Without standing on my soapbox too long – if your website lacks a staging site, version control for custom code, or backups – you should address them immediately.

In this case, I was glad the client had at least one backup (the one that was provided to me) which I could turn into a local WordPress installation to begin development. Since the client didn’t provide a WordPress Admin user and password, I just decided to insert myself into WordPress.

Use this script to insert a WordPress Admin user, using phpMyAdmin, the MySQL command line interface, MySQL Workbench, or whatever SQL tool you normally use:

SET @user_login := 'justin_foell';
SET @user_pass := 'Q9xiHgzZ';
SET @user_email := 'justin@9seeds.com';

INSERT INTO `wp_users` 
(`user_login`, `user_pass`, `user_email`, `user_registered`) 
VALUES 
(@user_login, MD5(@user_pass), @user_email, now());

SELECT @user_id := LAST_INSERT_ID();

INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` 
(`user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) 
VALUES 
(@user_id, 'wp_capabilities', 'a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}');

INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` 
(`user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) 
VALUES 
(@user_id, 'wp_user_level', '10');

Replace the set values at the top for @user_login, @user_pass and @user_email with your own settings. Also, if your WordPress installation uses tables that start with a prefix other than ‘wp_’, you’ll want to replace that in the table names as well.

To follow are the steps I took to convert our forums from SimplePress version 4.4.0 to BBPress version 2.3

Step 0

Seriously. Just do it.

I went one step further than just backing everything up. Instead, I exported the database and set up a separate WordPress install just to run the conversion. This way, if everything broke I could simple delete it and start again. And now the actual conversion process.

Step 1: Upgrade SimplePress

When figuring out what it would take to do the conversion, I found that BBPress could convert SimplePress version 5 forums right from the tools menu. So in order to do the conversion, I first needed to upgrade SimplePress. Unfortunately, their upgrade only works with version 4.5.x. After reading this page, I took these steps:

- Deactivate the SimplePress plugin (Do Not uninstall it, just deactivate it)
- Remove the /plugins/simple-forum/ folder from your server
- Download the latest version of SimplePress
- Upload simple-press folder to /plugins/simple-press/ on your server
- Activate the plugin

Once the plugin is activated, you’ll have the “Forums” item added back to your menu which will link you to an upgrade process. Start the upgrade process and let it run. For our small forum this process took 3-4 minutes. I’m assuming for a larger forum, this process could take a bit longer. Be patient.

After I ran the update, poking around the forums admin area, everything looked fine. I then checked the actual forums and found this message:

I was concerned that I had lost all my data, but the forum stats displaying below gave me some comfort.

Step 2: Install BBPress

Not wanting BBPress and SimplePress to colide, I started by deactivating SimplePress. I then uploaded the BBPress 2.3 beta to /plugins/bbpress/ and activated it from the plugins menu.

Yeah, that part was pretty simple.

Step 3: Import SimplePress forums

Just a quick note. At the time of this writing BBPress 2.3 beta 2 has a bug related to importing of data. I posted a ticket about it in Trac and I’m sure it will be fixed soon. To get around the bug, I ran a search and replace on the database to remove any instance of   as it causes the post to be truncated upon import.

Start by going to Tools -> Forums in the WordPress admin area, then click the Import Forums tab at the top. From the dropdown select SimplePress 5 and then fill in the database information. Just under that you’ll see a few options. The most important of which is the Convert Users option.

The first time I ran the import, I was installing BBPress on the same WordPress installation that SimplePress had previously been installed on. This meant that all my user accounts already existed and their posts were all connected to them. I clicked the convert users tab prior to running the import, and all the posts, once converted, were once again attached to their rightful owners as part of BBPress.

I then decided that I wanted to move my forum to a different WordPress install on a different domain. When doing so, I accidentally forgot to click the Convert Users checkbox. The results were less than optimal. All of the posts DID come over to the new installation, but they were all attached to a single user account. Oops.

I can’t think of a reason (although, I’m sure there is one or this wouldn’t be an option) why you would ever want to NOT click the Convert Users checkbox. So before you click Start, make sure it’s checked.

Step 4: Repair Forums

After running the conversion in step 3, I was reviewing the forums and noticed that all the data appeared to be in place and the posts were all attached to the proper people, but, all of the counts were off. Anywhere where it said how many posts or replies were on a post or topic was all displaying zero. Back to the admin area we go. This time to Tools -> Forums and click the Repair Forums tab where you will find the following options:

Taking the advice along the top, I clicked the first item in the list and then clicked Repair Items. It took a matter of seconds to complete. I then went through each item on the list, one at a time, and checked the box and ran the repair. When I was done I went back to the forums to find that all the counts had been updated and my forums were working perfectly.

