Dave Redfern's Post A Week http://www.daveredfern.com A freelance website designer and developer specialising in WordPress from the Walsall on the outskirts of Birmingham in the West Midlands Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:37:17 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 6 Steps to Easily move your WordPress Website http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/sSRSgl6zvLA/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/6-steps-to-easily-move-your-wordpress-website/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 20:51:46 +0000 dave http://www.daveredfern.com/?p=310 Untitled-1

WordPress can be a tricky content management system to move from one location to another.  This is mainly due to the endless number of absolute paths which are stored in the database in posts, pages, comments, links and plugins.  It is understandable that WordPress stores absolute paths as it is designed to accomodate a wide variety of locations and conditions. Many WordPress developers use a development server or their localhost to create a website before uploading it to the live website.  Here are the steps I follow to ensure an easy and successful move. Before you start to move anything make sure you have a full backup of your files and especially your database.  This can be achieved by exporting your database to an SQL file with phpmyadmin, an application like sequelpro or using the WP-DB-Database.

1. Download Database

First we need to export the database.  This could be a duplicate of the backup you have just made.  It needs to be an SQL file so we can modify it in the next step.  As previously mentioned phpmyadmin, sequelpro or WP-DB-Database can easily complete this task.

2. Search and replace database for new website address

WordPress stores absolute paths inside the database which can pose a problem when moving it.  I have found the easiest way to alter this is a search and replace of the entire database.  Simple open the SQL file you have generated in your favourite editor and search for www.olddomain.com to replace with www.newdomain.com. If you're unable to acquire an SQL file you can use the plugin search & replace but please be aware this will only replace content inside of posts and pages so links, settings and plugins will need to be altered manually.  I wouldn't recommend doing it this way if you don't have to!

3. Upload the database to the new website

Using the software I've previously mentioned in this article; import your SQL file to the new database.  This will populate your new database with all your WordPress content.

4. Modify the wp-config file with the changes in database connection

Next, open your wp-config file in the root of your WordPress install and edit the database details so it is ready when you transfer the files to the new hosting.  Doing this before you move the files will reduce downtime on the new website address.

5. Transfer the files to the new location

Now we're all setup to move your WordPress files.  Copy your files across to the new location.  There are several ways of doing this but the simplest is to download the files using FTP to your computer and then reupload to to your new space.  If you're using an application such as transmit you can move from one FTP account to another removing the need to download a local copy (although always good to keep one in case). This could take at least 10 minutes so you may wish to place a holding page on the server.  If you name the file index.html it ensures WordPress will not over write it and on most servers will take precedence over index.php which WordPress uses. Once transferred ensure that the upload folder inside wp-content has full right permissions so you can upload images from your admin.  You may also be using some plugins which require special file permissions.  In most cases you can right click on a file in your FTP client and select permissions.

6. Test

Before removing the index.html you may have created while transferring all of your files make sure to test everything on your website.  Take particular care to check image uploading is working in your administration and any forms you may have on the front end post to the correct locations. Now you can sit back in confidence that WordPress is running smoothly at its new location. Thanks for meddygarnet for the photo.]]> Untitled-1

WordPress can be a tricky content management system to move from one location to another.  This is mainly due to the endless number of absolute paths which are stored in the database in posts, pages, comments, links and plugins.  It is understandable that WordPress stores absolute paths as it is designed to accomodate a wide variety of locations and conditions. Many WordPress developers use a development server or their localhost to create a website before uploading it to the live website.  Here are the steps I follow to ensure an easy and successful move. Before you start to move anything make sure you have a full backup of your files and especially your database.  This can be achieved by exporting your database to an SQL file with phpmyadmin, an application like sequelpro or using the WP-DB-Database.

1. Download Database

First we need to export the database.  This could be a duplicate of the backup you have just made.  It needs to be an SQL file so we can modify it in the next step.  As previously mentioned phpmyadmin, sequelpro or WP-DB-Database can easily complete this task.

2. Search and replace database for new website address

WordPress stores absolute paths inside the database which can pose a problem when moving it.  I have found the easiest way to alter this is a search and replace of the entire database.  Simple open the SQL file you have generated in your favourite editor and search for www.olddomain.com to replace with www.newdomain.com. If you're unable to acquire an SQL file you can use the plugin search & replace but please be aware this will only replace content inside of posts and pages so links, settings and plugins will need to be altered manually.  I wouldn't recommend doing it this way if you don't have to!

3. Upload the database to the new website

Using the software I've previously mentioned in this article; import your SQL file to the new database.  This will populate your new database with all your WordPress content.

4. Modify the wp-config file with the changes in database connection

Next, open your wp-config file in the root of your WordPress install and edit the database details so it is ready when you transfer the files to the new hosting.  Doing this before you move the files will reduce downtime on the new website address.

5. Transfer the files to the new location

Now we're all setup to move your WordPress files.  Copy your files across to the new location.  There are several ways of doing this but the simplest is to download the files using FTP to your computer and then reupload to to your new space.  If you're using an application such as transmit you can move from one FTP account to another removing the need to download a local copy (although always good to keep one in case). This could take at least 10 minutes so you may wish to place a holding page on the server.  If you name the file index.html it ensures WordPress will not over write it and on most servers will take precedence over index.php which WordPress uses. Once transferred ensure that the upload folder inside wp-content has full right permissions so you can upload images from your admin.  You may also be using some plugins which require special file permissions.  In most cases you can right click on a file in your FTP client and select permissions.

6. Test

Before removing the index.html you may have created while transferring all of your files make sure to test everything on your website.  Take particular care to check image uploading is working in your administration and any forms you may have on the front end post to the correct locations. Now you can sit back in confidence that WordPress is running smoothly at its new location. Thanks for meddygarnet for the photo.]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/6-steps-to-easily-move-your-wordpress-website/feed/ 1 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/6-steps-to-easily-move-your-wordpress-website/ Getting the most from WordPress Post Thumbnail http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/BiIxUSMnJiI/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/getting-the-most-from-wordpress-post-thumbnail/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 19:59:20 +0000 dave http://www.daveredfern.com/?p=265 Untitled-1

The majority of page on the Internet includes an image; blogs are no exception.  More and more blogs are introducing newspaper style layouts with a large image at the top of each article. Previously in WordPress the methods to display these was clunky, either having to upload and paste the URL into a custom field or using a php script to interrogate the content to find the first image.  WordPress 2.9 and above have bought a nice and easy solution to this problem with the introduction of post thumbnail. Post thumbnail adds an additional meta box to your posts and pages allowing your editors to upload their own images completely separate to the content. It also has the ability to automatically crop your images to the correct size ensuring nothing ever looks out of align on your website.

Implementing Post Thumbnail

To enabled Post Thumbnail simple paste the following into your functions.php.  I have also included the code to enable Post Thumbnail in just pages or posts. 
if(function_exists('add_theme_support')) {
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');
	// add_theme_support('post-thumbnails', array('post')); // Add to posts
	// add_theme_support('post-thumbnails', array('page')); // Add to pages
}
Once enabled you should see a new meta box in your posts and pages in your WordPress admin.  We now need to tell WordPress what size we want the thumbnail to be.  You can do this by simply placing the following into your functions.php file. 
set_post_thumbnail_size(570, 200, true); // width, height, crop (true or false)
In most cases we'll want a few difference sizes for our post thumbnail for various areas of our website such as homepage, archives, single and search. This can be accomplished by creating new image sizes. Add this to your functions.php. 
add_image_size('single_post', 200, 120, true); // name, width, height, crop
You can add as many of these as you want but remember it will create a crop for each image you upload so if you're limited on space you may wish to try and keep them to a minimum. Post thumbnails are created at the time the image is uploaded so if in the future you change your cropping sizes all previous post thumbnails uploaded won't resize.  There is a plugin available called Regenerate Thumbnail which will go through all of your images and resize them to the new sizes. Now we've set all the settings to our theme we can look at displaying the post thumbnail. You can use the following code in any loop to display a post thumbnail. 
<?php
if (has_post_thumbnail()) {
	// an image has been uploaded lets display it
	the_post_thumbnail();
	// the_post_thumbnail('single-post'); // use to display custom thumbnails
		we've added previously
	// $image = get_the_post_thumbnail(); // this will return the image as a
		variable instead of printing it.
} else {
	// you may wish to include your previous method
		for older content or a default image?
}
?>
Here we're displaying the post thumbnail in the loop. First we're checking whether the post has a thumbnail attached to it.  If the thumbnail is present we can then either print out the default size or a custom one we've previously created in our functions.php file. I have added an else statement in this post in case you wish to add a default image or carry on supporting previous methods used before this function was used on your website.

