PHP Magic Book | Free PHP Scripts, Tutorials and Downloads

Customizing WordPress Tags Cloud - A Guide

King — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:16:11 +0000

If you have already used some social networking website or you are a blogger then you definitely know what the tags are. WordPress offers Tags Cloud which can be customized the way you use it at your blog. By default WP Tag Cloud will generate limited number of tags in alphabetical order. Custom templates for tags can be made which means that you can have a full page of tags as you want it. Look at the 404 page of phpmagicbook. I have used tags to give the users some more options to browse if he gets distracted by ‘page not found error’. I was thinking to give my users all tags option to click at any one. Okay now this is just one use. You can have your own customized tags page which can contain just tags and nothing more. We explore some ways about how we can customize tags/tags template/tags page at our WordPress blog.

Default Tags Cloud

Paste the following code anywhere in your blog theme’s template files (e.g. 404 page, single post page etc.) to see default tags cloud in action:


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud();
?>

Display All Tags

Following code will give you all the WordPress tags which you have used in your blog.


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('number=0');
?>

Define Custom Font Size in Tags Cloud

Following code will determine the smallest and largest size in your tags cloud.


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22');
?>

Random Ordered Tags Cloud

Following code will generate random tags cloud which will not be in alphabetical order.


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('order=RAND');
?>

Tags Cloud Limited in Size & Ordered by Number of Posts

Following code will generate custom font sized tags cloud ordered by post frequency under a specific tag.


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22&number=30&orderby=count');
?>

Tags Cloud Format

You can format Tags Cloud in flat (Default) format - separated by whitespace, list format and array format by using following method:


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('format=list' );
?>

And there is ASC (Default), DESC and RAND order for Tags display order.
Exclude and Include option to exclude and include tags and more…

Mixing Things Up

And finally with a bit of a magic you can add the bits and bytes into a full story of customized Tags Cloud for your own blog. A possible combination of code and example:


if (function_exists('wp_tag_cloud'))
wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22&unit=pt&number=50&format=flat&orderby=name&order=ASC&exclude=garbagetag&include=mytag' );
?>

Example: Browse Ajax Rain’s tags page to view the full tags option in action.

WordPress has got complete guide about how you can create custom tags cloud page template or how you can customize tags cloud at your blog in a number of ways. Give it a try.

Have your say! Do you like to customize Tags Cloud at your blog or this is not a necessary part?

Tags: blog, customize, Tricks, WordPress, wp

.htaccess Essential Tricks For Blog/Website Performance - Guide

King — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:34:07 +0000

.htaccess file is a magic file. You can change the way your website works by using it. I have been reading a lot about .htaccess files. Perticularly .htaccess is very useful in shared web hosting environment where the users have no direct access to their servers or they want to implement some restrictions/security to their files. I will include here some very essential and useful .htaccess tricks. I have used some of these tricks and more to secure my websites according to my web server’s environment and to optimize speed/performance of my websites. Websites with heavy traffic, Digg traffic, Stumble upon or slashdot traffic will need to be optimized via many ways and .htaccess can help a lot.

Data Compression

Use this code to compress data at web server. Data compression can minimize resources and bandwidth you consume while your website browsing.

# data compression
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/javascript text/css application/javascript

GZip Data Compression

Following is GZIP Compression code. More effective. You can specify which files to compress.

# gzip compression

    mod_gzip_on       Yes
    mod_gzip_dechunk  Yes
    mod_gzip_item_include file      \.(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl|jpg|png|gif)$
    mod_gzip_item_include handler   ^cgi-script$
    mod_gzip_item_include mime      ^text/.*
    mod_gzip_item_include mime      ^application/x-javascript.*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude mime      ^image/.*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*

Preserve Bandwidth

Preserve bandwidth using this method. This is also a compression method.

# preserve bandwidth

 php_value zlib.output_compression 16386

Cache Control

Cache is very very useful. By using following code in .htaccess you can enable cache of your files. When enabling cache you will see significant increase in website load time. You will be really amazed to see heavy pages and images loading very fast.

