April 28th, 2008
For years, I've been on the Site Build It list. SBI is the creation of the rather annoyingly gushy Ken Evoy who never stops his carnival barker cries about his one-stop-site-creation tool.
Ken Evoy Pumping Site Sell
Evoy's been at it since the bad old days when the internet was a mess and Site Built It! did have the advantage of actually getting a website up in some form - easier than coding html from scratch for the neophyte.
Throughout SBI's history, Evoy has shrieked about his process and his proprietary tools. On the surface, a clear process and proprietary tools are a good idea. Probably worth the price of admission (or so I thought at the time). The issue with the proprietary tools (which otherwise might be a good deal) is that you can only use them a little bit. Come and play for one hour per week, see you next week. Not exactly inviting brainstorming or creativity.
In contrast, the indepdendent expensive (many of which are free) tools Evoy condemns let you use them as much as you like once you find them.
Over the years, I've learned not to expect much from Evoy's newsletters (sometimes for six months at a time, they get relegated to the read later bin). Still it's worth sometimes checking in on somebody who's multiyear obsession has been selling ecommerce sites. Another perspective.
In the last couple of years the internet has changed and it's actually quite easy to put a website up. Just buy a hosting account (a single domain account is $3 to $7 Ken, not the $10 to $15 you cite), click the one step install button and you have vanilla Wordpress (or Mambo or Joomla or whatever else catches your fancy). Or pay nothing and sign up at Wordpress.com and have a better than vanilla Wordpress install with lots of attractive themes ready and waiting for you and an active forum.
The ease of putting up a high quality website - almost all of which look better than Site Build It websites and are easier to post to - is naturally a huge threat to the SBI business. Why pay Ken Evoy $300 per year per website for hosting which should cost $50?
Evoy's latest missive starts yet another hysterical title "Why blogging is a massive mistake!" Exclamation mark is his.
Writing a weblog is not a massive mistake. Handled properly, a weblog does wonders for your website traffic and search engine standing. But taking away the hype, this time Evoy does have a worthwhile point about weblog type sites (Wordpress in particular) - i.e. they date like stale newspaper. I can confirm the tendency from my own sites.
By publishing a weblog, you are effectively creating just a daily news source.
What happens if you publish a very good article which has value as a permanent reference? It stands alone in your weblog. People come, read the single article and leave. There may be other interesting content on your weblog for them to read but the visitor can't be bothered to ferrret it out. If your writing or content is extremely compelling, perhaps some visitors will read a certain amount of your content. But then they will leave. Which quite frankly for an online journal is fine. You're not selling anything.
But for a business, this isn't so good. What you want is to create an information resource for people in your business, which will bring them back again and again. An information structure which invites them to find immediately the other relevant areas of interest.
And Evoy quite correctly points out that this is the built-in model for Site Build It:
Blog posts are created and stored in chronological order. A good blogger will produce a post that is useful today, but who will read it in three months? Even when bloggers go to the extra effort of archiving their posts by "keyword categories," the articles are dated and not rewritten into coherent definitive articles. Usefulness plummets with time.
How does a Theme-Based Content Site differ? Instead of a stack of old newspapers, each resembles a good resource book about its theme, composed of useful, original articles ("Web pages") that cover related topics in some depth. Written in each small-business owners's unique voice, and based upon that person's experience in the field, they are useful resources that visitors return to over and over.
Evoy correctly points out that a photography weblog would just be one in a million, posting the nattering about the latest cameras and software:
How would a blog be presented? A stream of disjointed photography tips would be organized by "date of post." And posts on any given topic (ex., "portrait lighting") would be separated by time (weeks or months apart), each covering only a certain aspect of the topic. On the other hand...
Definitely not the right one to pull someone into your website. Evoy contrasts the above weblog site with this siloed sitemap for a static site:
site build it silo site
This time Evoy's absolutely right. Someone looking for information on photography lighting would gradually be led through the whole of your website, would bookmark it and come back as a reference. All of this assumes of course that your content is top-notch (and Ken, let's be frank, there's not too many people capable of creating top-notch content, on or off the SBI rolls). But with a static site structure at least you stand a fighting chance of retaining your visitor and becoming a reference.
