The Newsroom

Tweaking Sites With Joost of Yoast

WPMU Team — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:00:12 +0000

Yoast is the home of the Dutch WordPress developer and online marketer Joost de Valk. You will find everything you need to optimize your website or WordPress blog here, as he is quite clearly the king of WordPress optimisation…

Some of the features include the Comment Re-direct WP application, a simple but wonderfully useful Search Suggest WP feature, the amazing Crunch Base widget, Blog Metrics feature, and the awesome tutorial de Valk wrote regarding how to make WordPress search less “sucky” in the article WordPress Search Sucks Less.

FREEmium WP Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:40:32 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

The Freemium WP Theme is as customizable as it gets while looking good on most popular browsers.

FREEmium theme was designed by Paul Kadysz and developed by Dariusz Siedlecki . Both guys did excellent job. And thanks to freebiesdock.com you can download the theme for free!

Viewport: A Free Wordpress Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:19:43 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Viewport features a clean and simple layout with sliding ‘panels’ displaying images to represent posts. It also features a user-changeable background (color or image) and other customizable elements. Depending on the image quality you use, the main images are likely to be between 50KB and 300KB each, for that reason it is recommended to edit your Wordpress settings to display around 10 posts per page. In actual fact, because the archive page works in groups of six, you may wish to display a multiple of six posts per page

The ClearPress Free WP Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:54:10 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

The unique feature about the ClearPress theme is that it divides the blog posts into three separate columns. So, if you have set your blog to show 9 posts on the home page, they will be divided into 3 columns consisting of 3 posts each. The theme also features a pull-down sidebar which is totally unobtrusive and contains three widgetized sidebars. ClearPress is Gravatar-ready, Image Gallery ready, and consists of beautifully styled comments and archive pages.

Magazeen, Free Magazine-look WP Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:00:23 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

WeFunction released a post featuring Magazeen, a free advanced Wordpress-theme in a magazine-look created by the talented WeFunction Design Agency . This bold magazine 2-col-theme was designed with the main focus being on typography, grids and magazine-look.

“Imprezz”, A Free WordPress Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:39:55 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

The new Imprezz WP Theme is a 3 column based design with a thrid dimension for the second column. The theme also supports WordPress 2.7.1 and works well with online widgets and its PSD source file of its logo is included with the download package.

Comfy WordPress News Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:23:20 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Deluxe Themes featured one of its latest WP Themes called Comfy, which displays posts from your selected categories, the user can easily increase/reduce the number of stories shown to him on home page which makes your blog look like a real news site.

Rock Solid WordPress Theme

WPMU Team — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:23:16 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Silent Bits posted a cool article featuring the new Rock Solid WordPress Theme.

WPMU Premium Roadmaps

WPMU Team — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:54:43 +0000

For those subscribed to our RSS feeds or already listening in from The Newsroom (Wordpress News and Updates blog); we wanted to let you know that we have released several roadmaps, which can be found in the forums (that have yet to be launched in any official capacity) - making you amongst the first to know about them…

Roadmap for WPMU Premium

Roadmap for WPMU gMaps

Roadmap for WPMU CODA

Roadmap for WPMU Portlet

As always, do not be shy… Send us a message or reply to this post if you have any questions or comments about thing we are working on or may be able to help you with…

We will try to get some dates and times estimated for the various milestones, but that in itself would be a milestone and since we have no way of recording milestones… Anyway, at least you now know what we are doing and have a place to find out when things have been done…

Updating WPMU Premium

WPMU Team — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:34:52 +0000

If you experienced some slight technical difficulties today, please note that it was due to upgrading WPMU to 2.7 and also uploading an updated version of gMaps, which now features the Geo-Locator - used to pick-out coordinates for posts.

For another example of what can be achieved from the gMaps theme, Mark set-up a personal geo-blog on the WPMU Premium network here to show you what’s possible with the accounts that you have all registered for…

http://wpmupremium.com/mark/

We are working on the documentation for gMaps and will soon be publishing it.

