CrankBerry Blog » WordPress http://www.crankberryblog.com Sharing ideas on web design, development and the internet economy Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:46:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Updating to WordPress 2.8.5 – Just do it! http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/updating-to-wordpress-2-8-5-just-do-it http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/updating-to-wordpress-2-8-5-just-do-it#comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:08:23 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=249 This morning when I logged into my WordPress I noticed the notification to update to version 2.8.5. I was hesitant as it might change up some of the work and modifications to the version I'm currently using (2.8.4). It turns out it was a small update from 2.8.4 but an essential one. For those of you who are using anything older I strongly urge you to prioritize and update as there has been many major security updates since.

As said there's not really many updates to the previous version and if it weren't for the security issues I wouldn't have updated at all. Owning a store front or website the number priority is security. If that's not the case for you, make it so! From WordPress themselves here's the actual list of updates:

  • A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack that is currently being seen.
  • Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
  • Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
  • Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

Preparations to Updating

Here's what I did in preparation to updating, as I am very careful all the times not to lose any previous work for no reason.

  1. Backup SQL database where WordPress is located
  2. Re-download the whole WordPress folder from server
  3. ZIP up the updated local copy of my blog files
  4. Commence upgrade

Updating from WordPress 2.8.4

If you already have WordPress 2.8.4 I recommend not doing the full-from-scratch upgrade as its much easy to update the modified files only. Go the following blog and download the modified files since WordPress 2.8.4. Unzip and just drag everything into your WordPress root folder. You'll notice there's not updates to the wp-content folder so there's not changes to your themes and templates. Once you're done uploading, login and you'll notice that you're done upgrading.

If you used my method to remove bullets from WordPress theme menu. You'll need to redo one or two steps.

Updating from Other Versions

If you're running from any other version I urge you again to upgrade ASAP because of the security flaws in the previous versions. If you have your FTP connection credentials available I suggest you use the WordPress automatic upgrade feature. It'll prompt you for the login and then automatically upgrade everything.

If you don't have the FTP login available just go to WordPress.org and download the 2.8.5 pack and upload it to your directory. Then run the upgrade at http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php.

]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/updating-to-wordpress-2-8-5-just-do-it/feed 0 Having WordPress menu elements on non-WordPress pages http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/having-wordpress-menu-elements-on-non-wordpress-pages http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/having-wordpress-menu-elements-on-non-wordpress-pages#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:02:59 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=191 So you have a WordPress blog but you're also creating pages not through WordPress. You're thinking about how to incorporate your categories menu, archive menu and other elements into the other pages you're making. Well it is very simple and I'll show you exactly how.

Requirements

  • Pages must be in PHP
  • Pages must be on the same server

If you've met the requirements then you are half way there. Next thing you need to do is open up the file in which you would like to incorporate the elements in. At the top you just need to add the these two codes:

define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);

require('wp-blog-header.php');

Now the second line: require('wp-blog-header.php'); you'll have to have the actual path to the file. The file wp-blog-header.php is located in the root WordPress folder, so guide your file to the right path.

Calling the Elements

Now you can call the elements on the page by throwing the following code in your page:

<?php wp_register(" , "); ?> //Registration
<?php wp_loginout(); ?> //Logout
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly&format=none'); ?> //Archives
<?php wp_list_categories('style=none&show_count=1&title_li=<h2>Categories</h2>'); ?> //Categories

There you have it, now you can add all the menu elements on non-WordPress pages.

]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/having-wordpress-menu-elements-on-non-wordpress-pages/feed 0 How to left align text in WordPress post http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/how-to-left-align-text-in-wordpress-post http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/how-to-left-align-text-in-wordpress-post#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:02:29 +0000 Jerry Low http://www.crankberryblog.com/?p=87 Here I am working in WordPress and posting articles and little did I know articles were being posted justified aligned. This would make sense as blogs tend to have the newspaper/article written feel (sometimes). I did not like this at all as since grade 7 I started liking my writing to be left aligned. So if you're reading this you may have already noticed that the posting is in a left align format. I'll Show you how.

In WordPress the headings and the entry has a mind of its own so you'll have to modify multiple codes to achieve what you may be looking for. First of all open up your style.css. New to programming? New to WordPress? New to the Internet? Thats ok, the style.css file is located in wp-content/themes/default/styles.css. If you aren't using the default theme then go into the folder that has your theme. In this case though I'm not sure if the theme comes with a different CSS style. So heads up, I'm actually working in the default Kubrick theme here.