In any case this is a huge insight. Pages instead of posts something I've been playing around with in the static pages section in Foliovision. Our client sites are also largely hierarchical with the weblog performing weblog functions (added value).
What I've been doing is making a static page instead of a post and then publishing a small announcement on the weblog section.
Unfortunately some of the news outlets which republish my content will not link to static pages or to articles which are more than 24 hours old (a pain in the neck, as after publishing a major article I like to come back to it 12 hours later to proof it and add or correct illustrations).
Going forward, I am going to build up the static pages sections very actively. When I first publish a post, it will go into the weblog, but within a few days. There is one small issue which is comments. We enable comments on pages so visitors will still be able to comment on the static page. But often some of the comments come in right away (on the weblog version).
- Do I leave the comments on the weblog post or move them to the static page?
- If I choose to move the comments to the static page, there is no mechanism to do so inside Wordpress. We'd have to build a plugin.
BTW, this sort of question is what you are paying Evoy to solve for you with either no solution (in this case) or his solution. For an inside the box thinker (or someone with very little design sensibility and/or minimal interest in technology), SBI solves a lot of problems. For an existing six-figure business, there are better ways to bring your business online than SBI DIYism. I do agree with Ken that business owners should have better things to do with their time than spend it troubleshooting websites or optimising their sites for Google.
If you're interested in having a closer look at the Site Build It system and way of thinking, Ken Evoy offers a number of free ebooks on writing for the web, selling services and montization. SBI's claim ithat the free ebooks are better than a lot of the pay ebooks out on internet marketing is more or less true. Given the rubbish sold as ebooks that's not necessarily saying a whole lot. The link above bundles several of them into a single zip file for your convenience.
Personally, Ken's writing style drives me up the wall (he's been described as rah-rah), but the bulk of the information is good. I just can't read past his marketing speech. The formatting is bizarre as well. I wish the guy would hire a graphic designer at some point. Why does he write Sidebar and then not make the sidebar a sidebar but whack it right into the middle of the text?
Some other references
alec |
Internet Marketing, WordPress |
March 26th, 2008
We've been properly labelling and tagging our images for years. Some of our websites get most of their visitors from Google Images.
Google Images is the greatest SEO reserve left in the world. Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts let the cat out of the bag in 2006 and told the whole world about optimising for Google images. But it's hard work optimising images for Google Images and most webmasters still can't be bothered. There's still gold - or at least visitors - in those hills.
As Chris didn't cover the technical details in-depth, here's a step by step guide for optimising your images for Google images.
Most websites publish their images like this:
<img src="/images/192a/986943.jpg" alt="image">
Where's the problem? Missing height and width, meaningless directory name, meaningless file name, generic alt tag.
Here's what a properly formatted image should look like:
<img src="http://foliovision.com/images/2007/08/zen-fanless-power-supply-400.jpg" alt="Zen Fanless Power Supply" width="400" height="340" />
For bonus points link that image to a larger version of the same properly labelled image:
<a href="http://foliovision.com/images/2007/08/zen-fanless-power-supply-big.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://foliovision.com/images/2007/08/zen-fanless-power-supply-400.jpg" alt="Zen Fanless Power Supply" /></a>
For extra bonus points put that image in a h5 tag with a proper caption, close to if not identical to the alt tag:
<h5><a href="http://foliovision.com/images/2007/08/zen-fanless-power-supply-big.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://foliovision.com/images/2007/08/zen-fanless-power-supply-400.jpg" alt="Zen Fanless Power Supply" /></a><br />Fortron PFC ZEN fanless power supply</h5>
If all that sounds like a huge hassle - when you do it for every image - you are absolutely right. It is a huge hassle to optimize for Google images by hand.
Which is why we built the SEO Images (part of Foliopress WYSIWYG) plugin.