If anyone has any questions about any of the themes they are presently experimenting with, please drop us at line via our online contact form and we will answer any and all questions…

The majority of these updates have now taken place and should be safe to start playing again, but we must once again stress that this is a work in progress, so please bear with us as we iron out all the kinks - we do not want to start supporting you guys until we are entirely happy with the set-up we will have in place to handle everything!

Thanks again for all you support up to this point and good luck with your respective passions.

Advanced Geo-Blogging with WPMU

WPMU Team — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:11:26 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Why use an inferior Wordpress Google Maps plug-in when your theme can be the map itself…? The WPMU gMaps theme is truly unique, in that each page is a full-screen Google map with fully interactive overlays! Specifically built for Wordpress MU, the theme provides out of the box functionality for aggregated Network statistics and sign-up processes, but can also be used on standard Wordpress installs.

AJAX technologies provide fancy tabulated info windows for posts with fully styled custom-built drag and drop web-top powered windows floating above an unlimited number of geoRSS-fed pages, you can display up-to customisable markers on your homepage or an unlimited number via an integrated auto-generating geoRSS feed.

Adding GeoRSS Functionality

WPMU Team — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:29:09 +0000

If you would like to give your Wordpress RSS feed full GeoRSS compatibility, it’s really quite simple - all you need to do is copy and paste the following piece of code into your functions.php file:

function geo_header() {
echo 'xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss"';
}
add_action('rss2_ns', 'geo_header');

function geo_points() {
global $wp_query;
$map_lat_geo = get_post_meta($wp_query->post->ID, 'map_lat', true);
$map_long_geo = get_post_meta($wp_query->post->ID, 'map_long', true);
echo '' . $map_lat_geo . '';
echo '' . $map_long_geo . '';
echo '' . $map_lat_geo . ' ' . $map_long_geo . ''; }
add_action('rss2_item', 'geo_points');

However, please remember that in order to view the GEO-Tagged RSS feed, you will need to use the full URL, such as http://yourdomain.com/?feed=rss2

You may be asking how can you then add coordinates to posts…?

Also relatively simple - just create custom fields labeled:

map_lat
map_long

…As referenced above within the code.

If you need a really easy way to find the coordinates you need, we strongly recommend the use of the Mapeed.AdressChooser API

If you’re looking for an example of what can then be done with the Geo-Tagged RSS Feed, please take a look at the following:

The KL News Network Geo-Tagged Page, which does not use any plug-ins:

This hack has been provided for those looking to incorporate Geo-Blogging functionality directly into their theme, or that need a step in the right direction as far as developing your first Geo-Tagged plug-in may be concerned.

For those curious as to exactly what code is needed to generate a map like the one seen above, all you need to do is include the following code:

The Best Wordpress Geo-Blogging Review

WPMU Team — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:11:33 +0000

There are countless Wordpress plug-ins for dealing with Google Maps, but of the English language ones that are officially updated via the Wordpress Plug-In Directory, but of them all, those that sounded the most interesting after reading their descriptions included:

GeoPress (WP 2.4 Compatible)
GeoPress adds geographic tagging of your posts and pages. You can enter an address, points on a map, or enter coordinates using the post interface.

WP Geo (WP 2.7 Compatible)
When editing a post or page, you will be able to set a physically location for that post. You can select the location by clicking on the map to position the point, searching for a location, town, city or address, or entering the latitude and longitude…

Geo Mashup (WP 2.7 Compatible)
This plugin allows you to include Google maps in posts and pages, and map posts and pages on global maps, with several other powerful features.

GoogleMapper (WP 2.7 Compatible)
This plugin allows a Wordpress Site Admin to enter locations of stores etc into the db. The information is then displayed on the front end using the google maps interface. The user can enter a starting location in the search field, the system will then find the closest location from it’s starting point and display the path and steps necessary to get to that location.