Adding Post Thumbnail to your RSS

Unfortunately regardless of whether Post Thumbnail has been activated in your functions.php WordPress will not display them in your RSS feed. We can include the following function will add the thumbnail if available to each post in your RSS. Place it in your functions.php. 
function rss_post_thumbnail($content) {
  	global $post;
   	if(has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) {
   	    	$content = '<p>' . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID) .
   	    	   	   '</p>' . get_the_content();
   	}
   	return $content;
}
add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'rss_post_thumbnail');
add_filter('the_content_feed', 'rss_post_thumbnail');
That's it! Its really that simple.]]> Untitled-1

The majority of page on the Internet includes an image; blogs are no exception.  More and more blogs are introducing newspaper style layouts with a large image at the top of each article. Previously in WordPress the methods to display these was clunky, either having to upload and paste the URL into a custom field or using a php script to interrogate the content to find the first image.  WordPress 2.9 and above have bought a nice and easy solution to this problem with the introduction of post thumbnail. Post thumbnail adds an additional meta box to your posts and pages allowing your editors to upload their own images completely separate to the content. It also has the ability to automatically crop your images to the correct size ensuring nothing ever looks out of align on your website.

Implementing Post Thumbnail

To enabled Post Thumbnail simple paste the following into your functions.php.  I have also included the code to enable Post Thumbnail in just pages or posts. 
if(function_exists('add_theme_support')) {
	add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');
	// add_theme_support('post-thumbnails', array('post')); // Add to posts
	// add_theme_support('post-thumbnails', array('page')); // Add to pages
}
Once enabled you should see a new meta box in your posts and pages in your WordPress admin.  We now need to tell WordPress what size we want the thumbnail to be.  You can do this by simply placing the following into your functions.php file. 
set_post_thumbnail_size(570, 200, true); // width, height, crop (true or false)
In most cases we'll want a few difference sizes for our post thumbnail for various areas of our website such as homepage, archives, single and search. This can be accomplished by creating new image sizes. Add this to your functions.php. 
add_image_size('single_post', 200, 120, true); // name, width, height, crop
You can add as many of these as you want but remember it will create a crop for each image you upload so if you're limited on space you may wish to try and keep them to a minimum. Post thumbnails are created at the time the image is uploaded so if in the future you change your cropping sizes all previous post thumbnails uploaded won't resize.  There is a plugin available called Regenerate Thumbnail which will go through all of your images and resize them to the new sizes. Now we've set all the settings to our theme we can look at displaying the post thumbnail. You can use the following code in any loop to display a post thumbnail. 
<?php
if (has_post_thumbnail()) {
	// an image has been uploaded lets display it
	the_post_thumbnail();
	// the_post_thumbnail('single-post'); // use to display custom thumbnails
		we've added previously
	// $image = get_the_post_thumbnail(); // this will return the image as a
		variable instead of printing it.
} else {
	// you may wish to include your previous method
		for older content or a default image?
}
?>
Here we're displaying the post thumbnail in the loop. First we're checking whether the post has a thumbnail attached to it.  If the thumbnail is present we can then either print out the default size or a custom one we've previously created in our functions.php file. I have added an else statement in this post in case you wish to add a default image or carry on supporting previous methods used before this function was used on your website.

Adding Post Thumbnail to your RSS

Unfortunately regardless of whether Post Thumbnail has been activated in your functions.php WordPress will not display them in your RSS feed. We can include the following function will add the thumbnail if available to each post in your RSS. Place it in your functions.php. 
function rss_post_thumbnail($content) {
  	global $post;
   	if(has_post_thumbnail($post->ID)) {
   	    	$content = '<p>' . get_the_post_thumbnail($post->ID) .
   	    	   	   '</p>' . get_the_content();
   	}
   	return $content;
}
add_filter('the_excerpt_rss', 'rss_post_thumbnail');
add_filter('the_content_feed', 'rss_post_thumbnail');
That's it! Its really that simple.]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/getting-the-most-from-wordpress-post-thumbnail/feed/ 11 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/getting-the-most-from-wordpress-post-thumbnail/ 10 Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/ZmQTfdFYCUk/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/10-plugins-every-wordpress-blog-should-have/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 20:32:42 +0000 dave http://www.daveredfern.com/?p=262 Untitled-1

Akismet

This plugin comes with Wordpress but does require activating and a registered account at WordPress.com. Akismet is a product developed my Automattic and is a system to stop spam. Any WordPress site with comments enable should have this installed as I have found it blocks the majority of spam posts and removes the need for captcha.

FD Feedburner Plugin

This plugin replaces all the links to the WordPress RSS feed with one from Feedburner.  While to someone following your blogs RSS will not notice a difference it does allow you to monitor the number of people subscribing so you can track your websites progress.  Using this plugin allows you to call the default RSS functions in your template files so no need to edit anything else.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a sitemap which helps search engines crawl your websites content.  Along with generating the sitemap it also notifies search engines of any new content added to the website so they get updated as quickly as possible.  The plugin has advanced features including the ability to exclude certains pages from the sitemap.

WP-PageNavi

Two links for forward and backwards isn't the greatest way to navigate through dozens of posts and pages.  WP-PageNavi adds a lot more functionality to your pagination including the ability to jump several pages and links to jump to the start or end.  While this plugin can be a little fiddly to integrate into your design it significantly improves your websites navigation.

Google Analyticator

Keeping track of who is visits your site is useful for monitoring which pages are visited the most, which blog posts are popular and user information such as browser, monitor size and operating system.  Google Analytics is probably the most advanced statistics software on the market and there are plently of WordPress plugins to integrate it. Many reading this may feel it is unnecessary to use a plugin when you can quickly place the code in your footer.php but this plugin offers so much more.  It adds a dashboard widget so you can quickly look at the stats for your blog and several front end widgets so you can share your stats with your users.

WP DB Backup

You never know when your blog may come crashing down so making regular backups is essential.  Luckily for WordPress in most cases you don't need to worry about backing up the files as you can always quickly redownload WordPress but your database is.  Regular backups may just save you one day and with WP DB backups it is made very easy so there is no excuse.

exec-php

For most this plugin may not be useful but for developers it can be quite handy.  Exec-PHP allows you to execute php through your posts and pages.  If you're not confident with PHP I wouldn't recommend using it but for those who are its a nice feature to have.

Theme Test Drive

While you may not require this plugin when you first go live it is incredibly useful when redesigning or tweaking your site.  Theme Test Drive allows you to use a different theme for administrators so you can alter the front end without it impacting on your visitors.  When you're done you can simply copy the changes over to your main theme.  This solves any issues of setting up a development server or the development site database being out of date.

Contact Form 7

This plugin allows you to create forms of any size and length from a small contact form to a large quote.  The plugin uses JavaScript for form validation and ajax to submit.  While this plugin does have a few annoyances it does the job!  Alternates include cforms and WP Contact Form but I'd recommend Contact Form 7 as the best of an only OK bunch.

WP Minify

Only a few weeks ago this plugin wouldn't have made the cut but with the recent update it is a definitely.  Often when using plugins with WordPress a lot of CSS and Javascript files get added which can bog the loading times down.  WP Minify allows you to consolidate these into one file which is minified.  Previously this was place in the header but with the recent update you can now use the tags <!-- WP-Minify JS --> and <!-- WP-Minify CSS --> anywhere in your template files.  This is great when using external scripts such as Googles Ajaxlib.  It is simple to implement and in some cases can significantly speed up your website especially when you place the tags in the footer. Article image credited to Huasonic. Thanks for sharing!]]> Untitled-1

Akismet

This plugin comes with Wordpress but does require activating and a registered account at WordPress.com. Akismet is a product developed my Automattic and is a system to stop spam. Any WordPress site with comments enable should have this installed as I have found it blocks the majority of spam posts and removes the need for captcha.

FD Feedburner Plugin

This plugin replaces all the links to the WordPress RSS feed with one from Feedburner.  While to someone following your blogs RSS will not notice a difference it does allow you to monitor the number of people subscribing so you can track your websites progress.  Using this plugin allows you to call the default RSS functions in your template files so no need to edit anything else.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a sitemap which helps search engines crawl your websites content.  Along with generating the sitemap it also notifies search engines of any new content added to the website so they get updated as quickly as possible.  The plugin has advanced features including the ability to exclude certains pages from the sitemap.