Once you know all the pieces, the process isn’t actually all that difficult. But hopefully I just saved you some trial and error time.

Done Done. (as Chris Lema would say)

gettext translation wrappers

While not all screens have had the gettext translation wrappers applied (notably the settings and paypal pages in wp-admin), everything else has been added.  Expect a 1.5.x release early in 2013 that will be fully translatable.

As such, we’re putting out a call for translators.  We are willing to offer free lifetime use & upgrades of the WP Affiliate Manager to anyone who contributes a full translation in their own language. We have a couple of people already talking to us about certain languages, so if you’re interested, please fill out the form on our translation page and let us know what language you’d like to help us add to WP Affiliate Manager!

money_format() for Windows

money_format() is a native PHP function, but it does not exist on Windows platforms.  We added a simple one for those hosting in Windows environments which should get the job done.

PayPal enhancements

First, the sandbox PayPal URL has been fixed.  This is mostly used for development/testing purposes, but none-the-less is important.

Also, we removed the requirement for needing the PHP cURL module requirement.  Instead, WP Affiliate Manager uses WordPress’ native HTTP request methods.

jQuery UI Tabs + cookies + mod_security bugfix

An interesting sidenote… we discovered a bug where if you went to the 2nd tab on WP Affiliate Manager’s “My Affiliates” screen on our test server, your next navigation point in WordPress would either result in a 404 error, or an endless loop of 302 redirects.

Turns out the bug was caused by a perfect storm of Apache’s mod_security (which is enabled on our test server) and the use of jQuery UI Tabs with a cookie save option.  What was occurring was the cookie name was being saved as “ui-tabs-1″ and if your last visited tab was the 2nd tab (index 1) the cookie was saved as “ui-tabs-1=1″.  This would be passed with each HTTP request as a cookie header.  Since mod_security doesn’t like anything where “1=1″, it was changing the request, causing WordPress to become all sorts of confused.  You can see a bug report about it here: http://bugs.jqueryui.com/ticket/8027

The solution was to name the cookie, so the automatically generated name wasn’t used:

jQuery("#tabs").tabs({
    cookie: {
        name: 'wpam_detail_tab'
    }
});

Enjoy all of the fixes!

Here’s the makeup of the plugin:

The plugin itself is very standard. One thing I like to do is define the custom post types as separate files to keep the function file clean. I then include the CPTs and the custom metabox library like so:

/** Add custom CPTs and Metaboxes */
require_once( 'cpt-events.php' );
require_once( 'cpt-locations.php' );
require_once( 'metabox/init.php' );

I store the stylesheet in a separate folder for cleanliness as well and encode it like this:

/** Enqueue CSS */
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'prefix_add_my_stylesheet' );
 
function prefix_add_my_stylesheet() {
	wp_register_style( 'cpt-style', plugins_url( 'css/style.css', __FILE__) );
	wp_enqueue_style( 'cpt-style' );
}

And now the real meat of it. You can see the single-events.php and archive-events.php that make up the two template files I want to use on the front end. What I’m going to do is create a function that tells WordPress to use my templates for the archive and single pages for the event CPT. That code looks like this:

// force use of templates from plugin folder
function cpte_force_template( $template )
{	
    if( is_archive( 'events' ) ) {
        $template = WP_PLUGIN_DIR .'/'. plugin_basename( dirname(__FILE__) ) .'/archive-events.php';
	}
 
	if( is_singular( 'events' ) ) {
        $template = WP_PLUGIN_DIR .'/'. plugin_basename( dirname(__FILE__) ) .'/single-events.php';
	}
 
    return $template;
}
add_filter( 'template_include', 'cpte_force_template' );

As you can see, I’ve set up a filter for template_include. I pass in the $template variable and check to see if the page is either an archive or singular event. If so, I override the default template location with the full path and file name of the file inside my plugin folder.

The end result is a fully encapsulated plugin that takes care of the functionality, templates and stylesheet formatting the client requested all in one easy to manage package. Simply install the plugin and activate it and you’re ready to go!

Today we released a new payment gateway for WP e-Commerce: Authorize.net Server Integration Method, or SIM for short. From the Authorize.net website:

SIM provides a customizable, secure hosted payment form to make integration easy for Web merchants that do not have an SSL certificate.