UMapper (WP 2.6.3 Compatible)
This plugin is a universal mapping platform that makes it a snap to create engaging maps and add them to your blog posts. Microsoft Virtual Earth, Google Maps, Yahoo and OpenStreet are all supported by this truly universal plugin.

However, up until this point, all we had done is read the description…

Now came time for testing…

Let us first point-out that we are testing within a Wordpress MU 2.6.5 environment so our reviews may not be entirely accurate for the majority of users, but for those looking to mapping solutions for Wordpress MU, these reviews should be ideal…

GeoPress (WP 2.4 Compatible) by Mapufacture

We had GeoPress up and running in minutes, and although the back-end settings did not knock us off our seats in all their glory, the interface for adding maps within posts and page worked quite well and did as advertised - the inline documentation was helpful and provided short code examples and PHP code examples, which is useful for theme developers.

WP Geo (WP 2.7 Compatible) by Ben Huson
Once again, no problems installing, and to be honest, at first glance, the back-end seemed better than GeoPress, not to mention being slightly more configurable. However, a lack of documentation made this difficult to customise, and we were unable to easily figure out the PHP code to add maps, which is not useful for theme developers, but then again, having auto generated tool-tips for beacons, sidebar widgets and the option for including maps in archives displaying multiple posts as markers on a map more than made-up for the short-comings of lacking documentation..

Geo Mashup (WP 2.7 Compatible) by Cyber Hobo
The first thing we noticed with Geo Mashup was the options - there are quite a few, including the set-up of a Mashup Page, which allows you to show all posts from any categories you like, with post content, excerpts and so forth as the tool-tip from the associated beacon, and for this reason alone, we were super excited and almost decided to call it a day. However, please note that this plug-in does take more effort than the others to set-up properly, but it’s well worth it, especially as extensive documentation is little more than a link away.

GoogleMapper (WP 2.7 Compatible) by PubliPage
The first most interesting fact about GoogleMapper was the ease in which it allowed you to provide custom beacons. In addition, the promise of having a separate system (not attached to posts) that could store multiple locations sounded interesting. However, a total lack of documentation, non-English support and having spent ten minutes trying to get the thing to work without any luck quickly put us off this one - especially as there was not even a preview of the locations being added into the system as you add them.

UMapper (WP 2.6.3 Compatible) - by UMapper
Saving the most exciting one for last, the first thing that hit us with UMapper is that due to the universal nature of the plug-in (promising the use of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo maps), it was necessary to sign-up for a UMapper API, rather than using our existing Google API keys. After going through the process of doing this, we came to realise that it was a good thing, as this system is not just for Wordpress, and allows you to add and edit maps directly at the UMapper site. Wait a minute, hold everything - this beast is even Wordpress MU compatible - with the auto-generation of Sub-Accounts! At first glance, we thought things were too good to be true, especially when we could not find a way of adding or managing maps within Wordpress, which is very discreetly tucked away right next to the Add Media button, which only works when in Visual Mode. And that’s when the party really got started…

UMapper allows you to draw on top of your maps! You can edit the beacon, edit the content of the tool-tips, draw lines, squares, adding as many markers as you like and need we say more, especially when a picture can speak at least a thousand words (and then some):

And when we thought it could not get any better, we saw the end results, where the map actually allows other people to embed itself or email to friends, in-turn transforming your maps into widgets!

Nothing is perfect, for there is an obvious downside to this plug-in, which is that since it is powered by Flex from UMapper itself, all data is stored with UMapper, and should they decide to shut down, so will all of your maps, which is something that does not occur with any of the other plug-ins. This also means that the system is not white-label and quite clearly shows that it is powered by UMapper, which may be a problem for some developers.

With that said, our concluding thoughts are as follows:

For those desperate to customise and add layers to their maps, or need a geo-mapping solution for Wordpress MU, UMapper is the only choice by far, so long as your are happy with promoting UMapper.com! But for those looking for a white-label solution, Geo Mashup is certainly the better choice for you, yet if you need a simple easy to use and set-up solution, GeoPress stands out with its inline documentation.