# Begin Cache Control

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript A2592000
ExpiresByType text/css A2592000
ExpiresByType image/gif A604800
ExpiresByType image/png A604800
ExpiresByType image/jpeg A604800

Secure .htaccess file

Deny .htaccess file to all intruders. You can specify more files which you want to protect by seperating file names by | sign. .htaccess file can have potential information which must be secured from all outside intruders.

# secure htaccess file

 order allow,deny
 deny from all

Secure Directories

By default your web server’s indexes are on. That means the directory with no index file in it will display all the files in it. Do you want the files in your wp-admin, wp-includes, images, uploads, themes, plugins folders to be seen? It is really not a good idea to show your online folder files. By using following code you will enable protection for all online directories with no index file and will not display files in them.

# No directory listing across domain
Options -Indexes

Secure Hidden Files at Server

Hidden files can be server configuration files, log files and other server reserved files which should be protected from hackers as well.

# Disallow hidden files
RedirectMatch 403 /\..*$

Stop Hotlinking

Some webmasters will just copy the path of images and other media from your website and use that in their own website to display your content consuming your bandwidth. This method is called as hotlinking. Protect hotlinking by using the following code. sorry.gif in the following example is the alternative file which will be displayed when someone will try and steal your content.

# stop hotlinking and serve alternate content
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourservernamehere.com/
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.yourservernamehere.com/sorry.gif [R,L]

Secure Contact Forms

Secure your contact form from bots and automated softwares which will email you spam. Change ‘contact.php’ page name to your contact page name.

# secure contact forms
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourservernamehere.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_POST} .*contact.php$
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Redirect Error Pages

Have you ever encountered 500 error. Internal Server error. That’s really ugly black and while page. I would suggest you to create your own custom error pages and use them wisely to make users stay at your website even some error occurs. Use the following code to redirect the users to your custom error pages in case some error occurs.


RewriteEngine On
ErrorDocument 206 http://www.yourservernamehere.com/maintenance-mode.html
ErrorDocument 400 http://www.yourservernamehere.com/maintenance-mode.html
ErrorDocument 408 http://www.yourservernamehere.com/maintenance-mode.html
ErrorDocument 500 http://www.yourservernamehere.com/maintenance-mode.html
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourservernamehere.com/404.html

Disable ETags

Disabling Etags will also increase website speed a bit. Removing ETags is a very safe option.

# disable etags
FileETag none

Enable Simple Mod Rewrite

This is not a performance tip. This is how you enable rewriting at your server. I will write a guide about Mod Rewriting in next .htaccess post.

# enable basic rewriting
RewriteEngine on

Instruct Browser to Download Multimedia Files - Force Download

If you want to tell the browser to download certain file types then use the following code.

# instruct browser to download multimedia files
AddType application/octet-stream .avi
AddType application/octet-stream .mpg
AddType application/octet-stream .wmv
AddType application/octet-stream .mp3

In the end let m give you two beautiful resources about .htaccess.

Best Huge Resources About .htaccess Tricks

PerishablePress - .htaccess Tricks (BEST)

Online .htaccess Editor

Use this .htaccess editor to select and create rules easily.

More Resources

Following links will lead you to more detailed resources about .htaccess file customization.
.htaccess Caching Resources
How to Optimize Your Site With HTTP Caching
Speed-up Sites With .htaccess Caching
Data Compression
Compress PHP, CSS, JS & Optimize Website Performance
More Resources
corz.org .htaccess tips
Unix .htaccess Files
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Category:Htaccess
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Htaccess_tricks
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Mod_rewrite
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DEFLATE
http://wiki.dreamhost.com/More_.htaccess_mod_rewrite_examples
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Htaccess

I am happy to share .htaccess useful tricks. I had searched much for .htaccess codes to optimize my website performance. My next target for .htaccess is Mod Rewrite. How we can Rewrite URLs. Like blogs do. They can change the URL in a friendly way and display post title rather than http://www.homepagename.com?post=some-digit

Allow me to give you all these codes in ready to use .htaccess file in downloadable form.
Just change ‘yourservernamehere’ in the file with your domain name and remove any part which you do not want.