Search for the following:

.widecolumn .entry p {
        font-size: 1.05em;
}

Simply just add text-align: left; inside. In my case I've added some margin as well so mine looks like:

.widecolumn .entry p {
        font-size: 1.05em;
        margin-bottom: 10px;
        text-align: left;
}

For the headings you'll have to add that in here:

h1, h2, h3 {
        font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;
        font-weight: bold;
}

Just add the same text-align: left; anywhere inside the squiggly bracket things.

h1, h2, h3 {
        font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;
        font-weight: bold;
        text-align: left;
}
]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/how-to-left-align-text-in-wordpress-post/feed 0 Removing bullets from WordPress default theme menu http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/removing-bullets-from-wordpress-default-theme-menu http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/removing-bullets-from-wordpress-default-theme-menu#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:42:56 +0000 Jerry Low http://localhost/ctest/?p=17 this article, but by editing the CSS it did not work for me. So here I'm sharing a method to hard code out the bullets in the side bar of the default WordPress theme Kubrick.]]> As I was setting up this blog I was disgusted by the bullets that were implemented to the menu on the right (they call it side bar). I thought to myself, no biggie, I'll just remove it when skinning/theming this thing. As I have built many themes for different forums in the past I believe this wouldn't be such a hard task. After some searching I have found this article, but by editing the CSS it did not work for me. So here I'm sharing a method to hard code out the bullets in the side bar of the default WordPress theme Kubrick.

Now this method is not recommended for those who are not comfortable or disturbed by the thought of "editing code". Its really not all that complicated but if you're really not comfortable stop reading now and quit while you're ahead, I'm sure there's other people out there ready to help.

What will you get from this?

In the end you should be able to successfully remove the bullets in the Pages, Archives, Categories, and Bookmarks inner section. These are what I've named them, yours could vary. I'm calling it the inner section because I didn't talk about how to remove the bullets in the title here, at this point I haven't gone through everything so I'll update every one when it happens.

So, with that said lets get started. Here is a list of files that we'll be editing so I recommend you make a backup prior to beginning just in case something goes wrong.

  • wp-includes/classes.php
  • wp-content/themes/default/sidebar.php
  • wp-includes/bookmark-template.php

Got that? Backed it up? Good! We'll start from the top, so the first bullets we'll remove is the Pages section. These are links to pages that you can create outside of your blog postings.

Removing Bullets from the Pages Section

Open wp-includes/classes.php, if your editor has a find function use it now. Find the line class Walker_Page. This is the class that we need to work in.

function start_lvl(&$output, $depth) {
        $indent = str_repeat("\t", $depth);
        $output .= "\n$indent<ul>\n";
}

In line 3 you can find the <ul> we need to remove. So remove it. Now the we removed the opening tag we have to remove the closing tag. Scroll down a little bit and the closing tag is on line 3 of:

function end_lvl(&$output, $depth) {
        $indent = str_repeat("\t", $depth);
        $output .= "$indent</ul>\n";
}

Ok, now stay where you are. Scroll down a little more and you'll come across the function start_el. Within the function look for a line that looks or is exactly like:

$output .= $indent . '<li class="' . $css_class . '"><a href="' . get_page_link($page->ID) . '" title="' . esc_attr(apply_filters('the_title', $page->post_title)) . '">' . $link_before . apply_filters('the_title', $page->post_title) . $link_after . '</a>';

In this code here you'll have to remove the following code. Note: Don't remove the ' in the beginning.

<li class="' . $css_class . '">

What we just did was remove the opening <li> lets find and remove the closing one. Take a guess at where it is, you're right! Scroll down a little more and you'll find the missing piece of the puzzle. Within the func end_el you'll notice the </li> in line two.

function end_el(&$output, $page, $depth) {
        $output .= "</li>\n";
}

Instead of just removing this one, replace it with <br />. This will add a line break between page listing.

Removing Bullets from the Category Section

At this point you should have already removed the bullets for the page section. Has it happened? If not you should spend some time in the first part of the article first. Next we will work on the category section, so in the same file find:

<?php wp_list_categories('show_count=1&title_li=<h2>Categories</h2>'); ?>

and change that to

<?php wp_list_categories('style=none&show_count=1&title_li=<h2>Categories</h2>'); ?>

Basically what we have done is passed on the argument that the style is none (default is list).

Removing Bullets from the Archive Section

If you've gotten this far, congratulations you have successfully removed the bullets in the categories section. If you have already guessed it by now yes the next step is pretty much the same but in this case they named it something else. To remove the bullets from the archive list find (also in sidebar.php):

<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>

and change it to:

<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly&format=none'); ?>

Basically they changed the argument from style to format.

Removing Bullets from the Links Section

Now you're only left with removing the bullets in the links section also known as the bookmark section. This one was hard to pass the argument, maybe somebody could suggest a way, but here's what I did. Open up wp-includes/bookmark-template.php. Find function wp_list_bookmarks. We'll remove the <li></li> tags first since it comes up first. The first thing that comes up in the function is an array.