WP e-Commerce has a wide range of payment gateway options available, and we’re happy to help expand their reach by giving users one more option to choose from.

If you are interested in reading more about how Authorize.net’s SIM works, you can check out the developer center at Authorize.net.

The plugin is available exclusively through the GetShopped marketplace and is compatible with the new 3.8.9.x software. And to celebrate the launch, use code WPECDEC at checkout to receive 30% off. (discount expires 12/17/12)

On my personal WordPress website I wrote about an Arduino device I built to help brew beer.  Being my first foray into electronics, I wanted to document my experiences.  One of my difficulties centered around turning electrical values (voltage, resistance) into real-world values (temperature) using math.

As part of my documentation, I wanted to re-create some equations that I had found on a Wikipedia page about thermistors.  While in the process of grabbing their images and putting them into the media library, I remembered something…

One time while on the main Jetpack screen in the WordPress dashboard, I noticed a tile that advertised “Beautiful Math.”  So I looked into it.  Jetpack has a LaTeX module that can accomplish this.  LaTeX is a rather old-school markup/typesetting language that has been very popular in academia, especially in regards to math.

So Jetpack and LaTeX can do math, but I didn’t really want to learn a new markup language, I just wanted to quickly copy & paste the equations into my post.

Good Authors Borrow, Great Authors Steal

So then I wondered how Wikipedia is storing the images or if they’re doing something similar.  Guess what?!?  They use LaTeX too!  Putting the same equation into WordPress is as easy as clicking “Edit” on the Wikipedia page and copying the text between <math> and </math> and pasting it in-between [latex] and [/latex] in WordPress.

Native vs. Shortcode formatting Tricks

Jetpack supports using the $latex $ native format instead of the shortcode, but there are a few noted (and undocumented) differences between using the two methods. For instance, if you want to increase the size of your rendered LaTeX text, you can use the s (size) parameter in your LaTeX equation as such:

$latex \LaTeX&s=4$

Where size in this example is “4.”  However if you try to do this using the shortcode as such:

[latex] \LaTeX&s=4[/latex]

it will render as: – Not exactly what you’d expect The trick is that the following LaTeX parameters need to be fed in as shortcode parameters:

• s (size)
• bg (background color)
• fg (foreground / “text” color)

So if you want to have “LaTeX” rendered as:

You can either do:

$latex \LaTeX&bg=ffcccc&fg=cc00ff&s=4$

or  move the size & color parameters into the shortcode tag like this:

[latex bg=ffcccc fg=cc00ff s=4]\LaTeX[/latex]

One afternoon while we were hanging out in the house, we started talking about some of the handy tools we all use. As the conversation went on, Ryan had the quick sense to open up a Google doc and start taking notes. Below is the list of handy tools we came up with.

Keep in mind, these lists are definitely not all inclusive. We know there are many other text editors and cool apps out there. But these are the ones that are top of mind that day.

Text editors

• NetBeans
• Sublime Text 2
• Coda

Mac Apps

• Alfred – Easily launch applications, sites and perform several other tricks
• CoBook – Amazingly easy and simple CRM tool
• Spirited Away – Hides apps after a set amount of idle time
• Hazel – Simple automation tool for dealing with files
• Total Terminal – Formally called Visor, a system wide hotkey for terminal
• Droplr – Easy screenshot/text file uploader for sharing
• TypeIt4Me – Text expander

Custom Searches for Alfred

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q={query}
  Search the WordPress plugin repo
• http://wordpress.org/search/_Reference+{query}
  Search wordpress.org for functions, actions, filters, etc
• http://demo.studiopress.com/{query}
  Quickly load any StudioPress theme demo site

If you’ve got another tool to add to the list, drop it in the comments.

Migrating your Blogspot or Blogger weblog to a hosted WordPress installation should be easy.  But you may run into some problems along the way, so here are some quick ways to make it less painful.

When I first attempted this, I used the Blogger Importer plugin found in the “Tools” → “Import” menu of a new WordPress installation.  It went OK.  The importer pulled in all of the posts and the comments, but there seemed to be some extra markup that made it’s way into the posts.  All of the post titles now started with “>”:

>Why Hello There!

Also, while images in the content seemed to be fine, none of the media was actually imported into WordPress, they were still being hosted on blogspot.com.

Resetting the WordPress installation to start over

So now WordPress has a bunch of content that I want to delete so that I can start over and hopefully get it right the next time.  For this I used WordPress Reset.  I was able to use it to remove the (bad) imported content and reset it back to a new installation.  It’s multi-site friendly and only restored the one site and left all the content from the parent and sibling sites alone – although I can’t vouch for what it would do if you ran it on the parent site of a network installation.