WP-PageNavi

Two links for forward and backwards isn't the greatest way to navigate through dozens of posts and pages.  WP-PageNavi adds a lot more functionality to your pagination including the ability to jump several pages and links to jump to the start or end.  While this plugin can be a little fiddly to integrate into your design it significantly improves your websites navigation.

Google Analyticator

Keeping track of who is visits your site is useful for monitoring which pages are visited the most, which blog posts are popular and user information such as browser, monitor size and operating system.  Google Analytics is probably the most advanced statistics software on the market and there are plently of WordPress plugins to integrate it. Many reading this may feel it is unnecessary to use a plugin when you can quickly place the code in your footer.php but this plugin offers so much more.  It adds a dashboard widget so you can quickly look at the stats for your blog and several front end widgets so you can share your stats with your users.

WP DB Backup

You never know when your blog may come crashing down so making regular backups is essential.  Luckily for WordPress in most cases you don't need to worry about backing up the files as you can always quickly redownload WordPress but your database is.  Regular backups may just save you one day and with WP DB backups it is made very easy so there is no excuse.

exec-php

For most this plugin may not be useful but for developers it can be quite handy.  Exec-PHP allows you to execute php through your posts and pages.  If you're not confident with PHP I wouldn't recommend using it but for those who are its a nice feature to have.

Theme Test Drive

While you may not require this plugin when you first go live it is incredibly useful when redesigning or tweaking your site.  Theme Test Drive allows you to use a different theme for administrators so you can alter the front end without it impacting on your visitors.  When you're done you can simply copy the changes over to your main theme.  This solves any issues of setting up a development server or the development site database being out of date.

Contact Form 7

This plugin allows you to create forms of any size and length from a small contact form to a large quote.  The plugin uses JavaScript for form validation and ajax to submit.  While this plugin does have a few annoyances it does the job!  Alternates include cforms and WP Contact Form but I'd recommend Contact Form 7 as the best of an only OK bunch.

WP Minify

Only a few weeks ago this plugin wouldn't have made the cut but with the recent update it is a definitely.  Often when using plugins with WordPress a lot of CSS and Javascript files get added which can bog the loading times down.  WP Minify allows you to consolidate these into one file which is minified.  Previously this was place in the header but with the recent update you can now use the tags <!-- WP-Minify JS --> and <!-- WP-Minify CSS --> anywhere in your template files.  This is great when using external scripts such as Googles Ajaxlib.  It is simple to implement and in some cases can significantly speed up your website especially when you place the tags in the footer. Article image credited to Huasonic. Thanks for sharing!]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/10-plugins-every-wordpress-blog-should-have/feed/ 0 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/10-plugins-every-wordpress-blog-should-have/ The Power of wp-config http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/vjcbSdFyfh8/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/the-power-of-wp-config/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:29:07 +0000 dave http://www.daveredfern.com/?p=219 power

Most people know the wp-config.php file contains their database setting and is created upon installation of WordPress.  Once the installation completes many leave the file and don't realise with a few lines of code can do some brilliant things to help develop, optimise and secure your website.  Here are a some of my favourites.

Security Key

The security key is a randomly generated sequence of letters, numbers and symbols which you can add to provide extra security for your blog.  The security key was added in WordPress 2.6 to help encrypt users information in cookies.  Here is an example of a key. 
define('AUTH_KEY',        ':~fTE2U<[DKv{S|LK|qa+eU|OMBZtW6O~mTmH+/T_|Xs 7WF^Q-^/D *^ssr)zZ=');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'G?yg[ASZejuF2:6c|jtA7GhYg p1nMn]iz-eZ,!wL7Gp-Eu0e9> ge(}W|gDA)0L');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',   'x54?}Katl+u.mfe-61njf|TK+J=CCgrJ~d7j-#.![?=pxIj,;-[@)gDD^*ufC~_j');
define('NONCE_KEY',       'X,BvriT/og2J0aj 0M][`RCjYc-FdYQi)_eO$;$pfy3:[1nxqJ_w{tW:0(?FEA>X');
WordPress has kindly added a page on their website to quickly generate a key. By visiting https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ you can grab your own.

Define WordPress and blog address

Most will be familiar with WordPress address and blog address.  Your WordPress address is the location your files while the blog address is the address people will access it from.  In most cases both of these will be same.  You can define both of these under Settings > General in your admin but since 2.6 you can also define them in your wp-config file. 
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . '/path/to/wordpress');
define('WP_HOME',    'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/path/to/wordpress');
Simply paste and adjust accordingly in your wp-config file. This is handy because you can allow WordPress to automatically find these values which is one less thing to change when moving from a development address to live.

Move your contents folder

I am not certain why you'd wish to move your wp-contents folder to elsewhere but WordPress has given you the option so I thought it would be worth a mention. 
define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/blog/wp-content');
define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example/blog/wp-content');
Moving this folder could improve security but I'd don't tend to use this feature.

Alter post revisions and auto saving

Post revisions and auto saving is a handy feature but I find it clogs up the database and the admin interface.  With a couple of lines you can easily alter the number of post revisions (including disabling them) and the time intervals for auto saving your post. 
define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 120 );  // seconds (default is 60)
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); // disable post revisions
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3); // alter number of post revisions kept.
I'd recommend using these with caution, particularly when disabling as you never know when a browser will crash on you but it's always handy limiting them.

Enable debugging

The debugging functionality in WordPress is handy while developing.  Enabling these will display any errors. 
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true); // WordPress javascript debugging
Just remember to set these to false before you go live.

Display queries

WordPress has the ability to save database queries being made. Ideal for trying to find any errors or optimising your website. Simple paste the following into your wp-config.php file. 
define('SAVEQUERIES', true);
Then this into your footer.php file of your theme. 
<?php
if (current_user_can('administrator')){
    global $wpdb;
    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($wpdb->queries);
    echo "</pre>";
}
?>
Similar to some of the other features of wp-config you need to make sure you set this to false before going live as there are performance impacts.

Auto repair your tables

Built into core WordPress is the ability to auto repair damaged tables on your website.  Before version 2.9 you had to use a plugin for this functionality but now you can simply place the following code into your wp-config.php and WordPress will run a repair for you. 
define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);
Once this has been added you can simply visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and let the magic begin!  Be aware that this should only be used when required as user authentication is not required for this script to be ran.

Alter or disable trash

Wordpress version 2.9 introduced the trash functionality which means instead of deleting the post from the database.  This is a nice feature but unknown to most you can alter the settings to change the period they remain in the database.  By default it is set to 30 days but by adding the following code into your wp-config.php file you can change it or even disable it. 
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 30 );  // 30 days
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 0 );  // zero days (disable trash)
Happy wp-configing and make sure to double check everything is secure before going live :)]]> power

Most people know the wp-config.php file contains their database setting and is created upon installation of WordPress.  Once the installation completes many leave the file and don't realise with a few lines of code can do some brilliant things to help develop, optimise and secure your website.  Here are a some of my favourites.

Security Key

The security key is a randomly generated sequence of letters, numbers and symbols which you can add to provide extra security for your blog.  The security key was added in WordPress 2.6 to help encrypt users information in cookies.  Here is an example of a key. 
define('AUTH_KEY',        ':~fTE2U<[DKv{S|LK|qa+eU|OMBZtW6O~mTmH+/T_|Xs 7WF^Q-^/D *^ssr)zZ=');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'G?yg[ASZejuF2:6c|jtA7GhYg p1nMn]iz-eZ,!wL7Gp-Eu0e9> ge(}W|gDA)0L');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',   'x54?}Katl+u.mfe-61njf|TK+J=CCgrJ~d7j-#.![?=pxIj,;-[@)gDD^*ufC~_j');
define('NONCE_KEY',       'X,BvriT/og2J0aj 0M][`RCjYc-FdYQi)_eO$;$pfy3:[1nxqJ_w{tW:0(?FEA>X');
WordPress has kindly added a page on their website to quickly generate a key. By visiting https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ you can grab your own.

Define WordPress and blog address

Most will be familiar with WordPress address and blog address.  Your WordPress address is the location your files while the blog address is the address people will access it from.  In most cases both of these will be same.  You can define both of these under Settings > General in your admin but since 2.6 you can also define them in your wp-config file. 
define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] . '/path/to/wordpress');
define('WP_HOME',    'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . '/path/to/wordpress');
Simply paste and adjust accordingly in your wp-config file. This is handy because you can allow WordPress to automatically find these values which is one less thing to change when moving from a development address to live.