        $defaults = array(
        'orderby' => 'name', 'order' => 'ASC',
        'limit' => -1, 'category' => ", 'exclude_category' => ",
        'category_name' => ", 'hide_invisible' => 1,
        'show_updated' => 0, 'echo' => 1,
        'categorize' => 1, 'title_li' => __('Bookmarks'),
        'title_before' => '<h2>', 'title_after' => '</h2>',
        'category_orderby' => 'name', 'category_order' => 'ASC',
        'class' => 'linkcat', 'category_before' => '<li id="%id" class="%class">',
        'category_after' => '</li>'
);

The last two lines you'll see category_before => and category_after =>. Clear everything inside of the single quotes that they are pointing to. So you should be left with 'category_before' => " and 'category_after' => ". Go down a bit further and you'll find this piece of code:

if ( $categorize ) {
    //Split the bookmarks into ul's for each category
    $cats = get_terms('link_category', array('name__like' => $category_name, 'include' => $category, 'exclude' => $exclude_category, 'orderby' => $category_orderby, 'order' => $category_order, 'hierarchical' => 0));

    foreach ( (array) $cats as $cat ) {
        $params = array_merge($r, array('category'=>$cat->term_id));
        $bookmarks = get_bookmarks($params);
        if ( empty($bookmarks) )
            continue;
        $output .= str_replace(array('%id', '%class'), array("linkcat-$cat->term_id", $class), $category_before);
        $catname = apply_filters( "link_category", $cat->name );
        $output .= "$title_before$catname$title_after\n\t<ul class='xoxo blogroll'>\n";
        $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
        $output .= "\n\t</ul>\n$category_after\n";
    }
} else {
    //output one single list using title_li for the title
    $bookmarks = get_bookmarks($r);

    if ( !empty($bookmarks) ) {
        if ( !empty( $title_li ) ){
            $output .= str_replace(array('%id', '%class'), array("linkcat-$category", $class), $category_before);
            $output .= "$title_before$title_li$title_after\n\t<ul class='xoxo blogroll'>\n";
            $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
            $output .= "\n\t</ul>\n$category_after\n";
        } else {
            $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
        }
    }
}

Do not be scared of its ginormous size. You can either go through and remove the two pairs of <ul></ul> or just comment them out. As I said they occur twice for different situations. Commenting it out will make it look like so:

if ( $categorize ) {
    //Split the bookmarks into ul's for each category
    $cats = get_terms('link_category', array('name__like' => $category_name, 'include' => $category, 'exclude' => $exclude_category, 'orderby' => $category_orderby, 'order' => $category_order, 'hierarchical' => 0));

    foreach ( (array) $cats as $cat ) {
        $params = array_merge($r, array('category'=>$cat->term_id));
        $bookmarks = get_bookmarks($params);
        if ( empty($bookmarks) )
            continue;
        $output .= str_replace(array('%id', '%class'), array("linkcat-$cat->term_id", $class), $category_before);
        $catname = apply_filters( "link_category", $cat->name );
        //$output .= "$title_before$catname$title_after\n\t<ul class='xoxo blogroll'>\n";
        $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
        //$output .= "\n\t</ul>\n$category_after\n";
    }
} else {
    //output one single list using title_li for the title
    $bookmarks = get_bookmarks($r);

    if ( !empty($bookmarks) ) {
        if ( !empty( $title_li ) ){
            $output .= str_replace(array('%id', '%class'), array("linkcat-$category", $class), $category_before);
            //$output .= "$title_before$title_li$title_after\n\t<ul class='xoxo blogroll'>\n";
            $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
            //$output .= "\n\t</ul>\n$category_after\n";
        } else {
            $output .= _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $r);
        }
    }
}

Scroll up a bit in the same file and you'll find the last piece of the puzzle. Just edit the code in function _walk_bookmarks().

function _walk_bookmarks($bookmarks, $args = " ) {
$defaults = array(
        'show_updated' => 0, 'show_description' => 0,
        'show_images' => 1, 'show_name' => 0,
        'before' => '<li>', 'after' => '</li>', 'between' => "\n",
        'show_rating' => 0, 'link_before' => ", 'link_after' => "
);

Change the <li></li> to " or for me I changed the 'after' => " to 'after' => '<BR />'. Just to have the space in there.

And there you have it you have successfully hard coded the bullets out. If you ever want them back just replace all of your files with the backed up ones. Once again I just want to remind you that I've only used this method because the modifying the styles didn't work for me. Do whatever is easiest and works.

Bonus: Removing Bullets from the Register Panel

As a bonus feature I'll throw in "how to remove bullets from the register panel" for free. Its very simple, in your sidebar.php file find:

<?php wp_register(); ?>

Just put into the brackets "," like so:

<?php wp_register(" ,"); ?>
]]> http://www.crankberryblog.com/2009/removing-bullets-from-wordpress-default-theme-menu/feed 14