With SEO Images, all of the above is happens automatically.
You only need to give the image the correct name (words separated by hyphens) and upload to the correct directory.
Automatically all the rest is added to your image:
- alt tag
- thumbnail (whatever size you prefer)
- link to larger version image
- caption
- width and height
- lightbox
If you want a lot of visitors from Google Images, you only need to use SEO Images for a few months and you will have the rankings and the visitors to go with them.
Here are the Google Images result for our example from above, the Zen Power Supply. Of 107,000 images, spots one and two are from Foliovision.com. The large and the small version of that image.
SEO Images Google Images results
Why a few months? Historically indexing in Google Images is much slower than for the rest of Google.
Chris and Stephen, in the future, please keep our secrets to yourselves!
alec |
SEO |
January 23rd, 2008
Features:
- Wraps FCKEditor
- Includes plugins for FCKEditor:
- foliopress-clean 0.1
- Enhanced KFM
- kfmBridge
- foliopress-wp
- Nice options page
Future Features:
- foliopress-clean
Plugin speed will be enhanced
- Enhanced KFM
- Automatic cleaning of database for deleted and unused files
- Thumbnails will be controlled in both dimensions if user will set it up
- ompatibility with TinyMCE
- Audio button for FCKEditor
- Automated backup and restore of user config files
- Advanced options in options page for skilled users
- Many compatibility and bug issues
- many many things more to come ...
Version 0.3:
- Fixed file upload, when path to file directory was changed from default
- Foliopress-clean is customizable from options page
- Options page has basic and advanced setups
- System of getting user settings for Enhanced KFM is changed, newer version is quicker
Version 0.2.1:
- New version of Foliopress-clean is included
- Easier installation
Version 0.2:
- Created and added foliopress-clean 0.1 FCKEditor plugin: Strips certain special text in FCKEditor of added tags (these tags have to be clean to be striped off)
- Removed annoying file details table shown when hovering over some file, instead file details are shown in File Details Panel
- Right click options for Thumbnail sizes in Enhanced KFM are configurable from options page
- Enhanced KFM supports config file
- Wrapping of images in links is configurable from options page
- Using Lightbox in links is configurable from options page
- Error messages are showing in alert boxes, not on page
- Fixed: Correct version number is shown
- File Details Panel in Enhanced KFM is sticky (last position is remembered) (Cookies have to be enabled in user browser)
- File Details are shown imediatelly, without delay
- Rearanged Panels in Enhanced KFM
- Upload of files in Enahanced KFM is fixed so already existing files are not overwritten, but instead a dialog box is shown and asks to rename uploading file
- Special Thumbnails folders are located underneath every folder with images, to ensure that images with same name and in different directories will not overwrite their thumbnails
Version 0.1:
- Enhanced and added KFM
- Created and added kfmBridge FCKEditor plugin: Adds one button to FCKEditor, that launches Enhanced KFM directly from FCKEditor
- Created and added foliopress-wp FCKEditor plugin: Plugin that adds 'more' and 'next page' buttons to FCKEditor, to use this Wordpress options
- Nicer KFM skin
- KFM recognizes if it's run from Image Properties or directly from FCK through kfmBridge
- Disabled Widget toolkit in KFM
- Foliopress-wysiwyg replaces TinyMCE as rich text editor
- Options page visual improvement
- Custom and managable FCKEditor config file
- Custom and managable css file for FCKEditor
- Sizes of thumbnails in Enhanced KFM changed to be exact on width, not on max. dimension
- Images sent from Enhanced KFM are wrapped in link to original image with rel="Lightbox" to start Lightbox on image click
- Custom config files are stored inside one folder
- Nice FCKEditor skin with useful set of Toolbars
- Fixed: Code injection problems of KFM
- Fixed: Problems with not showing thumbnails in KFM
- Fixed: File Details were not showing from time to time
- Fixed: Banned folders are not showing in KFM
peter |
WordPress |
January 5th, 2008
I just read the strangest apologia for a new service: Uh, why’s the official Tumblr blog on WordPress?
