According to Site5 customer service, hardware issue that the server experienced is extremely rare. They had to restore backup and it was a lengthy process, there is also a network issue that caused the restoration to fail at the first time. The restoration finally done today and server is up again. They are also offering one month credit to my account as an apology.

To my surprise, Site5 is pretty responding regarding this issue. They update the forum frequently and for users that didn’t bother to check the forum often, they sent an email everyday regarding the status of server, explaining what is happening that day. Despite the outage, I’m actually quite happy with the customer service and Site5 itself for a reliable service so far. Hopefully, this won’t happen again in future.

First, we’ll looking at the function wp_list_categories. This function made call to get_categories to get the list of categories, which made another call to get_terms. Categories in WordPress is basically terms with category taxonomy. Finally, looking on the get_terms function, we will find some delicious filter hook that suitable for our customization.

To be able to change the order, we will have to find a way to manipulate the SQL query and add our magic. Finally, we found the filter hook to add the magic, terms_clauses. The code to call the apply filter is as below:

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$pieces = array( 'fields', 'join', 'where', 'orderby', 'order', 'limits' );
$clauses = apply_filters( 'terms_clauses', compact( $pieces ), $taxonomies, $args );

As you can see, the $pieces hold a separate pieces of the SQL query. We can add our own query to this separate pieces to form a query for our need. The code we used is as follow:

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function filter_term_sort_by_latest_post_clauses( $pieces, $taxonomies, $args )
{
    global $wpdb;
    if ( in_array('category', $taxonomies) && $args['orderby'] == 'latest_post' )
    {
        $pieces['fields'] .= ", MAX(p.post_date) AS last_date";
        $pieces['join'] .= " JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships AS tr JOIN $wpdb->posts AS p ON p.ID=tr.object_id AND tr.term_taxonomy_id=tt.term_taxonomy_id";
        $pieces['where'] .= " GROUP BY t.term_id";
        $pieces['orderby'] = "ORDER BY last_date";
        $pieces['order'] = "DESC"; // DESC or ASC
    }
    return $pieces;
}
add_filter('terms_clauses', 'filter_term_sort_by_latest_post_clauses', 10, 3);

Add this to functions.php or on your own plugin code, or where ever you wanted, it just needed to be placed before any call of wp_list_categories. Note that we only add this filter if the taxonomy is category, and if the orderby argument is set to latest_post. So our call to wp_list_categories is now:

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wp_list_categories(array('orderby' => 'latest_post'))

Now your wp_list_categories call will have option to sort by latest post.

Hope it’s useful for you. Comments is appreciated.

View larger resolution on my Deviant Art

A lot of changes has been made for this version, and one that is noticeable is the new look and layout for the administration area. It looks a little better. The sidebar is changed. The color of the boxes also changed a bit, it is more light. Some fonts are also changed. Overall, I liked the new look.

There’s no yet compatibility issue so far is all that I can tell.

It’s a mark of another step closer to my dream, a mark where I’ll held more responsibilities and a mark of improvement to be an even better person.

Thank you every one for every single support you gave me, especially some of my precious clients which grow together with me all these times, all of my friends from all communities I participated in, my family with their never ending supports, and every one around me – thank you all. I sincerely apologies for any disappointment I have caused – if I ever.

I hope I will get better this year and I hope for all your supports again in future.

For this moment, I also want to specially thank a good friend from Kaskus W3 Community, idiotnesia. He created my birthday thread in Kaskus last year, but it’s so sad that he passed away later that year due to his illness. His contribution to the community is priceless, as well as the good time the community had at that time – me included. I specially thank you from the deep bottom of my heart, you will be remembered forever my friend.

Thank you.

WordPress mail snippets

WordPress has its own improved function for sending email, it is wp_mail. We should always use this function if we wanted to send email within WordPress. With this function, we don’t need to worry much about the mail header and stuff. More over, there is plenty of filter we can use to customize it.

Set content type to HTML

We can send HTML email by set the content type of email sent by WordPress. To do this, add this function to functions.php in your theme file.

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function set_email_html_type( $content )
{
	return 'text/html';
}
add_filter('wp_mail_content_type', 'set_email_html_type');

Set mail sender name

This function will set the mail sender name.

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function set_mail_from_name( $name )
{
	return "Jeffri Hong";
}
add_filter('wp_mail_from_name', 'set_mail_from_name');

We could improve it by automatically set it to the first administrator name.

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function set_mail_from_name( $name )
{
	$admins = get_users(array('role' => 'administrator'));
	if ( $admins )
	{
		$first_name = get_user_meta($admins[0]->ID, 'first_name', true);
		$last_name = get_user_meta($admins[0]->ID, 'last_name', true);
		if ( $first_name || $last_name )
			return "$first_name $last_name";
	}
	return "Jeffri Hong"; // the default value when it is failed to retrieve first/last name
}
add_filter('wp_mail_from_name', 'set_mail_from_name');

Set mail sender email

This function will set the mail sender email address.

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function set_mail_from( $email )
{
	return "info@jeffri.net";
}
add_filter('wp_mail_from', 'set_mail_from');

As with the previous one, it is also possible to automatically set it to the first administrator email.