A 2-Step Approach

Now that I was back to square one it was time for a different approach.  After some reasearch, someone on the WordPress Forums mentioned using WordPress.com to do the Blogger import, then exporting from WordPress.com as a native WordPress export file (WXR / XML), and import that file into your new WordPress installation.

Importing Blogspot / Blogger to WordPress.com

So over at WordPress.com, everything is like a normal WordPress installation, except they have turned it up to 11.  They have powerful servers, and a dedicated staff that make amazing additions to the most popular free plugins – one of which is the Blogger import.  On WordPress.com you have an additional option to import a Blogger export file:

Rather than authorizing the plugin to get everything from the site, we’ll export it to a file. Log into your Blogger account. When you’re logged in and viewing your blog there’s a “Design” link in the upper right menu bar, click that. Once you’re at the Blogger administration page click the “Settings” menu, and then “Other.” You will have an option under “Blog Tools” to “Export blog”:

Take that file and import it into a new WordPress.com site. You’ll want to make sure that this blog is public (but not necessarily indexed by search engines) as our hosted WordPress installation will need to be able to pull media files from it, but we don’t want it to wind up on Google, as it’s only temporary. It might take a while to fully complete, but WordPress.com should bring in all your Posts, Comments, and Media just fine. Once you’re sure that it’s done, export the WordPress.com site through the “Tools” → “Export” menu, selecting “All Content.”

Importing WordPress.com’s export into a hosted WordPress site

Before we begin importing the content from WordPress.com, two things should be changed in the WordPress Importer plugin‘s wordpress-importer.php file, which can be done through the plugin editor.

Just so we know when the importer runs into issues, change IMPORT_DEBUG to true:

/** Display verbose errors */
define( 'IMPORT_DEBUG', true );

Then to make sure we get everything, find the line that starts with:

$post_exists = post_exists( $post['post_title'], ...

This was on line 539 for me.  Comment it out using slashes:

//$post_exists = post_exists( $post['post_title'], ...

Then just below that line add:

$post_exists = false;

I did this because when WordPress.com imported images from Blogger, it gave them the same name as the post title, So if a post was called “Why Hello There!” and it had 5 pictures in it, all 5 pictures also had the title “Why Hello There!” This was preventing the importer from getting everything. Plus I already reset the installation, so there’s no content to duplicate or overwrite anyway. And I reasonably trust that I want to retrieve everything contained in the WordPress.com export file.

Run your import and everything should go smoothly. After you’ve verified you have everything in your new hosted WordPress installation, you can delete your WordPress.com site or make it private. You may also want to undo the WordPress Importer changes for future imports.

It’s probably not anything you’d expect from a big, bad biker. In fact, Joe the Biker – aka Joe Wojcik – is a really nice guy on a mission as a motivational speaker and advocate for kids who are victims of bullying. The passion behind his work stems from his personal struggles being bullied in his childhood, and dealing with the effects of that experience well into his adult years. Joe’s triumph over those challenges is a valuable lesson that he continuously shares to empower kids and their families, and his online presence serves as an important tool that connects him to the community and those he aims to help.

Unfortunately, keeping his old website current had become an increasingly frustrating task for Joe. He had gone through several iterations of his site and was getting tired of dealing with a webmaster to have updates done. A personal friend of his was kind enough to recommend 9seeds to help Joe find a solution for his website woes.

Joe wanted to be able to modify content on his own, and his old site just wouldn’t let him do that. He was willing to give WordPress a shot. Since he was generally happy with the look and feel of the old site, we customized a Genesis Child theme to match his existing design. We then moved all of his content over and made some adjustments to his liking. Since Joe was new to WordPress, we set him up with a bit of training and provided him with a number of key instructional videos that he could reference at any time.

Managing the new Joe the Biker WordPress site has restored Joe’s sense of flexibility, and he’s expressed how happy he is with the end result. Joe recently wrote, “For the first time in four years I feel a sense of freedom knowing that as my project unfolds I can readily update my site…”

We’re pretty proud to have played a part in enabling Joe to continue spreading his message and make a difference for those who can benefit from his movement. Kudos, Joe!

December 14th will be our last full day in the office this year. We will be back at our desks digging out from under a mountain of email on January 2nd.

Have a terrific holiday and we look forward to working with you in 2012.

Cheers!