Simply - all the CMSy stuff it comes with. Blogs are an awesome platform. WordPress lets our entire staff contribute to the same blog, maintain tags and slugs, save and give feedback on drafts, upload and store media, back and forward publish posts, group our archive by month, lets our audience comment, lists trackbacks, et cetera, et cetera. It’s awesome! Blogs rock! But we knew this. WordPress is the perfect way for a business like ours to communicate with our audience.
Sounds good to me. David Karp goes on to write about the advantages of Tumblr: "posting with zero obligations, little or no comment". Great for wisecracking, difficult for communicating.
Read the rest of this entry »
alec |
WordPress |
December 31st, 2007
Foliopress WYSIWYG is the editor you were always hoping for, every time you installed a new content management system.
Foliopress WYSIWYG toolbar preview
- Foliopress WYSIWYG? is simple and correctly configured straight out of the box.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG handles images and text equally well.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG gives you SEO ready images (properly labelled with caption and alt and title tags).
- Foliopress WYSIWYG is simple enough to use that your clients will love it.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG has all the extra control and flexibility you want to be able to do advanced coding on your content pages.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG looks great in your browser window. No more eyesore when using an online text editor. We aren't living in the 90's anymore and our online text editors shouldn't? look like WordStar.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG has easy and quick access to source code for experts so your programmers won't get frustrated and turn it off.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG produces standards compliant html quickly and easily.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG is forgiving: even if you make some terrible HTML/XHTML errors Foliopress WYSIWYG? will always give you or your clients it's best version of your document without erasing it.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG does true WYSIWYG. You can actually see the text in your edit box the same way it is in your content box (simple three step point and click configuration).
- Foliopress WYSIWYG will never go out of date: Foliopress WYSIWYG is assembled from best of breed open source projects so it will always be on the cutting edge of web design. The parts are carefully assembled as modules with no modifications to core code so you can always drop the latest version of the core libraries in for a seamless and instant upgrade.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG is so easy and fun to use, that you just might want to retire your word processor and write all your documents online.
- Foliopress WYSIWYG is easy to upgrade. Just drop the latest version in your plugin folder and you are up do date.
Foliopress WYSIWYG is now available.
Download Foliopress WYSIWYG version 0.3.
peter |
WordPress |
December 12th, 2007
If you've picked up an older WordPress theme, you might just be missing a key feature included in most recent themes. And this feature is essential to CMS nirvana.
Front end editing.
What's front end editing?
Front end editing is being able to navigate the site from the front end - like an end user - and just click a button, edit your post and go back to the front end.
Here's what it looks like on this weblog (you won't see it as you are not logged in and are unlikely to be in the future unless you work for Foliovision):
front end editing wordpress
Here it is actually at the bottom of a post.
I prefer the edit button at the top of a post actually.
To add it to your posts and pages, you have to open up the following file in your WordPress template: page.php.
The full path is: /wp-content/themes/yourtheme/page.php
Here is the code you need to paste in:
<p><?php // the edit link
edit_post_link(__('Edit','drunkey-love'),'','');
// end of edit link
?></p>
You should paste it at the top of your page.php file.
Here's what my finished page.php looks like for a new site:
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content">
<?php include(TEMPLATEPATH."/sidebar.php");?>
<div id="contentmiddle">
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<p><?php // the edit link
edit_post_link(__('Edit','drunkey-love'),'','');
// end of edit link
?></p>
<?php the_content(__('Read more'));?>
<!--
<?php trackback_rdf(); ?>
-->
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p><?php endif; ?>
</div>
</div>
<!-- The main column ends -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>
With this code, if you are logged in you can now navigate to any page and edit on the spot. Your clients can too.
Everyone is happy.
For those who are not happy editing PHP (me until recently), here's a zipped version of page.php which you can try replacing in your your theme directory /wp-content/themes/yourtheme/ . It will probably work.
alec |
WordPress |
December 9th, 2007
I've spent a lot of the weekend working on a Vancouver real estate website which we converted to WordPress last year.