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function set_mail_from( $email )
{
	$admins = get_users(array('role' => 'administrator'));
	if ( $admins )
	{
		if ( $admins[0]->user_email )
			return $admins[0]->user_email;
	}
	return "info@jeffri.net";
}
add_filter('wp_mail_from', 'set_mail_from');

Get post meta ordered by id

Getting a post meta, especially an array, can some time return an unexpected result. The problem is the get_post_meta function rely on the default SQL order. In few of my job, I need to use multiple post meta and keep it in order with each order, and it won’t work correctly unless we add the ORDER BY clause to the query. Unfortunately, the metadata functions didn’t have many filters we can work with. However, there is a filter we can use to override the function return value.

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function filter_post_meta( $null, $object_id, $meta_key, $single )
{
	global $wpdb;
	$results = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT m.meta_value FROM $wpdb->postmeta m WHERE m.meta_key = '$meta_key' AND m.post_id = '$object_id' ORDER BY m.meta_id");
	$ret = array();
	foreach ( $results as $result )
		$ret[] = $result->meta_value;
	return $ret;
}
add_filter('get_post_metadata', 'filter_post_meta', 10, 4);

With this, every call of get_post_meta will be filtered by this function and return all post meta filtered by meta_id. The good news is, this filter run on top of get_metadata function and returned it immediately when there is a value.

Add post slug as CSS class to page lists

Often, we need to have a more definitive and unique class for page lists generated by function like wp_list_pages and other. By default, there is unique class for the page ID, but since page ID is generated automatically, this value vary on site to site – for example when you have a development version and live version of a site, you will need an alternative for unique class other than ID. Post slug is the better solution in this case, since it is defined by us and unique.

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function add_page_css_class( $classes, $page )
{
	$classes[] = 'page-'.$page->post_name;
	return $classes;
}
add_filter('page_css_class', 'add_page_css_class', 10, 2);

Add this function to functions.php of your themes. Now, you will have one more class selector for your CSS.

And more to come

That’s it folks for the part 1. More will come in near future as I still have many interesting case I experienced and a nice solution that is re-usable anywhere.

Hope that useful for you.

However, many didn’t know that the custom post type already had it’s own landing page, though, you will need to pass the post type variable to the URL. This post will guide you to the step by step on customizing the post type landing page, as well as adding a new rewrite rule for a cleaner URL.

Register the Post Type

First of all, let’s create our custom post type. In this example, we will register a book post type.

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function theme_init()
{
	$labels = array(
		'name' => __('Books'),
		'singular_name' => __('Book'),
		'add_new' => __('Add Book'),
		'add_new_item' => __('Add New Book Item'),
		'edit_item' => __('Edit Book Item'),
		'new_item' => __('New Book Item'),
		'view_item' => __('View Book Item'),
		'search_items' => __('Search Books'),
		'not_found' =>  __('Nothing found'),
		'not_found_in_trash' => __('Nothing found in Trash'), 
		'parent_item_colon' => ''
	);
	$args = array(
    	'labels' => $labels,
    	'public' => true,
    	'publicly_queryable' => true,
    	'show_ui' => true, 
    	'query_var' => true,
    	'rewrite' => true,
    	'capability_type' => 'post',
    	'hierarchical' => false,
    	'menu_position' => null,
    	'supports' => array('title','editor','author','thumbnail','excerpt','comments')
  	); 
  	register_post_type('book', $args);
}
add_action('init', 'theme_init');

Add this code to the theme functions.php. We hook the function to the init action. In case you didn’t know the WordPress hook, you can take a good read on codex.

The post type is now ready to use, it appeared on the back-end, you can add, edit and remove the book. The single post is accessible now. The landing page is accessible by appending ?post_type=book to your website URL.

Clean the URL

Now, we want to make the URL cleaner. Instead of accessing the landing page with yourwebsite.com/?post_type=book, we want to make it yourwebsite.com/book instead. We can do this by adding a new rewrite rule.

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function theme_rewrite()
{
	add_rewrite_rule('book/?$', 'index.php?post_type=book', 'top');
	add_rewrite_rule('book/page/(\d+)/?$', 'index.php?post_type=book&paged=$matches[1]', 'top');
	//flush_rewrite_rules(); // run one time only
}
add_action('init', 'theme_rewrite');

Again, add this to the theme functions.php file. We add a new rewrite rule and redirect it to index.php?post_type=book, don’t forget to use ‘top’ in the third parameter, this is to make sure this rule must be run before any other WordPress rule. We also add another rule to work with pagination.

Notice the commented line above? After we add a new rewrite rule, we must flush the rewrite rules. This must be done one time when it is changed. So when you have it run once, comment or remove that line as it is not needed anymore. The rules will also flushed when you go to Settings -> Permalinks in back-end.

However, the add rewrite rule line must be keep though, as if you remove it, the next time it flushed, you will lost the rule.

Customizing the Landing Page

The current landing page used the same template as the home page, which in most case is either front-page.php, home.php or index.php. This isn’t good as they are shared with any other post type. So, we must create a new filter, to look for home-book.php before falling to another template.

