The other day I had to move a blog from one server to another and found out that Wordpress sometimes likes to hard code the server address into things like links and images.  I found this handy little SQL statement you can run to find and replace anything that you need changed:

update [Table] set [Column] = replace([column],’[old text]‘,’new text’);

This can save you a lot of heart ache dealing with moving servers and find out that you have a lot of broken images left after migration.

So last night I was bored and decided to redo my entire website (again). I just changed the theme about a week ago, but the more I dug into it the less I liked it and decided I would spend a little more time redoing my blog. After picking a theme I put it on a local copy of Wordpress and started banging away. I started changing header images and fixing CSS issues with AJAX overlaps and image overlaps and fixing up a few other issues I noticed.  This is usually pretty typical for themes I have found in the past.  You get what you paid for and because all these themes are free I guess that would make sense.

One of my co-workers turned me onto Firebug which is a Firefox plugin that reads the CSS and breaks it out into a tree structure so you can see what is really going on behind the scenes with formatting.  This application saved me probably about 2 days of frustration searching through the CSS and the PHP files trying to find the correct classes and div’s to edit to make it look how I want it to.  The program allows you to edit the CSS on the spot so you can see if what you thinking works…this is great for things like spacing or overflow or text size.  This application is a must have for any web developer or anyone who likes to tweak their Wordpress themes to get the most out of them.

For some reason some of my sites always freeze with the flash uploader, and chances are if I am bulk uploading I will just upload via FTP.  I searched around for a long time for a plugin that would control the default uploader for Wordpress and finally found it.  You can change it via the plugin WP-CMS Post Control it does a little more than just change the default uploader but it does work.

I just came across another site with some fancy Wordpress Themes: WPDaddy can never have too many sites to choose from when looking for a good template.  Now I just need to find an easy CSS editor to play with the templates a little easier

Well in helping my sister with her new website she came across a theme that I haven’t really looked at too much.  This theme basically has all the options that a premium paid theme does but doesn’t cost a single dollar.  It is available on the WordPress theme directory at Wordpress.org It is great all the settings are under a page that comes up under the presentation button in Wordpress.  From there you can control all the CSS settings.

The settings allow you to change the layout from fluid to set, you can change the colors super easily, you can change the number of columns in a click of a page.  Also the header is a rotating image and looks at a specific folder so you can rotate image headers super easily.  Also sections are super easy to hide just by setting values to zero

Not that it is very difficult to do this yourself with the CSS file but this makes things really really easy to modify a site (ie…making it quick!).  I am currently using it on two of my sites (BloomIntoYoga, JMRossPhotography Blog)  Chances are I would have done my ARP site that way if I would have known about this theme earlier!

Atahualpa 3.2 Theme

Yup….another day another wordpress theme site!

FreeLayouts.com

I wanted to wait until someone actually submitted a form using this plugin before I wrote about it.  This plugin allows you to create contact forms, or any forms really, inside Wordpress.  It allows you to choose all the basic stuff like checkboxes, input fields, radio buttons and has a nice little CAPTCHA addon.  To create the forms it is more or less drag and drop onto a new form.  It also allows you to control the messages that come back when required fields are missing or if the form went through successfully.  Then inside Wordpress Admin you can view all submitted forms in a nice little table and export all form submissions.  You also have the ability to push the submitted form to an email address and you can specify an SMTP server to use or you can just rely on sendMail function of PHP.  I would suggest using the SMTP settings as this will insure that your email does not hit spam filters of the receiving email box.  So far this plugin has worked out great for my ARP website as it has cut down on all spam by 100% and we are now getting more complete information thanks to the form validation features and it is all contained inside Wordpress.

The homepage for the plugin is sort of interesting as it is a food website but if you read the content you will notice you are in the right place.  I would highly suggest this plugin for anyone who needs a form inside their Wordpress Blog.

Cforms

Well now that I have converted ARP’s website to use Wordpress as the CMS I wanted to create users that could edit and write pages and do nothing with the rest of the website.  The default roles that Wordpress comes with do not allow for this type of customization out of the box.  Well after some searching I found a Plug-in to do the management for me.

This plug-in is ajax controlled so as you click it to check the box it happens automatically.  I was able to create a new role and assign the privileges as needed and I think that it is going to work.

I have attached the plug-in to this post for reference.

Role Manager 2.2.3

Looks like Wordpress now has their own theme directory which is nice while searching for a new theme.  I typically change themes once a year but I am currently in search of one for my ARP website.  I have been jumping through a few of my old websites and following the links on the bottom of links that I have used in the past.  Themes are funny because it is really had to find one that fits exactly what you are looking for.  Plus after picking one you have to spend about 2 days getting it to look how you want and probably play with some tags and then re-enable Ajax settings so its a commitment to change.

New theme directory can be found here:  Wordpress Theme Directory

Looks like NextGen Gallery is changing their short codes to display their galleries and such.  I think that this is probably one of the best plugins for Wordpress that I use.  See the change of the codes below.  Looks like the old codes will still be valid but you should switch to the new ones as new functionality will be based on these shortcodes.  Sounds to me like there might need to be a SQL statement to update those codes I need to write.

[ gallery=x ]  => [ nggallery id=x ]
[ album=x,compact ] => [ album id=x template=compact ]
[ singlepic=x ] => [ singlepic id=x w=width h=height ]
[ imagebrowser=x ] => [ imagebrowser id=x ]
[ tags=abc,def,… ] => [ nggtags gallery=abc,def,… ]
[ albumtags=abc,def,… ] => [ nggtags album=abc,def,… ]