(Don't feel too sorry for me, the rest of the weekend I spent with my girlfriend.)
There were a bunch of issues in the PHP code which I couldn't solve myself so I had to leave my efforts there for the designer.
I was unable to comment it out with html comments (what I usually do). PHP comments wouldn't work either, so I put some serious research into how to comment PHP properly.
It turns out there is a simple but very effective trick:
<?php /*
comment
*/ ?>
I recommend reading the full article on How to Comment Code in WordPress templates if commenting WordPress templates is something you need it do occasionally. It will save you a lot of time.
I am sure much of this applies to our friends over in Mambo/Joomla and Drupal land.
A tip of the hat to My Digital Life for his article - Comments and Comment Blocks in PHP.
alec |
WordPress |
October 19th, 2007
What should you do if you've forgotten or lost your WordPress Admin password?
Step one of course would be to fill in your username and your email into the lost password form.
But what if you don't know one of either your username or your email?
Are you out of luck?
Not if you have admin access to your server.
First things first.
- login to your server admin account (cPanel, Hsphere, Plesk, etc...)
- open up PHP MyAdmin (see your host's help file)
- open up your WordPress weblog database
- don't panic when you see the complicated screen
- click on wp_users in the left hand column
- choose browse from the top menu
- you will see all your users with usernames and passwords
- go back to the login screen
- request a new password
- if necessary modify the email to one which will come to you
If you want to make your life miserable you can replace the hash key instead and login directly. But why bother when you can just go back to using the standard interface.
I'm sure I've saved at least one person a call to his or her server admin with this info.
Enjoy posting in your newly recovered WordPress weblog!
alec |
WordPress |
October 17th, 2007
- Tired of working on ugly and out of date websites?
- Frustrated to see your innovations ignored or neglected?
- Eager to create attractive and well-programmed sites and web apps?
Then we are looking for you.
JOB DESCRIPTION
- Custom programming of web modules for existing websites
- Building lightweight web applications based on API's (i.e. Google, flickr)
- Languages used include PHP and Ruby on Rails (ROR can be learned later)
- Main platform is WordPress, in our own custom CMS version
- Recoding and improving of sections of existing websites
- Occasional IT admin duties
- No chance to be bored: the work is extremely varied and challenging
- You should have initiative and intellectual curiosity: this is not a job for dummies or button pushers
- Income commensurate with performance: great bonus opportunities for the right person
QUALIFICATIONS
- honest
- hard-working
- intellectually curious
- positive outlook and energy
- deep knowledge of PHP and HTML
- acquaintance with XHTML, XML, CSS and javascript
- understanding and interest in W3 web standards (Zeldman, alistapart.com)
- portfolio of existing quality work (personal or commercial)
- experience customising at least one PHP based CMS (content management systems)
- fluent or very good English
- intention to remain in Bratislava for a minimum of three years: this is not a temporary or short term job
OTHER
- You will be working directly with one of the top WordPress specialists in the world.
- You will learn a lot about marketing and SEO (search engine optimisation) in the course of your duties.
We are looking exclusively for someone very smart and very ambitious in a growing company. If that's you, this is a job with a great future.
HOW TO APPLY BY EMAIL
Please send an email to candidates - at - foliovision.com with your CV and a list of websites you have worked on. We will always send an acknowledgement of receipt - if you don't hear back from us within one day call the Foliovision office at +421 2 52 92 00 86.
OR APPLY ONLINE NOW
[[filled_in application]]
alec |
WordPress |
September 4th, 2007
It's no secret that we are big ecto users at Foliovision. But we've found Ecto for Windows more trouble than its worth. We are not the only ones to think so.
Rather than continue to fight Ecto for Windows which is a bit overkill for what we need to do on our Windows computers we went looking for an alternative, preferably something more portable. The Firefox extension JustBlogIt seemed like just the trick.
Basic, but easy to use and open to multiple accounts - very important to cover our multiple weblogs.
