So, today, when I migrated one of our client’s sites from our staging server to the live/production server, I was frustrated that some of the widgets weren’t showing up properly after my usual Search and Replace of the old URL to the new URL in the database, yet excited that I could read her post to find a solution. Frustrexcited, if you will.

Here are the solutions I tried and read on to see which one actually worked:

WP Live Server Deploy: This plugin was featured on wpmu.org, looked like a really good solution. The plugin claimed to quickly migrate your development/staging site to your live/production site, including changing all the old URLs to new URLs. Well, it sounded great, but.. it didn’t work.  After I entered the new site’s FTP information into the plugin settings, the FTP info was verified. But when I clicked the “Automate Deployment” button, the plugin couldn’t “determines the remote capabilities of the server”.  Then I tried to do a manual backup using this plugin and that didn’t work either. Next.

Peach - An online tool that lets you drag-and-drop a .sql file into the page and set a new domain. I was skeptical because it looked too easy. When I dropped in my .sql file it said there were 0 serialized links. Boo.

 WP Migrate DB - My new best friend. Please meet WP Migrate DB. No, he/she doesn’t have a fancy, memorable name, but I definitely wanted to hug and high-five this plugin after it did what it said it would do. It changed all the old URLs to new URLs in the database, including fixing serialized links, and lets you download the new SQL file. I was so happy not to have to mess with any Search and Replace plugins or SQL queries in PHPMyAdmin. 

This post was originally published at Data Serialization, WordPress, and my new best friend on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

The problem was that when an apostrophe was entered into a custom text label in the options panel, a slash decided to come along for the ride. Example: Instead of seeing “We’ll send you a link”, the site displayed “We\’ll send you a link”. I searched around and finally found this post, Using stripslashes() with Theme Options which explains that you need to use the stripslashes function when you return the content stored in the custom text.

Basically, you just wrap stripslashes() around the get_option like so:

If you had <?php  echo get_option(‘cgn_404_text’); ?>

it would now be:

<?php  echo stripslashes(get_option(‘cgn_404_text’)); ?>

In your custom-text.php file, you’ll probably use something like this:

This post was originally published at How to fix apostrophes turning into slashes in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_parent = ".$post->ID." AND post_type = 'page' ORDER BY menu_order", 'OBJECT'); ?>

This post was originally published at How to list subpages with a title and excerpt in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

One of the reasons we love WordPress is because it’s so future-proof. What I mean by that is that once you have created a WordPress site, you aren’t stuck where you are for the following reasons:

• Content is separate from form so at any point you can completely redesign your site while retaining content and link structure. This is important to ensure you don’t lose traffic from search engines and inbound links.
• As long as the WordPress software continues to be developed, it will continue to support modern web technologies so users are not left with an archaic system that, for example, adores IE7 but doesn’t know what HTML5 is.
• Your site is portable. You need to move a site to another server, or even another domain name? No problem. A few steps related to find-and-replace, exporting and importing the database, and setting up global 301 redirects (if you’ve changed domains) and you’re there.

All the above is true, except the data portability point. It’s not quite as true as I thought it was.

Data serialization and its impact on data portability

(I am a big newbie when it comes to data serialization, so the following is based on what I’ve managed to learn over the while and could very well be inaccurate/wrong.)

It seems that developers use data serialization in order to improve performance or efficiency in a database. Instead of creating a new table for data, or storing data in a table which could end up having wasteful empty fields, you can keep all the data in an array in one field. This leads to saved space and simplified SQL statements. Serialized data is stored and recovered using PHP’s serialize() and unserialize() functions. Terri Swallow explains how using serialized data for her multi-user plugin helped save her from creating hundreds of new options for every new user created.

Here’s an example of serialized data from Andrew Nacin:

But there are serious drawbacks to using serialized data. One problem is that you can’t run a MySQL query on serialized data. The data would have to be pulled out of the table via PHP, unserialized, and then searched using PHP instead of MySQL (thanks to Catch My Fame for explaining this). So let’s say you are storing user data in serialized format, but you want to find out how many of your users are from Australia, you can’t get that info easily.

A serious problem, in my opinion, is the impact serialization has on data portability. It makes it near-impossible to port a WordPress site from one domain to another without losing data. Another possible, yet unlikely issue, is if you need to port data from WordPress into another programming language – admittedly a rare occurrence, but a possible one that needs to be considered.

There are developers out there who are very frustrated by the use of serialized data:

An anonymous comment left on the PHP manual entry for serialize():

Please! please! please! DO NOT serialize data and place it into your database. Serialize can be used that way, but that’s missing the point of a relational database and the datatypes inherent in your database engine. Doing this makes data in your database non-portable, difficult to read, and can complicate queries. If you want your application to be portable to other languages, like let’s say you find that you want to use Java for some portion of your app that it makes sense to use Java in, serialization will become a pain in the buttocks. You should always be able to query and modify data in the database without using a third party intermediary tool to manipulate data to be inserted…That’s not to say serialize() is useless. It’s not…Just don’t abuse serialize because the next guy who comes along will have a maintenance or migration nightmare.