Move your contents folder

I am not certain why you'd wish to move your wp-contents folder to elsewhere but WordPress has given you the option so I thought it would be worth a mention. 
define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/blog/wp-content');
define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://example/blog/wp-content');
Moving this folder could improve security but I'd don't tend to use this feature.

Alter post revisions and auto saving

Post revisions and auto saving is a handy feature but I find it clogs up the database and the admin interface.  With a couple of lines you can easily alter the number of post revisions (including disabling them) and the time intervals for auto saving your post. 
define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 120 );  // seconds (default is 60)
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); // disable post revisions
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3); // alter number of post revisions kept.
I'd recommend using these with caution, particularly when disabling as you never know when a browser will crash on you but it's always handy limiting them.

Enable debugging

The debugging functionality in WordPress is handy while developing.  Enabling these will display any errors. 
define('WP_DEBUG', true);
define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', true); // WordPress javascript debugging
Just remember to set these to false before you go live.

Display queries

WordPress has the ability to save database queries being made. Ideal for trying to find any errors or optimising your website. Simple paste the following into your wp-config.php file. 
define('SAVEQUERIES', true);
Then this into your footer.php file of your theme. 
<?php
if (current_user_can('administrator')){
    global $wpdb;
    echo "<pre>";
    print_r($wpdb->queries);
    echo "</pre>";
}
?>
Similar to some of the other features of wp-config you need to make sure you set this to false before going live as there are performance impacts.

Auto repair your tables

Built into core WordPress is the ability to auto repair damaged tables on your website.  Before version 2.9 you had to use a plugin for this functionality but now you can simply place the following code into your wp-config.php and WordPress will run a repair for you. 
define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);
Once this has been added you can simply visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and let the magic begin!  Be aware that this should only be used when required as user authentication is not required for this script to be ran.

Alter or disable trash

Wordpress version 2.9 introduced the trash functionality which means instead of deleting the post from the database.  This is a nice feature but unknown to most you can alter the settings to change the period they remain in the database.  By default it is set to 30 days but by adding the following code into your wp-config.php file you can change it or even disable it. 
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 30 );  // 30 days
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 0 );  // zero days (disable trash)
Happy wp-configing and make sure to double check everything is secure before going live :)]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/the-power-of-wp-config/feed/ 4 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/the-power-of-wp-config/ 8 Features in WordPress you may not know about http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/-645_4lR7TE/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/features-in-wordpress-you-may-not-know-about/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:01:34 +0000 dave http://daveredfern.com/?p=206 5

Previous post urls don't go to 404

If you decide to rename your post title there is no need to worry about people linking to the old URL because WordPress is clever enough to remember all the previous permalinks you used and redirects the visitor to the lastest URL for that post.  You can try the feature out on this post by clicking here.

Advanced hidden settings page

WordPress has an advanced settings page which lists all of the options stored in the database.  By visiting wp-admin/options.php on your website you're able to view a secret page which is not linked to on any part of the admin to give you full flexibility to the settings with some extra ones which don't appear in the standard settings menus.

Auto repair your tables

Built into core WordPress is the ability to auto repair damaged tables on your website.  Before version 2.9 you had to use a plugin for this functionality but now you can simply place the following code into your wp-config.php and WordPress will run a repair for you. 
define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);
Once this has been added you can simply visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and let the magic begin!  Be aware that this should only be used when required as user authentication is not required for this script to be ran.

Enable Full WYSIWYG editor

By default WordPress uses a limited WYSIWYG editor with the options to bold, italic, strikethough, bullets and alignment.  By pressing the multi coloured button on the far right you can gain access to many more options including the ability to make lines of your post headings, justify text and remove all formatting which is handy when adding in blocks of text from Word documents.

Importing also imports media files

Sometimes when building a WordPress site you may wish to import previous posts from WordPress.com or another content management system.  A nice feature of the import tool is it also imports all of the media files attached to each post so there is no need to worry about remotely hosting images on the previous site.

Deleting plugin folders disables the plugin

While this is less of a feature and more of a fail safe I thought it was worth a mention.  In other content management system deleting a plugin can cause your site to have a plethora of php errors on the front end which is not a pretty sight for visitors, WordPress has solved this.  Whenever a plugin folder is not available and it is activated in the admin area it will be auto disabled to save any errors. I would not recommend just deleting the plugin folder to unistall because often a a script is ran to remove any additional code or tables added to the database its nice to know that your site is not going to collapse if it happens accidentally.

Changing post revision and auto interval settings

WordPress has the nice feature of auto saving your posts every 60 seconds to ensure you don't lose any of your work.  It will then store each of these as a revision.  This can be customised using the wp-config.php by adding the following code. 
define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 160 );  // seconds
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); // disables post revisions
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3); // limit post revisions
The above allows you to define intervals for autosave and either disable or limit the number of post revisions WordPress keeps. Handy for keeping the database clean of dozens of revisions of the same post!

Alter or disable trash

Wordpress version 2.9 introduced the trash functionality which means instead of deleting the post from the database.  This is a nice feature but unknown to most you can alter the settings to change the period they remain in the database.  By default it is set to 30 days but by adding the following code into your wp-config.php file you can change it or even disable it. 
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 30 );  // 30 days
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 0 );  // zero days (disable trash)
]]> 5

Previous post urls don't go to 404

If you decide to rename your post title there is no need to worry about people linking to the old URL because WordPress is clever enough to remember all the previous permalinks you used and redirects the visitor to the lastest URL for that post.  You can try the feature out on this post by clicking here.

Advanced hidden settings page

WordPress has an advanced settings page which lists all of the options stored in the database.  By visiting wp-admin/options.php on your website you're able to view a secret page which is not linked to on any part of the admin to give you full flexibility to the settings with some extra ones which don't appear in the standard settings menus.

Auto repair your tables

Built into core WordPress is the ability to auto repair damaged tables on your website.  Before version 2.9 you had to use a plugin for this functionality but now you can simply place the following code into your wp-config.php and WordPress will run a repair for you. 
define('WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true);
Once this has been added you can simply visit http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php and let the magic begin!  Be aware that this should only be used when required as user authentication is not required for this script to be ran.

Enable Full WYSIWYG editor

By default WordPress uses a limited WYSIWYG editor with the options to bold, italic, strikethough, bullets and alignment.  By pressing the multi coloured button on the far right you can gain access to many more options including the ability to make lines of your post headings, justify text and remove all formatting which is handy when adding in blocks of text from Word documents.

Importing also imports media files

Sometimes when building a WordPress site you may wish to import previous posts from WordPress.com or another content management system.  A nice feature of the import tool is it also imports all of the media files attached to each post so there is no need to worry about remotely hosting images on the previous site.

Deleting plugin folders disables the plugin

While this is less of a feature and more of a fail safe I thought it was worth a mention.  In other content management system deleting a plugin can cause your site to have a plethora of php errors on the front end which is not a pretty sight for visitors, WordPress has solved this.  Whenever a plugin folder is not available and it is activated in the admin area it will be auto disabled to save any errors. I would not recommend just deleting the plugin folder to unistall because often a a script is ran to remove any additional code or tables added to the database its nice to know that your site is not going to collapse if it happens accidentally.

Changing post revision and auto interval settings

WordPress has the nice feature of auto saving your posts every 60 seconds to ensure you don't lose any of your work.  It will then store each of these as a revision.  This can be customised using the wp-config.php by adding the following code. 
define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 160 );  // seconds
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); // disables post revisions
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3); // limit post revisions
The above allows you to define intervals for autosave and either disable or limit the number of post revisions WordPress keeps. Handy for keeping the database clean of dozens of revisions of the same post!

Alter or disable trash

Wordpress version 2.9 introduced the trash functionality which means instead of deleting the post from the database.  This is a nice feature but unknown to most you can alter the settings to change the period they remain in the database.  By default it is set to 30 days but by adding the following code into your wp-config.php file you can change it or even disable it. 
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 30 );  // 30 days
define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 0 );  // zero days (disable trash)
]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/features-in-wordpress-you-may-not-know-about/feed/ 4 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/features-in-wordpress-you-may-not-know-about/ 15 Things to do when you first install WordPress http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/A-L4kBoabKw/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/15-things-to-do-when-you-first-install-wordpress/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:06:28 +0000 dave http://daveredfern.com/?p=178 Untitled-1

Here's a list of 10 things to do when you install WordPress to secure and set your website up ready for development.