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function theme_home_template( $template )
{
	if ( get_query_var('post_type') )
	{
		$new_template = 'home-'.get_query_var('post_type').'.php';
		$templates = array(
			$new_template,
			$template
		);
		return locate_template($templates);
	}
	return $template;
}
add_filter('home_template', 'theme_home_template');

Add this code again to theme’s functions.php. Then, create the home-book.php and customize it to the way you need.

Conclusion

That’s it. So to conclude it, we first register the post type as usual, then adding a rewrite rule for the sake of cleaner URL. Finally, we create a new home-{post_type}.php file to serve as the template of the landing page. Now that we have the template, we can customize it to every way we wanted.

A different approach can be done though, such as creating a page and a custom template that query to the post type. I have used this on some of my clients. The downside is we will create a blank page, not that it’s bad, but it’s always good to not leave any junk in the administration back-end – so user can’t remove it accidentally and break the site.

This approach, although a little tricky, is a good way to make everything work seamlessly without any configuration needed.

They are both excellent, quick and cheap service to receive your money. Now I will going to compare the withdrawal process from both service, comparing the fee, rate and the time it needed to arrive to my bank account.

Fees

The Paypal fee for withdrawal here is IDR 16.000 (about $1,8) for a withdrawal that less than IDR 1.500.000 (about $173) and free if more. On the other side, the Moneybookers use a flat fee for $2,42 for each withdrawal.

Paypal is winning here, so one score for Paypal.

Rate

To make this fair, I compare both service by withdrawing at around the same time, at February 16 morning. Paypal immediately show the rate for that day upon withdrawal request, it is IDR 8.682,11. Moneybookers unfortunately didn’t show any rate, so I must wait until the arrival date to count the rate. The Moneybookers rate I received is IDR 8.735.

There is a small IDR 52,89 differences between both, so unless you are withdrawing a lot of money, it won’t hurt you anyway. However, Moneybookers still win, so one score for Moneybookers.

Time to Arrival

There is nothing more awful other than the anxiety of waiting to see your money arrived on your bank account. Again, for the fair comparison, I was withdrawing at around the same time. I place the withdrawal request at February 16 morning. I retrieved the money from Paypal at February 18, afternoon. And the money from Moneybookers is arrived at February 17, again in afternoon.

The withdrawal process on Moneybookers is faster, taking a day and a half. While Paypal is standing one day behind. Again, Moneybookers overcome Paypal and score another point. Now, score-wise, Moneybookers is leading with 2 and Paypal with 1.

The Table

Now, I present you with the table comparison of the withdrawal from $100 into $800. I will use the rate when this article is written, so this data is served as a reference only, and it might not be correct in future (who knows if someday Paypal have a better rate than Moneybookers or Moneybookers have a much better rate?). So again, this is only a reference, use on your own risk. Don’t blame me for the accuracy.

Rate for Paypal is IDR 8.682,11
Rate for Moneybookers is IDR 8.735

You could see that Moneybookers win by leading 6 out of the 8. While Paypal only manage to win 2, but the range it’s leading is in $200 and $300, which is the one used most I believe. Interestingly, the $100 and $400 range is somewhat equal between both. But Moneybookers is definitely leading in $500 and more range.

So by the table above, we could take a summary that Paypal is a better solution when you are withdrawing $400 or less. And Moneybookers is a better one if you need to withdraw more than $400. As for the score, I’ll give it a draw, so Moneybookers 3, Paypal 2.

Summary

Both solution are an excellent solution for receiving money and withdrawing. Paypal wins in the lower fee (and even free) and is better overall in less than $400 range. Moneybookers is leading with a better rate, faster and definitely better in more than $400 range.

Overall, Moneybookers is a better choice to withdrawing your money. Not that it offers a better rate, it is also faster. The fees won’t hurt you much as it is compensated with a faster process.

As for me, I will stick with this two. They are both excellent and I liked the Paypal interface better.

Well, A little flashback to last year.

As far as my freelance career is concerned, I have improved about 158.18% compared to 2009 in earning. I have worked on small fixing project, PSD conversion project and even on a full featured website for medium business.

And on the art part, I still doing it as a hobby and improved a little over the year. Here is the compilation of my year by year progress.

Now a target in 2011:
- I will create a product and sell it in a marketplace (most likely a WordPress theme)
- Improving my work hours and balancing it with my hobby, learning something new if possible
- Buying some stuff that I was drolling on but couldn’t get one yet

So that’s all. Happy new year again! Enjoy your holiday!

This scene take places on the final battle between Shiki and Shirazumi, which finally slice down Shirazumi in many pieces. Since I have never draw something that bloody before, this is new to me and I’m quite like it. The drawing takes many hours to complete, from rough sketch to full color page. Can’t really count it since the sketch and color is not done at the same time (I draw the sketch a few couple weeks ago). This is an enjoyable experience and I hope you like it…

Sorry for the blood though.

Check it out on my deviant Art for high resolution. Don’t forget to favorite it if you like.