Alexander Scammon: “WordPress does a silly thing.  It has serialized data inside its database.”

Serialized data usage that can have a serious impact on WordPress portability:

• Some widget data (though for some reason we’ve never had issues retaining widgets via a database dump)
• Some theme settings
• Plugin data

It was related to serialized plugin data that we had our first encounter with data serialization. We had installed a plugin to help a client manage a technical issue on their site without having to get too technical. They entered hundreds of entries in the plugin, but upon moving the site from development to production, the data disappeared. By that point, there was no way to recover it unfortunately, but we had definitely learned a painful, important lesson.

So what do we do?

Some suggestions:

1. Theme and plugin developers: please seriously consider whether the benefits of serializing your data outweigh the potential future problems it could cause.
2. Theme and plugin developers: if you must use serialized data, please try to make sure there’s some way to export and import the data. Even a simple .csv export is better than nothing.
3. WordPress users: try to ascertain before using a theme or plugin whether the data is stored in a serialized format.

But let’s say you find yourself with a database that includes serialized data. Here are some tools created by generous souls that might be able to help you port your data without losing it:

Peach – an online utility that aims to deal with the fact that WordPress stores URLs in serialized format, which makes it hard to move a site from one domain to another, or from staging to production. To use this tool (which works best in Chrome) ou drag-and-drop an .sql file into the square in the middle of the page, and set a new domain.

WordPress Search and Replace Tool – this script can also handle multiply nested serializations and multi-byte Unicode changes, which is important now that internationalized domain names are allowed. The code will work for any platform that stores PHP serialized arrays in a MySQL database (Drupal, Joomla, etc.). You must delete the script from your server once you’re finished with it.

fix_serialization.php – Not much description provided with this tool, but Alex Scammon provides instructions in his comment below.

WP Migrate DB – this is a plugin that exports your database as a MySQL data dump, does a find and replace on URLs and file paths, then allows you to save it to your computer.  It even takes into account serialized data and updates the string length values. (thanks Matt Wiebe)

After trying these tools, we wrote an update on data serialization.

This post was originally published at Data portability and data serialization in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

Case 1: Add a Contact Us link to the navigation menu that triggers a disclaimer popup.  
Once a visitor clicks OK, open the visitor’s email client using the mailto: function.

1. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Menus and add a custom link. 
    
2. Go to Screen Options and make sure the “CSS Classes” checbox is checked
3. In the URL field, put mailto:youremail@yoursite.com 
4. In the CSS Class, put show-confirm-popup
5. Open up header.php
6. Check to see if you already have the jQuery library loaded on your site. If not, add the following somewhere between the opening and closing head tags 

   <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

7. Add the following code between the opening and closing head tag. Make sure to change the text of the disclaimer.

   <script type="text/javascript">$(document).ready(function(){ $('.show-confirm-popup a').each(function(){ $(this).click(showConfirmPopup); }); }); function showConfirmPopup(){ var confirmation_text = 'Change this text. By clicking "OK," you agree that you have read and understand this notice.'; return confirm(confirmation_text); }   $(function(){ }); </script>

  Case 2: Add the popup disclaimer to any link.  

1. Add the following link structure anywhere on your site.

   <a onclick="return showConfirmPopup();" href="mailto:youremail@yoursite.com">Contact Us</a>; 

2. Copy the code from Step 6 and 7 from Case 1 above into header.php.

Case 3: Add the popup disclaimer before a comment is submitted

1. Open Comments.php
2. Do a search for the word “submit”
3. Add the onClick parameter to the Submit button. It will look something like this:

   <input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" tabindex="5"   value="Submit Comment" onClick="return showConfirmCommentPopup();" />

4. Copy the code from Step 6 and 7 from Case 1 into header.php and also in header.php, add the following function. Remember to change the text.

   function showConfirmCommentPopup(){ var confirmation_text = 'Change this text. By clicking "OK," you agree that you have read and understand this notice.'; return confirm(confirmation_text); }  

    

Big thank you to Elisha!

This post was originally published at Disclaimer popups before sending an email or submitting a comment using simple jQuery in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

Logically, our clients want the Hebrew website to have a Hebrew Dashboard. However, out of the box, WordPress Multisite defaults to English, and needs a bit of tweaking to localize the Dashboard into the language of your choice.

(Friendly warning: if you don’t change the Hebrew Dashboard into Hebrew, the post/page Editor is really problematic and usually messes up alignment and styling on the site.)

So here’s how to localize a site within WordPress Multisite into Hebrew, but you can apply the same general rules for any language.

1.

Download Hebrew WordPress from the Hebrew WordPress website and copy the language folder or use this zip file of the language folder (from WordPress version 3.2.1).  Upload the language folder into you’re site’s wp-content folder. 