1. Install with database table prefix

By default all tables with a Wordpress install are prefix with wp_.  This means that anyone knows the names of all of your MySQL tables.  You can change the prefix while installing WordPress.  Alternately you can add the following code to your wp-config.php file. 
$table_prefix = 'wp_';
Be aware that if you change this after installing WordPress you'll have to change the table names in your database.

2. Remove the default admin account

When you install WordPress the first account created has the username admin.  This is a security risk.  By going to 'Users > Add New' you can create a new account with Administration writes and a custom username which is more suitable and secure.  Then when you login with your new account you can delete the default admin account.  At this point you also have the opportunity to delete all the default WordPress posts.

3. Remove all default WordPress content

WordPress adds a post, page, comment and multiple links to demonstrate WordPress when first installed.  It only takes a couple of minutes to remove these and cleans up the admin ready to place your websites content in.

4. Install dummy content for development

Often when you start developing a website you won't have all of the final content from the client which makes it hard to develop.  Problems such as not being enough posts to paginate, no archives of posts over several months and lack of content so unable to style all the elements are common problems. A solution from WP Candy is to inject some dummy content to the site while developing.  This will give you a variety of content so you can easily style it.

5. Setup Akismet

This plugin comes with Wordpress but does require activating and a registered account at WordPress.com. Akismet is a product developed my Automattic and is a system to stop spam. Any WordPress site with comments enable should have this installed as I have found it blocks the majority of spam posts and removes the need for captcha.  It's a 5 minute job to setup and then never needs messing with again!

6. Change Settings

There are several changes to the default WordPress you should make before.  Here are the ones I recommend:-
  • Change the blog name and tagline.
  • Change the date format.  I suggest j F Y so it displays 8 April 2010.
  • Enable remote publishing so you can use remote application such as android or iPhone.  Tick both Atom Publishing Protocol and XML-RPC.
  • Change the number of posts displayed per page from 10 to 5.
  • Untick allowing people to post comments by default.  This can be overridden in individual posts.
  • Setup the Permalinks structure.  I always set them to /%category%/%postname%/.

7. Setup a Ping list

By default there is only one URL in the ping list but to spread your website about you can increase this list.  Here are a few you can add to help spread the word of your blog.

8. Install your theme

While you will probably not have fully developed your theme when installing Wordpress some regular developers have a base theme which they use.  If you haven't you can always check out Elliot Jay Stocks Starker theme.

9. Install your commonly used plugins

Every WordPress website will have at least a couple of plugins you'll need to install.  Most developers will have a list of their most commonly used ones.  Here are a few plugins which I commonly use:

10. Disable Post Revisions

While I am sure this is a useful feature for some people using WordPress I find it only clutters up the database and the admin interface.  Simply paste the following code into your wp-config.php file to disable post revisions. 
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);
Before doing this please consider whether you need this feature or not.  In some cases you may wish to keep it enabled.

11. Install Google Analytics

Installing Google Analytics is essential for most websites so why not do it early and add it to the footer.php of your theme.  There are lots of plugins which can add it for you but I prefer to add it manually.  Doing it early will tick on thing off early instead of leaving it to the last minute for the client to setup an account.

12. Generate a secret key

A secret key can be generated from visited the WordPress website. By place this generate code inside your wp-config.php file you can encrypt your cookies.  This stops people from accessing your WordPress admin through cookie hijacking.

13. Lock down your config file

WordPress is an open source project so anyone can see the code and file names.  This means that people can often guess the location of files such as wp-config.php and wp-admin.  You can lock down using you .htaccess file with the following code: 
<files wp-config.php>
  Order deny,allow
  deny from all
</files>
This will stop anyone from browsing to the file and accessing it.

14. Protect your admin folder

The admin folder on Wordpress is commonly known as wp-admin so you need to make sure it is protected. You can do this with two methods. The simplest is to set the file access properties (chmod) to 644. If you wish to further protect your admin folder you can lock it using the .htaccess file so only certain IP address can be accessed. 
order deny, allow
allow from 12.121.122.12 #Change to your ip address
deny from all
This can often be very inconvenient and impractical on client websites but for personal projects it maybe worth while.

15. Limit search engines spidering Wordpress folders

It is unlikely you will want search engines spidering your Wordpress folders. Using the .htaccess file you can stop them from spidering it. Add the following: 
Disallow: /wp-*
]]> Untitled-1

Here's a list of 10 things to do when you install WordPress to secure and set your website up ready for development.

1. Install with database table prefix

By default all tables with a Wordpress install are prefix with wp_.  This means that anyone knows the names of all of your MySQL tables.  You can change the prefix while installing WordPress.  Alternately you can add the following code to your wp-config.php file. 
$table_prefix = 'wp_';
Be aware that if you change this after installing WordPress you'll have to change the table names in your database.

2. Remove the default admin account

When you install WordPress the first account created has the username admin.  This is a security risk.  By going to 'Users > Add New' you can create a new account with Administration writes and a custom username which is more suitable and secure.  Then when you login with your new account you can delete the default admin account.  At this point you also have the opportunity to delete all the default WordPress posts.

3. Remove all default WordPress content

WordPress adds a post, page, comment and multiple links to demonstrate WordPress when first installed.  It only takes a couple of minutes to remove these and cleans up the admin ready to place your websites content in.

4. Install dummy content for development

Often when you start developing a website you won't have all of the final content from the client which makes it hard to develop.  Problems such as not being enough posts to paginate, no archives of posts over several months and lack of content so unable to style all the elements are common problems. A solution from WP Candy is to inject some dummy content to the site while developing.  This will give you a variety of content so you can easily style it.

5. Setup Akismet

This plugin comes with Wordpress but does require activating and a registered account at WordPress.com. Akismet is a product developed my Automattic and is a system to stop spam. Any WordPress site with comments enable should have this installed as I have found it blocks the majority of spam posts and removes the need for captcha.  It's a 5 minute job to setup and then never needs messing with again!

6. Change Settings

There are several changes to the default WordPress you should make before.  Here are the ones I recommend:-
  • Change the blog name and tagline.
  • Change the date format.  I suggest j F Y so it displays 8 April 2010.
  • Enable remote publishing so you can use remote application such as android or iPhone.  Tick both Atom Publishing Protocol and XML-RPC.
  • Change the number of posts displayed per page from 10 to 5.
  • Untick allowing people to post comments by default.  This can be overridden in individual posts.
  • Setup the Permalinks structure.  I always set them to /%category%/%postname%/.

7. Setup a Ping list

By default there is only one URL in the ping list but to spread your website about you can increase this list.  Here are a few you can add to help spread the word of your blog.

8. Install your theme

While you will probably not have fully developed your theme when installing Wordpress some regular developers have a base theme which they use.  If you haven't you can always check out Elliot Jay Stocks Starker theme.

9. Install your commonly used plugins

Every WordPress website will have at least a couple of plugins you'll need to install.  Most developers will have a list of their most commonly used ones.  Here are a few plugins which I commonly use:

10. Disable Post Revisions

While I am sure this is a useful feature for some people using WordPress I find it only clutters up the database and the admin interface.  Simply paste the following code into your wp-config.php file to disable post revisions. 
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);
Before doing this please consider whether you need this feature or not.  In some cases you may wish to keep it enabled.

11. Install Google Analytics

Installing Google Analytics is essential for most websites so why not do it early and add it to the footer.php of your theme.  There are lots of plugins which can add it for you but I prefer to add it manually.  Doing it early will tick on thing off early instead of leaving it to the last minute for the client to setup an account.

12. Generate a secret key

A secret key can be generated from visited the WordPress website. By place this generate code inside your wp-config.php file you can encrypt your cookies.  This stops people from accessing your WordPress admin through cookie hijacking.

13. Lock down your config file

WordPress is an open source project so anyone can see the code and file names.  This means that people can often guess the location of files such as wp-config.php and wp-admin.  You can lock down using you .htaccess file with the following code: 
<files wp-config.php>
  Order deny,allow
  deny from all
</files>
This will stop anyone from browsing to the file and accessing it.

14. Protect your admin folder

The admin folder on Wordpress is commonly known as wp-admin so you need to make sure it is protected. You can do this with two methods. The simplest is to set the file access properties (chmod) to 644. If you wish to further protect your admin folder you can lock it using the .htaccess file so only certain IP address can be accessed. 
order deny, allow
allow from 12.121.122.12 #Change to your ip address
deny from all
This can often be very inconvenient and impractical on client websites but for personal projects it maybe worth while.

