currently using

You’ve just added a Favicon to your blog!

Want to read more WordPress tutorials?

Continue Reading