Download .htaccess File

Happy Coding…
Happy Valentine’s Day From PHPMagicBook

Tags: code, control, htaccess, Security, servers

How to Include Specific File In WordPress Blog Template

King — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:56:46 +0000

Considering the fact that you have some file placed in your current theme folder, you can call it via following code with or without condition. If you plan to call some file right from root folder of your WordPress blog then just remove template path area of code.

With Condition


if ( is_front_page() ) { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/bio.php'); }
 else { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/subscribe.php'); }
 ?>

Include a Specific File Without Condition

 include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar2.php'); ?>

Include a Specific File by URL

 include ('http://www.websiteurl.com/some-file.php'); ?>

Tags: blog, customize

How To Display Some Content at Just Home Page and Single Post of Blog

King — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:40:33 +0000

Recently I wanted to display little about section me at my blog but just at home page and single post under sidebar. So how we can tell that we are at home page or at single post in case of WordPress Blog?
Here is the code:

 if ( is_front_page() or is_home() or is_single() ) { ?>
Your content goes here.
 } ?>

is_front_page() and is_home() both will server same purpose.
Put this code anywhere in your blog containing some content in the middle and it should display that content when just single post is viewed or home page of blog is being viewed.

Tags: blog, customize

Display RSS Feed From Any Blog on Your WordPress Blog

King — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:10:54 +0000

Ever wanted to display any rss feed from any other blog on your WordPress blog? WordPress have a function, called wp_rss(), which is a built-in rss reader.

Add the following code where you want the rss to be displayed at your blog i.e. sidebar or footer:

 include_once(ABSPATH . WPINC . '/rss.php');
wp_rss('http://feeds.feedburner.com/phpmagicbook', 7); 
?>

We just included the rss.php file, which is a part of WordPress core.
This file allows us to use the wp_rss() function.

wp_rss() function takes two parameters:
The first is the rss feed url
The second is the number of rss entries to be displayed

How simple is that!

Tags: blog, customize

Provide RSS Feed for Each Post and Comment at Your WordPress Blog

King — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:48:33 +0000

If a post gets lots of comment, it can be hard for your readers to stay on the conversation. WordPress blogging engine have a built-in function for providing rss feed for the comments of a specific post.

Add RSS Feed Link For Comments on Each Post

In order to provide a rss feed for the comments of a specific post, you just have to call the comment_rss_link() function like below:

 comments_rss_link('Comments RSS Feed'); ?>

You can put this code in WP LOOP to display RSS for post’s comments from each post right beneath itself.

Similarly we can add a rss link on each post.

Add RSS Link on Each Post

 bloginfo('url'); ?>?feed=rss&p= the_ID(); ?>" target="_blank">RSS 2.0

You can put this code in WP LOOP to display RSS from each post right beneath itself.

Tags: blog, customize

Remove Ads for Registered Users or Admin on WordPress Blog

King — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:41:05 +0000

While applying modifications online at your WordPress blog sometimes you have to re-re-refresh the blog to view quick changes. Well! you are running a blog, so you have Adsense or other Ads code too. You do not want to get banned from adevrtising companies. Right?

While you are modifying the code, so you will be logged in. We can hide the code when admin user is still in session or when he is logged in, code will not be displayed.

We just have to use the is_user_logged_in() function, which returns true if an user is logged in.

Just paste the following code anywhere on your theme where you display ads.

if (!is_user_logged_in()) {
// Insert Adsense (or whatever) code here
}

Tags: blog, customize

Remove Comments Section From Your WordPress Blog

King — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:05:39 +0000

Comments are very important part of a blog. Some developers use WordPress as their primary CMS to build websites and sometimes client do not need comments section at all, because he needs a website and not a blog. Comments section can be removed from your blog in a very simple way.