15. Limit search engines spidering Wordpress folders

It is unlikely you will want search engines spidering your Wordpress folders. Using the .htaccess file you can stop them from spidering it. Add the following: 
Disallow: /wp-*
]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/15-things-to-do-when-you-first-install-wordpress/feed/ 5 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/15-things-to-do-when-you-first-install-wordpress/ Making WordPress easier for clients to use http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/VJTXQ1kg9KY/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/making-wordpress-easier-for-clients-to-use/#comments Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:00:38 +0000 dave http://daveredfern.com/?p=16 Untitled-1

Wordpress is a daunting prospect for clients to edit their own website.  With the plethora of open source plugins available and a few clicks you can clean up the interface to a simple content management system which even the most computer illiterate clients will be able to find their way around. The main confusion that clients find is the difference between posts and pages.  Often when using Wordpress as a full CMS you need to have multiple categories such as news, events, projects and find these all under posts is a strange concept for those not familiar with Wordpress.  To further confuse your clients there are a lot of unused options on the dashboard, edit post, post listings, page edit and page listings.  Often boxes such as post slug, post tags, send trackbacks are unused and only confuse the whole matter.

Trim Admin interface

Trim Admin interface is a free plugin available which simply hides certain elements in the Wordpress admin such as new posts, turbo, help, logos,  and footer elements.  The majority of these just clutter the interface and distract from the main focus of the admin.  The plugin will remove these elements for all users including administrators.

Trim Admin menu

Trim admin menu is designed so you can hide menu items to anyone none administrator.  This is ideal for removing Links or Comments when they're not being used.  Afterall, whats the point of showing functionality which isn't being used? There are more advanced plugins such as Admin Menu Editor which allow you to fully customise the menu of Wordpress.  I have tried Admin Menu Editor and while it works well I find that sometimes it can be a little buggy when disabling and enabling plugins. The advantage of Admin Menu Editor and Trim admin menu becomes clear when using it in conjunction with other plugins such as Magic fields which adds a lot of top level menu items.

Magic fields and custom write panels

Wordpress 3.0 will allow you to create custom write panels so each section of your website (e.g. portfolio, services, news) can have their own section in the CMS rather than being grouped under Posts.  This will give you the ability to create a full admin interface for your clients and takes Wordpress one step closer to becoming a full blown CMS to competing with the likes of Expression Engine and even Drupal. Unfortunately Wordpress 3.0 is still in development and while it is expected to be release soon there are alternates you can use if you're not comfortable with using a pre-release.  Plugins such as Magic fields which is a branch of Flutter offer similar functionality to Wordpress 3.0 where you're able to create custom panels for different sections of the website. I wouldn't recommend using Magic fields all the time as it can be very heavy on the admin and often buggy as it is a hack for the admin interface but for those none technologically savey clients or for large websites it is a saviour for us developers. I hear many good things about pods CMS which in a simliar way to Magic fields allows you to create a full cms based on Wordpress.  Unfortunately I haven't had chance to fully try this yet but worth checking out before choosing which plugin to use. If you're just about to start development on a new website I'd seriously consider using the nightly builds of Wordpress 3.0 as it will probably be released as a full version by the time your website is ready to go live.  This will give you some great bonus features over the current release.

Screen options

Screen options can be modified for each user and the settings are not stored locally.  By setting up a separate user account for your client you can go through their account and hide unnecessary things on the dashboard and write panels.  There is always the option for them to re-enable them but for first impressions its nice to make sure things are as clean as possible.

Permissions and roles management

For each client I will often setup 3 accounts.  One for myself with administrator access, another administrator account for the client and an editor account for the client.  I will recommend they use the editor account for day to day changes.  By getting them to login as a level lower to the administrator it removes many of the menu items including Settings, Tools, Plugins, Appearance and Users.  This has two advantages; one being the interface is less cluttered with many of the options which aren't used on a regular basis hidden.  The other is as a safe guard from the client accidentally change a setting or disabling a plugin which could be detrimental to the front end of their website. If I require further control over the roles in Wordpress I install Roles Manager which is a plugin allowing you to completely customise permissions for each group and even create new ones outside the default 5 available by Wordpress.  While this plugin does state it only works up to Wordpress 2.6 (currently on 2.9.2) I have installed this on many websites and have yet to find any faults with it running on the latest version.  There are other plugins such as Members and Capability Manager which allow you to do the same thing but I haven't looked into them as much as Roles Manager.

Training and support

While doing all of the above improves the admin interface of Wordpress significantly for your clients there is no substitute for training and on going support.  With just an hour or two of explaining how to add and modify content preferably face to face or by screen sharing, clients are able to pick up all of the basic skills required to administrate their own website.  Alternately if you haven't customised the admin interface too much you could direct them to online tutorials such as Wordpress TV which will allow them to watch quick tutorials for using Wordpress.
]]> Untitled-1

Wordpress is a daunting prospect for clients to edit their own website.  With the plethora of open source plugins available and a few clicks you can clean up the interface to a simple content management system which even the most computer illiterate clients will be able to find their way around. The main confusion that clients find is the difference between posts and pages.  Often when using Wordpress as a full CMS you need to have multiple categories such as news, events, projects and find these all under posts is a strange concept for those not familiar with Wordpress.  To further confuse your clients there are a lot of unused options on the dashboard, edit post, post listings, page edit and page listings.  Often boxes such as post slug, post tags, send trackbacks are unused and only confuse the whole matter.

Trim Admin interface

Trim Admin interface is a free plugin available which simply hides certain elements in the Wordpress admin such as new posts, turbo, help, logos,  and footer elements.  The majority of these just clutter the interface and distract from the main focus of the admin.  The plugin will remove these elements for all users including administrators.

Trim Admin menu

Trim admin menu is designed so you can hide menu items to anyone none administrator.  This is ideal for removing Links or Comments when they're not being used.  Afterall, whats the point of showing functionality which isn't being used? There are more advanced plugins such as Admin Menu Editor which allow you to fully customise the menu of Wordpress.  I have tried Admin Menu Editor and while it works well I find that sometimes it can be a little buggy when disabling and enabling plugins. The advantage of Admin Menu Editor and Trim admin menu becomes clear when using it in conjunction with other plugins such as Magic fields which adds a lot of top level menu items.

Magic fields and custom write panels

Wordpress 3.0 will allow you to create custom write panels so each section of your website (e.g. portfolio, services, news) can have their own section in the CMS rather than being grouped under Posts.  This will give you the ability to create a full admin interface for your clients and takes Wordpress one step closer to becoming a full blown CMS to competing with the likes of Expression Engine and even Drupal. Unfortunately Wordpress 3.0 is still in development and while it is expected to be release soon there are alternates you can use if you're not comfortable with using a pre-release.  Plugins such as Magic fields which is a branch of Flutter offer similar functionality to Wordpress 3.0 where you're able to create custom panels for different sections of the website. I wouldn't recommend using Magic fields all the time as it can be very heavy on the admin and often buggy as it is a hack for the admin interface but for those none technologically savey clients or for large websites it is a saviour for us developers. I hear many good things about pods CMS which in a simliar way to Magic fields allows you to create a full cms based on Wordpress.  Unfortunately I haven't had chance to fully try this yet but worth checking out before choosing which plugin to use. If you're just about to start development on a new website I'd seriously consider using the nightly builds of Wordpress 3.0 as it will probably be released as a full version by the time your website is ready to go live.  This will give you some great bonus features over the current release.

Screen options

Screen options can be modified for each user and the settings are not stored locally.  By setting up a separate user account for your client you can go through their account and hide unnecessary things on the dashboard and write panels.  There is always the option for them to re-enable them but for first impressions its nice to make sure things are as clean as possible.

Permissions and roles management

For each client I will often setup 3 accounts.  One for myself with administrator access, another administrator account for the client and an editor account for the client.  I will recommend they use the editor account for day to day changes.  By getting them to login as a level lower to the administrator it removes many of the menu items including Settings, Tools, Plugins, Appearance and Users.  This has two advantages; one being the interface is less cluttered with many of the options which aren't used on a regular basis hidden.  The other is as a safe guard from the client accidentally change a setting or disabling a plugin which could be detrimental to the front end of their website. If I require further control over the roles in Wordpress I install Roles Manager which is a plugin allowing you to completely customise permissions for each group and even create new ones outside the default 5 available by Wordpress.  While this plugin does state it only works up to Wordpress 2.6 (currently on 2.9.2) I have installed this on many websites and have yet to find any faults with it running on the latest version.  There are other plugins such as Members and Capability Manager which allow you to do the same thing but I haven't looked into them as much as Roles Manager.