JustBlogIt worked a treat with my legacy Typepad account (if you're asking I don't enjoy Typepad at all - tech support is terrible even on a premium account), but wouldn't work with our WordPress weblog, always returning a PHP fatal error.
I asked Jérémie to investigate and this is what he came up with:
It seems that wordpress development team forgot about this file since the version 2.1 of it because it works on JB which is running under the version 2.0.6 and not on JulieK (2.1.2) FV (2.2) and WTR (2.2.1).
When we are trying to run the file it displays a PHP Fatal Error because one function neede to run the editor is missing. The error is:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function the_quicktags() in /hsphere/local/home/fvmaster/foliovision.com/wp-admin/edit-form.php on line 35
After looking on internet and wordpress website and finding almost nothing newer than WP 1.6 (already in WP 1.6 users got that error) I just decide to fix it myself. I looked on the core for that function, copy and past to bookmarklet.php, the function is present on the file /wp-admin/admin-functions.php. It is:
<?
/*Hacked By Foliovision - this function is present on the file /wp-admin/admin-functions.php
Somehow edit-form.php should call it but it is never integrated on its file. I just copy it here:
*/
function the_quicktags() {
// Browser detection sucks, but until Safari supports the JS needed for this to work people just assume it's a bug in WP
if (!strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Safari'))
echo '
<div id="quicktags">
<script src="../wp-includes/js/quicktags.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">if ( typeof tinyMCE == "undefined" || tinyMCE.configs.length < 1 ) edToolbar();</script>
</div>
';
else echo '
<script type="text/javascript">
function edInsertContent(myField, myValue) {
//IE support
if (document.selection) {
myField.focus();
sel = document.selection.createRange();
sel.text = myValue;
myField.focus();
}
//MOZILLA/NETSCAPE support
else if (myField.selectionStart || myField.selectionStart == "0") {
var startPos = myField.selectionStart;
var endPos = myField.selectionEnd;
myField.value = myField.value.substring(0, startPos)
+ myValue
+ myField.value.substring(endPos, myField.value.length);
myField.focus();
myField.selectionStart = startPos + myValue.length;
myField.selectionEnd = startPos + myValue.length;
} else {
myField.value += myValue;
myField.focus();
}
}
</script>
';
}
?>
I've also attached the full fixed file bookmarklet.php to this post. Just download and replace your existing bookmarklet file in ftp://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/bookmarklet.php
And enjoy one click citation in WordPress with JustBlogIt.
bookmarklet.php.zip (right click to download)
alec |
WordPress |
August 22nd, 2007
Wordpress is the core of our business and the underpinnings of our Foliopress Publishing System. You will find some very rich resources to this wonderful open source framework on our site.
Contents
alec |
WordPress |
June 21st, 2007
There are lots of ways to build incoming links.
For a small window of time (about six months until April of this year) sponsoring WordPress themes was a great way to get varied links from lots of different independent websites.
Of course these links wouldn't be going on top PR sites generally (custom themes) and you don't have control of the theme of the site.
On the other hand, you do have control over the anchor text, which is already not bad.
And previously it was quite inexpensive - you would pay about $40 or $50/link on a two sponsored link theme and around $70 to $100 for a single sponsored link theme.
Things have changed - most theme developers are pushing three sponsored links and are trying to get $100 or more per link.
With the inflation and feeding frenzy, a lot more lousy developers have thrown their hats into the ring, so there is an oversaturation of themes.
The developers all talk a good game of how they promote the theme on sites such as:
Unfortunately on all or most of these high PR authority sites, your sponsored link will be nowhere to seen. Just a link to download the theme and some jpegs of the theme.
The developers will also try to shout and scream about 450 downloads, 1037 downloads for past themes. But for link building number of downloads accomplishes nothing for you.