Just edit your single.php file from your theme.

Find the following line:

 comments_template(); ?>

Delete it.

Tags: blog, customize

Insert Adsense After the First Post in Your WordPress Blog

King — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:34:01 +0000

Adsense advertisment is very popular among bloggers. Many like to display ads on their homepage. Why not after the first post? Here is a very easy way to do so by using a simple php variable as a counter.

The only thing we need is a simple php variable (here named $count) which will count how many posts are listed. If we just listed the first post, we will display the Adsense code.

Here’s the code. Paste it on your index.php file, instead of your WP loop.

 if (have_posts()) : ?>
 $count = 0; ?>
 while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
 $count++; ?>
   if ($count < 3) : ?>
          //Paste the Adsense code here
           the_excerpt(); ?>
    else : ?>
           the_excerpt(); ?>
   endif; ?>
 endwhile; ?>
 endif; ?>

Tags: blog, customize

Redirect Ugly Permalink to Postname

King — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:09:50 +0000

Most of the blogs, even popular blogs have their permalink structure like:
http://www.yourblog.com/year/month/day/post-name/

WordPress Offers following permalink structures:

http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123 (Default)
http://www.yourblog.com/2008/11/10/sample-post/ (year/month/day/postname)
http://www.yourblog.com/2008/11/sample-post/ (year/month/postname)
http://www.yourblog.com/archives/123 (numeric)
and custom permalink structure

The recommended one by SEO experts is following:
http://www.yourblog.com/sample-post/
Which can be achieved by putting /%postname%/ in custom permalink box from your admin area under permalinks.

Many bloggers will not switch to recommended permalink because they have got backlinks for their old permalink. If you are still using the ugly /%year%/%month%/%day%/%postname%/ permalink structure, you should be interested to know how you can switch to the elegant /%postname%/ structure without loosing any backlink, using a simple .htaccess redirection.

The first thing to do is to change permalink structure from your admin area.
Go to Permalinks
Select custom
Fill out the field with /%postname%/

http://www.yourblog.com/post-name

Now we have got to redirect all backlinks using the old permalinks structure to the new permalink structure. To do so, you’ll have to edit the .htaccess file, located in WordPress installation root directory.

Paste the following line in your .htaccess:

RedirectMatch 301 /([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$4

Congrats! You just changed your permalinks structure without loosing any backlinks! Cheers…

Tags: blog, customize

PHP Magic Book | Free PHP Scripts, Tutorials and Downloads

Customizing WordPress Tags Cloud - A Guide

Default Tags Cloud

Display All Tags

Define Custom Font Size in Tags Cloud

Random Ordered Tags Cloud

Tags Cloud Limited in Size & Ordered by Number of Posts

Tags Cloud Format

Mixing Things Up

Related Posts

.htaccess Essential Tricks For Blog/Website Performance - Guide

Data Compression

GZip Data Compression

Preserve Bandwidth

Cache Control

Secure .htaccess file

Secure Directories

Secure Hidden Files at Server

Stop Hotlinking

Secure Contact Forms

Redirect Error Pages

Disable ETags

Enable Simple Mod Rewrite

Instruct Browser to Download Multimedia Files - Force Download

Best Huge Resources About .htaccess Tricks

Online .htaccess Editor

More Resources

Related Posts

How to Include Specific File In WordPress Blog Template

With Condition

Include a Specific File Without Condition

Include a Specific File by URL

Related Posts

How To Display Some Content at Just Home Page and Single Post of Blog

Related Posts

Display RSS Feed From Any Blog on Your WordPress Blog

Related Posts

Provide RSS Feed for Each Post and Comment at Your WordPress Blog

Related Posts

Remove Ads for Registered Users or Admin on WordPress Blog

Related Posts

Remove Comments Section From Your WordPress Blog

Related Posts

Insert Adsense After the First Post in Your WordPress Blog

Related Posts

Redirect Ugly Permalink to Postname

Related Posts