Display Post & Comment Count

WPMU Team — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 12:37:37 +0000

This nifty little hack will display a post and comment count and can be easily edited, but basically, all you need to do is paste the following code into your PHP file where you want the sentence displayed:

$numposts = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish'");
if (0 < $numposts) $numposts = number_format($numposts);
$numcomms = $wpdb->get_var("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE comment_approved = '1'");
if (0 < $numcomms) $numcomms = number_format($numcomms);
echo $numposts.' articles have been published on this site,';
echo " sharing a total of ".$numcomms." comments.";
?>

This will display XX articles have been published on this site, sharing a total of XX comments, and will only work correctly with Wordpress - if used with MU, it will only display the number of posts and comments specifically for the blog it is seen from…

If you want to define the variables in one place and then re-use the stats as numbers on their own (so they can be better styled) all you need to do is split the code as follows - by first defining the variables:

Then call the numbers using either of the following:

The Ultimate Guide to Wordpress Plugins

WPMUP TEAM — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:26:24 +0000

Glen Stansberry wrote a useful article on Nettuts outlining some useful resources for Wordpress plug-in development.

Creating Your Own Options Page

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:06:57 +0000

If you need a little more customisation and or a slightly better grasp of what’s going-on within the back-end of themes, perhaps Ozh’s Theme Toolkit is not enough. Fortunately, In The Woods added a detailed explanation of how to build your own options page, which can be customised as much as needed.

Changing the Site URL of WP

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:52:49 +0000

Have you ever wondered what was the best and most easiest ways to change the Site URL of a Wordpress installation? The Wordpress Codex provides a list of solutions, and although this is not exactly a hack, it is an article that often gets forgotten about or never read properly in the first place.

Inserting Ads into RSS Feeds

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:49:13 +0000

WP Recipes have provided a neat way to insert Ad units into RSS feeds.

Author Profiles for Posts

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:30:34 +0000

Stylized Web offer-up a solution for including an image of the author and his user profile description within The Loop, which is as simple as:

“>

The article also links to Kailoon’s alternative solution without Gravatars.

Adding Comment Numbers to Posts

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:21:44 +0000

If you want more control over the numbering of comments, as opposed to the inherit ordered-list style, Wordpress Hacks have a useful article outlining how to generate an independent number that you can float and style as you like.

Integrating Google Custom Search with WP

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:48:57 +0000

Wordpress Hacks has listed a good set of resources for integrating Google’s custom search engine with Wordpress.

BM Custom Login Vs PP Custom Admin

WPMUP TEAM — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:26:17 +0000

Once upon a time, it was common place to automatically install Binary Moon’s Custom Login Plugin as a way of re-branding Wordpress, but if you have already upgraded to Wordpress 2.7 or higher, at this stage, the only plugin available for re-branding the log-in screen is the new Custom Admin Branding plugin from Pressing Pixels, which also re-brands the back-end header and footer, as well as the log-in page.

Theme Lab’s Motion (Accordion Theme)

WPMU Team — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:12:30 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Theme Lab ported a Six Shooter Media template into an ultra hip and excessively simple Wordpress theme that has no comments, no pages, no single posts, no sidebar, no widgets, no Gravatars - nothing but a one column main index template. In fact, the only theme files included are index.php and style.css!

Cobus Bester’s Base Theme

WPMU Team — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 03:01:44 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Cobus Bester, friend of Adii has an excellent theme called BASE, seen here or downloaded here BASE is a theme aimed at streamlining the theme development process. The result is a very solid WordPress theme, covering all the basic features a standard WordPress theme should have…

Michael Tyson’s Elegant Grunge

WPMU Team — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:47:19 +0000

THEME INFO | THEME DEMO

Michael Tyson has released an unwashed yet crisp grunge-styled theme that he’s giving away! One of the coolest features is the way it automatically frames images within posts for you - very cool indeed…