2. Add the following to wp-config.php: define (‘WPLANG’, ‘he_IL’);

3. Go into your Network Admin Area by clicking in the top right corner on Howdy, YourName and click on Network Admin

4. In the left Navigation menu, click on Sites > All Sites

5. On the Hebrew site, click Edit

6. Once you’re in the Edit Site area, click on Settings

7. Once you’re in the Settings tab, search for the line “WPLANG” and fill in the language reference code such as he_IL.

Or, as Andrea pointed out, you can go into the Hebrew site’s General Settings and switch the language from there.

That’s it!

This post was originally published at How to localize a Hebrew website’s Dashboard with WordPress Multisite on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

1. Use the built-in WordPress Bulk Edit feature.

This feature was introduced back in version 2.7 but only now did I fall in love with it!  It allows you to batch edit lots of information for multiple posts at one time: change categories, modify the author, change the post status, and most importantly (for me, right now), open or close comments.

To use it, go to:

• Posts > All Posts
• Select the posts you want to edit by checking off the checkboxes next to the post title.
• Click on the Bulk Actions dropdown menu. 
• Select Edit and click Apply. It’s a bit scary to have to click on Apply before you’ve made changes but once you build up the courage, it’s worth it! No changes will happen yet.
• In the Comments dropdown, select Allow.
• If you want to edit more than the default 20 posts per page in the admin screen, you can go to Screen Options in the top right corner and change the number of Posts Displayed per page.
• Done! However, I had to check a few posts to make sure that it actually worked. I think that there is something buggy in the feature because it only worked some of the time. Maybe there is a max of how many posts can be bulk edited at once.

This method is good if you don’t want to get into the database. My only complaint is that it’s a bit time consuming and there’s no way of seeing a list of all the posts that have comments open or closed.

2. Do some SQL work in the Database

The other option for allowing comments globally in WordPress is to get into the PHPMyAdmin (ugh) and run a script to open all comments.  Although it can be scary to get into the database and run SQL queries, it is the most accurate way of making sure the comments are open on all your posts.

Here’s the SQL query to run to open all comments:

<code>UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status = 'open';</code>

As you can see, each method has its pros and cons. Making this change within the dashboard is not as daunting but you don’t feel like you have as much control over the process. Also, it seems not to work 100% of the time, for some reason. And going into the database is, well, daunting. But otherwise, at least you know that it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s very possible that the dashboard direction is one we’d explain to a client but that if this is something we’re working on, we’ll prefer to go the database route.

This post was originally published at How to Re-enable and Allow Comments in Older Posts in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

1. Install, activate and configure the TinyMCE Advanced plugin. This plugin allows you to add useful buttons to the WYSIWYG through a drag and drop settings page.

2. In the settings (Settings >TinyMCE Advanced), drag the “Insert Movie” button into the WYSIWYG:

3. Save changes.

4. Upload the video file of your choice to your WordPress site through Media > Add New.

5. Copy the URL of that video:

6. Open up the editor of the post/page where you’d like to embed the video (if you aren’t there already).

7. Click on the button which says “Insert/edit embedded media” when you hover over it:

5. Under “Type,” choose “Windows Media.”

6. Paste the URL in File/URL field.

7. Click “Insert.”

8. Save Draft or Publish.

9. Verify that it worked in the front end.

Note that the user’s browser has to have the Windows Media Player plug-in, and it needs to run to play the video in a player.

This post was originally published at How to embed a .wmv file in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

We often use that setting on sites under development…and more than once forgot to open the site to search engines once the site was launched. Ouch.

Around WordPress 3.1, a handy feature was added where a line of text was added in the admin next to the name of the site saying “Search Engines Blocked” when search engines were, you guessed it, blocked. Like this:

For some reason, in WordPress 3.2 that notification line has disappeared. Here’s that same site, search engines still blocked, but upgraded to 3.2:

That notification was a life saver. Does anyone know where it went? And why it was taken away? I miss it and want it back. Sniff.

This post was originally published at What happened to the “search engines blocked” notification in WordPress 3.2? on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.

Here’s what I did:

1. First, I set up the author image using the Author Image plugin to give our client an easy way to manage thumbnails of each author from the user’s profile settings.
2. Then I started looking for a way to link the author’s image to their archive. When I couldn’t find an easy answer in the WordPress template tags, I remembered that WPGarage has that feature in the footer area of each post! So I checked out the code of WPGlide theme (the theme we use on this site by Solostream), found the code I needed and modified it.Here’s the code I used:

<a href=”<?php bloginfo(‘url’); ?>/author/<?php the_author_meta(‘user_login’); ?>/”> <?php the_author_image(); ?> </a>

This post was originally published at How to link author image to their previous posts in WordPress on WP Garage - WP Garage - wordpress tricks, hacks, and tips.