What you are interested in is the number of sites which use the theme and include the sponsored links. For the purposes of sponsored links, a single is much better as the end user is less likely to rip out the links. By the same token it would also be better if the links were discreetly nested and not in electric green (where they are likely to attract the attention of the site owner and his visitors and finally get ripped out). An exception could be made if your site is likely to go viral and has a very wide appeal. In that case, clicks from sponsored links might actually contribute to your business. For my regional websites, we are not looking for random clicks. It will never generate any business for my clients and the more discreet the sponsored links the better.
Read the rest of this entry »
alec |
SEO, WordPress |
June 20th, 2007
Knowing which template file you are working is the first major hurdle that the designer runs into when working with the php files. This is what a ftp listing of a WordPress theme looks like.
With this labyrinth of various PHP files with similar names, how on earth is an honest designer to know what file he or she should be working? Browsing the front end of the site, you have no idea what you are looking at most of the time.
Am I working on archives.php or archive.php? Is this index.php or home.php?
Well the first thing to do is to open up all the files in the template folder and have a look at them.
Selectable templates which you can choose as a template for your page while editing have this code at the very top of the file:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Archives
*/
}
?>
WordPress needs this unique name to manage your extra templates. Each file with a name like this will be a selectable template in this list when creating or editing a page:
Default WordPress template files (i.e. single.php, page.php, archive.php) don't have that comment and must be present in every theme.
But even this identifier doesn't help you when browsing the site to know which pages are running off each template.
It's easy enough to just drop some html in the source code and it will show up and tell you what template such and such page is using.
But the problem with the simple solution is that everyone who visits your site will see your "Yo - Analysis Template" and wonder why it's there.
There is an easy way to solve this, although it took some searching to find the solution.
Instead of adding just straight text or a paragraph, add this instead:
<?php if ( $user_ID ) { ?><p class="templateinfo">Template = Archives</p><?php } ?>
The ideal place I've found for the identifier code in my templates is between the header and the content block:
After that I apply these styles to the base css file:
p.templateinfo, p.sidebarinfo {font-size: 8px; color: gainsboro;}
p.templateinfo {float: left;}
The sidebarinfo class is there to cover the situation when you have multiple sidebars (Foliovision does). The float left on p.templateinfo may or may not work for your own template. It works great on mine.
In the sidebar files I recommend adding the code at the bottom of the sidebar:
<?php if ( $user_ID ) { ?><p class="templateinfo">Template = Archives</p><?php } ?>
With this done, as you browse your site logged in you will know at all times exactly what file you are looking at. So if you don't like it is a trival matter to go in and make adjustments.
Here's what the end result looks like:
and for the sidebar.php:
You can save up to five or ten minutes confusion per edit with these simple additions to your template file.
And your visitors don't even need to be aware of the under construction signs everywhere.
Setting template identifiers up only takes about ten minutes. They make editing a WordPress template faster and a lot more fun.
alec |
WordPress |
May 30th, 2007
Philip Dow's Journler
Philip Dow is the developer of the very well received Mac PIM (personal information manager) Journler about donationware. His application Journler had an open donation policy for personal use. Contribute whatever you like. A single commercial use license was/is $25.
Phil is going full-time as a developer now and is starting to feel the pain - lots of downloads and good press, but not a lot of revenue rolling in.
Out of 580 registered users, Phil had received an average donation of $17. That makes a total of about $9800. But in the end, Phil feels that some are abusing the donation system.
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alec |
Business, WordPress |
May 4th, 2007
John and I have often quarreled over the appalling WordPress login visuals.
Every site has to go to the same ugly login page:
Wordpress-Login-Old-V1
The login page gotten somewhat better since version 2.1 but it still just doesn't fit in with the rest of the site. Which site? Any site!
Wordpress-Login-New-V2
I guess this would be a great design if you are running a Star Trek fan club.
John would prefer not to fix the login page issue as it means altering core code. He's got a point. Once you start forking core code, you better be tracking your changes minutely (it's okay to hack into one file in my opinion, or one section, which you replace wholesale - but once you eat the first cookie, it's hard to stop and pretty soon the tin is empty and you have nothing but crummy code...).
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admin |
WordPress |
