When building WordPress themes from scratch it is easy to forget about things that “just work”. One of such things, often forgotten by newcomers to WordPress theme development, is trackback auto-discovery – a really tiny bit of code, which is not visible to a naked eye (an eye without HTML source that is). Trackback auto-discovery provides a specially formatted HTML code for other content management systems to find a trackback URL in your post. Gladly, there is a Codex page that covers trackback_rdf() function.
Archive for the ‘WordPress Tips’ Category
Tip #9 : Use trackback auto-discovery
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on December 18, 2007
Posted in Documentation, Themes, WordPress, WordPress Tips | 24 Comments »
Tip #8 : Read WordPress Digest
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on December 3, 2007
If you don’t have a lot of time to follow WordPress development news, just read to this one blog – WordPress weekly digest. One short post per week, with a summary list of what changes went into trunk. Occasionally, there are also brief explanations like this one:
The last change means that the next time you login the value stored in the database will change – this means that if you do upgrade passed this point reverting back to an old version will invalidate all users passwords and they will need reseting. Therefore it is a good idea to backup up your users table before updating to the latest trunk.
Posted in WordPress, WordPress Tips | 12 Comments »
Tip #7 : WordPress constants
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on October 5, 2007
ABSPATH is one of the most known WordPress constants. It holds filesystem path to WordPress installation and is often used to construct filesystem paths relative to WordPress. But what other constants are there in WordPress? The answer is easy to get than it might seem. You can see a full list here.
(Thanks to Benedict Eastaugh over at wp-hackers mailing list for the above link)
Posted in WordPress Tips | 12 Comments »
Tip #5 : Taxonomy in WordPress 2.3
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on August 27, 2007
The upcoming release of WordPress 2.3 introduces a new way of tagging and categorizing posts and links. It replaces the old way of categories and should provide enough flexibility to replace a whole bunch of plugins. Or, at least, make those plugins much simpler.
This new feature required a few changes in the WordPress database scheme. Gladly, Ryan Boren has posted the description of changes in the database structure.
Posted in Database, WordPress, WordPress Tips | 15 Comments »
Tip #4 : WordPress cheat sheets
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on August 22, 2007
There is an excellent collection of WordPress cheat sheets at Kahi’s WordPress notes. Cheat sheets provide a simple way of getting an overview picture of one specific topic, as well as to quickly find a name of a function or a variable. The best thing about cheat sheets is that you can print them out, fold, and put on your table, so that a quick reference is just a look away.
If this type of documentation appeals to you, Lorelle has a whole bunch of cheat sheets for all things related to WordPress development – HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, etc.
Posted in Documentation, WordPress, WordPress Tips | 12 Comments »
Tip #3 : Under Construction
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on August 20, 2007
It is often desired to have a final version of the project on the production server for testing purposes, but so that nobody other than site administrators could see things. Also, once in a while, one needs to have a “Site under maintenance” page, even if for just a little while.
There are, of course, many ways to achieve the desired effect (e.g.: using a custom theme or an index.html preceding index.php). But probably the easiest and the most “proper” is by using Maintenance Mode Plugin. It provides a number of options to customize the displayed message, as well give visitors a hint of when it is better to come back. But what is more important, it allows logged in Administrators to see and use the web site like usual – invaluable for testing, as well demonstrations of a ready project to the client.
Posted in WordPress Tips | 26 Comments »
Tip #2 : Scheduling tasks with WordPress
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on August 15, 2007
Since WordPress 2.1 there is a way to schedule tasks from within WordPress (as opposite to using external schedulers). It is quite useful for doing systematic backups, cleaning user databases, importing data from other resources into your database, and things like that.
Glenn Slaven wrote a nice article – “Timing is everything: scheduling in WordPress” – explaining how to use this feature. If you read it through, tried, and failed to make it work, there is a Cron Demo plugin, which should get you started.
Posted in Plugins, WordPress, WordPress Tips | 7 Comments »
Tip #1 : Lorem Ipsum – the king of test data
Posted by Leonid Mamchenkov on August 14, 2007
(With this post I’m starting a new category – WordPress Tips. It should carry small posts which make a life of WordPress hacker easier. If you have a tip, please let me know. )
While developing WordPress sites one often needs some test data. Sample blog posts, pages, comments, and thinks like that. When done manually, one often uses “this is a test” or “blah blah” sort of things. These are often too short, and longer version take too much time produce. There is a better way. It’s called “Lorem Ipsum“.
There are several tools online which generate Lorem Ipsum texts for you. However I found that Dummy Lipsum Firefox extension works best for me. Install it, restart your Firefox, right click over any text area, and select “Insert Dummy Lipsum“. Here is a sample of what you’ll get.
Aenean et risus eu purus porta aliquam. Proin rhoncus ornare elit. Donec leo dolor, posuere quis, mattis sit amet, pharetra id, pede. Proin nonummy vulputate augue. Cras mollis pretium pede. Sed consectetuer eros feugiat velit. Pellentesque elit. Curabitur nec dolor mattis sapien imperdiet mattis. Nam interdum ipsum. Sed tortor lacus, feugiat non, sollicitudin quis, interdum vel, purus. Proin ultrices ligula vel augue. Proin augue arcu, accumsan porta, fermentum sed, aliquam vitae, magna. Donec mauris metus, blandit a, egestas vitae, feugiat quis, risus.
Posted in WordPress Tips | 27 Comments »