Training and support

While doing all of the above improves the admin interface of Wordpress significantly for your clients there is no substitute for training and on going support.  With just an hour or two of explaining how to add and modify content preferably face to face or by screen sharing, clients are able to pick up all of the basic skills required to administrate their own website.  Alternately if you haven't customised the admin interface too much you could direct them to online tutorials such as Wordpress TV which will allow them to watch quick tutorials for using Wordpress.
]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/making-wordpress-easier-for-clients-to-use/feed/ 1 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/making-wordpress-easier-for-clients-to-use/ Favourite Mac apps http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/FoF_L3cWsX0/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/favourite-mac-apps/#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:19:25 +0000 dave http://daveredfern.com/?p=15 apple

Adium

With the Mac lacking a decent official MSN Messenger client I had to look elsewhere and the popular choice is Adium.  Adium is a lightweight instant messenger client which allows you to connect to most of the popular chat systems including MSN, Facebook, Google Talk, AOL, Yahoo and Jabber.  While I only use some of the basic function of this application it can be extended with some great plugins and themes to allow you to completely customise it to suit your needs.

Caffeine

Although this isn't really an app I thought it was well worth a mention.  This sits in your menu bar and is a simple Boolean switch allowing you to force the computer to stay awake without any screen dimming or sleeping.  You maybe thinking why you need this? I use it all the time while watching youtube videos, BBC iplayer or 4OD.

Chrome

Chrome is the over hyped browser of the decade but despite all of its downfalls (which are a lot!) I still find myself using it as my main browser of choice.  I will never use it for website development but for everything else it is speedy, clean interface and reliable.  It still has a long way to come before it meets the feature list of Firefox but for general browsing it does the job well.

Coda

While not my favourite editor for building sites Coda is Macs answer to Dreamweaver.  It has a clean interface and is a slim lined version of the over priced competition.  The main reason I use it is because of the built in FTP which allows for easily modifying and uploading of files without the need of a standalone FTP client.  It is pricey compared to the other apps I use but a good investment for anyone who builds websites on a regular basis.  If you're a programmer who doesn't build websites I'd trying to find another application such as Textmate.

Google Quick Search

Built by the creator of Quicksilver this is the Google version.  It is very similar to Quicksilver for those who are familiar with that accept due to its age is lacking some of the advanced plugins available on Quicksilver.  Google Quick Search is an advance version of Spotlight.  It allows you to search your computer, browser history, application data such as emails, address book, itunes and internet application such as gmail and twitter.  By clicking Ctrl+space it launches a search bar and you simply type.  The beauty of this application is it learns from usage so I can now press F and it will immediately jump to Firefox despite that not being the first alphabetically.  For power users this is definately one to look into.

Littlesnapper

Littlesnapper is an app I have only recently started to use.  It is made by a British company called Real Mac Software and is effectively an image organiser.  I use this to collect screenshots and little grabs of inspiration while browsing the web.  The actually application is well designed but doesn't have any special features from the regular organising features.  Where this application excels is taking full screenshots of websites.  With its built in shortcuts you can browse using Safari or Firefox and take a screenshot of not only what you see but the entire length of the website.  It will also store a link to that page incase you wish to revisit in the future.  Unfortunately it currently does not support Chrome due to the lack of support Chrome offers to applescript but you can use the bookmark feature which works in a similar way to the Delicious one does.  They also have an iPhone app.  Littlesnapper is a little expensive for what it achieves but I was lucky enough to get it in a Macheist bundle so picked it up for nearly nothing.

Notify

This sits in the menu bar and is effectively a email notifier.  You can get free applications from Google which notify you of new emails but this does a lot more.  It has email previewing, composing and multiple email accounts which means for most of your emailing needs you never need to open a full client or gmail.  One of the nice features is you can set it as your default email client so if you click any links in your browser to emails it will open in Notify rather than mail.  It isn't free but I'm a sucker for looks and has won me over.

SMC Fan Control

Anyone who uses an Macbook or Macbook Pro will know that it can get extremely hot which is worrying when its on your lap.  After all there is some very sensitive bits underneath!  SMC Fan Control is a free application which sits in your menu bar and allows you to setup profiles to increase or decrease the speed of the fans.  With this you can then quickly switch from default to higher RPM on your fans to keep your laptop and lap cool.

Textmate

This is the worlds best text editor.  I have used this pretty much since day one on the Mac and does everything I could ever ask from an editor.  On first glance this is a very bland and standard editor but after a few days of playing around with the preferences, reading up on shortcuts, installing bundles you'll soon find you can customise it to your exact needs.  Bundles are packs of code syntax, by default you get all of the popular languages such as HTML, CSS, JS, PHP but you can download ones for things like Wordpress, Drupal, Code Igniter and Textpattern making it really easy to develop for these platforms.  I am sure if you don't have the patients or time you will quickly be put off but with a little reading you'll soon see the advantages.  It has become so popular that there is also a Windows port of the software called e editor.  This app is on the steep side for price, I managed to pick it up quite cheap under student discount a few years ago but since then the price has gone up but I'd still recommend it.

VLC

A very popular media player on Windows is also well known on the Mac.  VLC allows you to play pretty much any format of video.  It doesn't support Flip4Mac WMC so you'll still have to use Quicktime for that but everything else I've handled it has gone a great job.  Its a great alternate to Quicktime which I don't rate.  There was talk about VLC ceasing development on the Mac due to lack of developers which I hope this project continues. ]]> apple

Adium

With the Mac lacking a decent official MSN Messenger client I had to look elsewhere and the popular choice is Adium.  Adium is a lightweight instant messenger client which allows you to connect to most of the popular chat systems including MSN, Facebook, Google Talk, AOL, Yahoo and Jabber.  While I only use some of the basic function of this application it can be extended with some great plugins and themes to allow you to completely customise it to suit your needs.

Caffeine

Although this isn't really an app I thought it was well worth a mention.  This sits in your menu bar and is a simple Boolean switch allowing you to force the computer to stay awake without any screen dimming or sleeping.  You maybe thinking why you need this? I use it all the time while watching youtube videos, BBC iplayer or 4OD.

Chrome

Chrome is the over hyped browser of the decade but despite all of its downfalls (which are a lot!) I still find myself using it as my main browser of choice.  I will never use it for website development but for everything else it is speedy, clean interface and reliable.  It still has a long way to come before it meets the feature list of Firefox but for general browsing it does the job well.

Coda

While not my favourite editor for building sites Coda is Macs answer to Dreamweaver.  It has a clean interface and is a slim lined version of the over priced competition.  The main reason I use it is because of the built in FTP which allows for easily modifying and uploading of files without the need of a standalone FTP client.  It is pricey compared to the other apps I use but a good investment for anyone who builds websites on a regular basis.  If you're a programmer who doesn't build websites I'd trying to find another application such as Textmate.

Google Quick Search

Built by the creator of Quicksilver this is the Google version.  It is very similar to Quicksilver for those who are familiar with that accept due to its age is lacking some of the advanced plugins available on Quicksilver.  Google Quick Search is an advance version of Spotlight.  It allows you to search your computer, browser history, application data such as emails, address book, itunes and internet application such as gmail and twitter.  By clicking Ctrl+space it launches a search bar and you simply type.  The beauty of this application is it learns from usage so I can now press F and it will immediately jump to Firefox despite that not being the first alphabetically.  For power users this is definately one to look into.

Littlesnapper

Littlesnapper is an app I have only recently started to use.  It is made by a British company called Real Mac Software and is effectively an image organiser.  I use this to collect screenshots and little grabs of inspiration while browsing the web.  The actually application is well designed but doesn't have any special features from the regular organising features.  Where this application excels is taking full screenshots of websites.  With its built in shortcuts you can browse using Safari or Firefox and take a screenshot of not only what you see but the entire length of the website.  It will also store a link to that page incase you wish to revisit in the future.  Unfortunately it currently does not support Chrome due to the lack of support Chrome offers to applescript but you can use the bookmark feature which works in a similar way to the Delicious one does.  They also have an iPhone app.  Littlesnapper is a little expensive for what it achieves but I was lucky enough to get it in a Macheist bundle so picked it up for nearly nothing.

Notify

This sits in the menu bar and is effectively a email notifier.  You can get free applications from Google which notify you of new emails but this does a lot more.  It has email previewing, composing and multiple email accounts which means for most of your emailing needs you never need to open a full client or gmail.  One of the nice features is you can set it as your default email client so if you click any links in your browser to emails it will open in Notify rather than mail.  It isn't free but I'm a sucker for looks and has won me over.

SMC Fan Control

Anyone who uses an Macbook or Macbook Pro will know that it can get extremely hot which is worrying when its on your lap.  After all there is some very sensitive bits underneath!  SMC Fan Control is a free application which sits in your menu bar and allows you to setup profiles to increase or decrease the speed of the fans.  With this you can then quickly switch from default to higher RPM on your fans to keep your laptop and lap cool.

Textmate

This is the worlds best text editor.  I have used this pretty much since day one on the Mac and does everything I could ever ask from an editor.  On first glance this is a very bland and standard editor but after a few days of playing around with the preferences, reading up on shortcuts, installing bundles you'll soon find you can customise it to your exact needs.  Bundles are packs of code syntax, by default you get all of the popular languages such as HTML, CSS, JS, PHP but you can download ones for things like Wordpress, Drupal, Code Igniter and Textpattern making it really easy to develop for these platforms.  I am sure if you don't have the patients or time you will quickly be put off but with a little reading you'll soon see the advantages.  It has become so popular that there is also a Windows port of the software called e editor.  This app is on the steep side for price, I managed to pick it up quite cheap under student discount a few years ago but since then the price has gone up but I'd still recommend it.

VLC

A very popular media player on Windows is also well known on the Mac.  VLC allows you to play pretty much any format of video.  It doesn't support Flip4Mac WMC so you'll still have to use Quicktime for that but everything else I've handled it has gone a great job.  Its a great alternate to Quicktime which I don't rate.  There was talk about VLC ceasing development on the Mac due to lack of developers which I hope this project continues. ]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/favourite-mac-apps/feed/ 0 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/favourite-mac-apps/ First impressions of Typekit http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/daveredfern/~3/aN-QCwH6pmE/ http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/first-impressions-of-typekit/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:44:05 +0000 dave http://daveredfern.com/blog/first-and-last-impressions-for-a-while-of-typekit/ typkit

While building this site I wanted to try and use Typekit.  For those who are unaware of Typekit it allows you to legally place custom fonts on your website using Javascript.  The services uses the widely supported @font-face which is currently supported in all major browser but does require you to link to multiple formats of the font. The service has a free trial on offer but for anyone who doesn't wait their ad in the lower right of their website will have to part with $25 for the year.

Easy to use

The service is incredible easy to use.  Simply create a font selection and place the javascript in the head of your page.  Then like @font-face all you need to do is reference to a font in the CSS.  I did come across some trouble when I was using "fontname", "fontname2" but found that you need to copy it exactly from their website ensuring there are no spaces.  Typekit also has a nice feature of allowing you to target elements in your page using css selectors. Once embedded on your website you're able to style the same way you would with a web safe font which also allows for easy degrading when Javascript is disabled or you visit an unsupported browser.

Font range

I am sure that the fonts available will be increasing over time but currently there is a very limited selection available.  Probably the most commonly used font which is missing is Helvetica Neue.  To date of this article there are a little under 150 fonts in the database with several of those being open source and some limited to use on higher paid accounts.  To put this in perspective DaFonts has over 10,000 fonts available to download for free.  That being said there are still a nice wide range and variety of fonts to cover most requirements. Unfortunately because not many of the fonts used on Typekit are well known you will find that you'll need to purchase the font to use in Photoshop.  The fonts range from around $20 with most of them being priced at $40 but if you design in Photoshop and especially if you're showing the design to your client first you'll need to take this extra cost into account.

Support and font quality

The support for Typekit is excellence with the majority of browsers supporting it.  On their website it does say Chrome has limited support but from personal experience it seems to work fine. The quality of production across browsers is excellent with most browsers displaying the fonts perfectly.  I did find that Ubuntu had a tendency to show a bolder version of the font.  @font-face has several problems with viewing a site on Windows where it doesn't smooth the fonts so you'll find that it is very jagged.  Typekit appears to fix this problem.  I have checked my Android phone and unfortunately Typekit is not supported.

Loading times

Typekit is a remotely hosted and while I have never had the service fail to load I have found that it can be very slow to load in.  Normally you load Javascript into the footer but with Typekit because you want it to load as quick as possible I am loading it in the header which means at time when the service is running slow it makes the page hang.

Expense

While they do offer a trial account no one would use this on a live site simply because it shows an advert in the lower right.  So the lowest account is $24.99 which allows you to have one font stack with 5 fonts.  This will also allow you access to the majority of fonts on the service but not all.  The bandwidth is a healthy 10gb per month, which when considering a single font is around 15-30kb allows for plenty of downloads. Remember if you're designing in Photoshop now you may need to take into account the cost of purchasing the font for your computer which could more than double the yearly cost of the service.

Worth a go?

While I think Typekit is a step forward and definitely something worth looking into once it still has a long way to go.  If you're looking at using it on your portfolio or blog I would recommend giving it a go.  I feel the extra flexibility available using Typekit over other services such as SIFR or Cufon is worth punt.  For commercial websites I'd stil opt for other services.]]> typkit

While building this site I wanted to try and use Typekit.  For those who are unaware of Typekit it allows you to legally place custom fonts on your website using Javascript.  The services uses the widely supported @font-face which is currently supported in all major browser but does require you to link to multiple formats of the font. The service has a free trial on offer but for anyone who doesn't wait their ad in the lower right of their website will have to part with $25 for the year.

Easy to use

The service is incredible easy to use.  Simply create a font selection and place the javascript in the head of your page.  Then like @font-face all you need to do is reference to a font in the CSS.  I did come across some trouble when I was using "fontname", "fontname2" but found that you need to copy it exactly from their website ensuring there are no spaces.  Typekit also has a nice feature of allowing you to target elements in your page using css selectors. Once embedded on your website you're able to style the same way you would with a web safe font which also allows for easy degrading when Javascript is disabled or you visit an unsupported browser.

Font range

I am sure that the fonts available will be increasing over time but currently there is a very limited selection available.  Probably the most commonly used font which is missing is Helvetica Neue.  To date of this article there are a little under 150 fonts in the database with several of those being open source and some limited to use on higher paid accounts.  To put this in perspective DaFonts has over 10,000 fonts available to download for free.  That being said there are still a nice wide range and variety of fonts to cover most requirements. Unfortunately because not many of the fonts used on Typekit are well known you will find that you'll need to purchase the font to use in Photoshop.  The fonts range from around $20 with most of them being priced at $40 but if you design in Photoshop and especially if you're showing the design to your client first you'll need to take this extra cost into account.

Support and font quality

The support for Typekit is excellence with the majority of browsers supporting it.  On their website it does say Chrome has limited support but from personal experience it seems to work fine. The quality of production across browsers is excellent with most browsers displaying the fonts perfectly.  I did find that Ubuntu had a tendency to show a bolder version of the font.  @font-face has several problems with viewing a site on Windows where it doesn't smooth the fonts so you'll find that it is very jagged.  Typekit appears to fix this problem.  I have checked my Android phone and unfortunately Typekit is not supported.

Loading times

Typekit is a remotely hosted and while I have never had the service fail to load I have found that it can be very slow to load in.  Normally you load Javascript into the footer but with Typekit because you want it to load as quick as possible I am loading it in the header which means at time when the service is running slow it makes the page hang.

Expense

While they do offer a trial account no one would use this on a live site simply because it shows an advert in the lower right.  So the lowest account is $24.99 which allows you to have one font stack with 5 fonts.  This will also allow you access to the majority of fonts on the service but not all.  The bandwidth is a healthy 10gb per month, which when considering a single font is around 15-30kb allows for plenty of downloads. Remember if you're designing in Photoshop now you may need to take into account the cost of purchasing the font for your computer which could more than double the yearly cost of the service.

Worth a go?

While I think Typekit is a step forward and definitely something worth looking into once it still has a long way to go.  If you're looking at using it on your portfolio or blog I would recommend giving it a go.  I feel the extra flexibility available using Typekit over other services such as SIFR or Cufon is worth punt.  For commercial websites I'd stil opt for other services.]]> http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/first-impressions-of-typekit/feed/ 0 http://www.daveredfern.com/blog/first-impressions-of-typekit/