Tag Archives | Developers

Top WordPress Gallery Plug-In

Top WordPress Gallery Plug-In

WordPress is known for it’s wonderfully easy to use blogging platform that basically anyone can get the hang of within a day or two. In the past year or two thousands of developers have been developing WordPress plug-ins which is used to make your blogging a more unique experience. Some of the plug-ins is for the blog owner’s enjoyment and some are for the blogs reader’s enjoyment, either way they are very fun and helpful tools that everyone should utilize. One of the hardest things to do, and also one of the most time consuming things to do on WordPress is create a picture gallery so that it appears nicely with proper thumbnails. Many people have given making a WordPress gallery plug-in a shot but not many have made a plug-in that works properly and efficiently. The NextGEN Gallery plug-in for WordPress is absolutely the number on WordPress gallery plug-in currently and it has many great features.

One of the best features of the NextGEN gallery is the ability to be able to create thumbnails automatically without having to do them yourself. The plug-in also has some nice usable effects that you can utilize if you’d like and best of all it has an easy to use
admin interface. Adding picture galleries onto WordPress posts or pages has never been easier with the NextGEN gallery and also has never looked nicer. As WordPress blogs become more well designed and over more content it’s important that you keep yourself in this top league and by using this plug-in you’ll ensure you’re competing with the best pictures on the web. The thumbnails created look very nice for the readers and the interface to manage the pictures is better then any other. Thousands of people have already been integrating picture galleries into their blogs and it’s been helping them all out with boosts in traffic due to higher interactivity then other blogs. People like to see that you’ve spent time on your blog and not just thrown it together in minutes and although it only takes minutes to set-up each gallery it ensures a very attractive looking blog that people will want to visit often. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nextgen-gallery/

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Improved WordPress Experience With Premium WordPress Plugins

Improved WordPress Experience With Premium WordPress Plugins

WordPress has offered people from across the world with an easy, cost-free, and open-source blogging platform since 2003. Considered the best and most popular blogging tool at recent times, WordPress has also provided opportunities for developers to create premium WordPress plugins designed to address the needs of millions of WordPress users.

What are plugins? WordPress plugins are simply defined as prepackaged codes that can enhance the features and functionality of a website or blog. Various plugins offer a wide range of advantages for WordPress users. For one, plugins can help optimize a WordPress blog so that it gets a high ranking in search engines. Second, plugins can monitor site statistics such as page views and visitors. Third, plugins prevent comment spam from flooding a blogger’s WordPress account. Other useful WordPress plugin features include photo galleries, advertisement manager, and social bookmarking. WordPress plugins make it easy for bloggers to add functionality to their blogs without the need for tedious and complicated coding. With the many benefits a blogger can get from free WordPress plugins, it is no wonder that developers take them a notch higher-that is, they develop various premium WordPress plugins to suit different blogging needs.

Although premium WordPress plugins has not yet fully taken over the prominence of free plugins, the former’s importance cannot be underestimated. Compared to free plugins, premium plugins give more assurance that they are appropriately supported, updated, and improved.

In fact, there are a number of premium plugins considered by many as the best there are on the market. Most of these good premium plugins have useful features for search engine optimization (SEO), affiliate marketing, and advertising purposes. Premium-designed WordPress plugins for SEO provides users with full control over their blogs from the WordPress dashboard. For affiliate marketing purposes, some premium plugins enable the blogger to manage his or her affiliate links using the WordPress dashboard. In addition, affiliate-oriented premium plugins make it easy for bloggers to put advertisements into their blogs. On the other hand, plugins that are made for advertising help users manage the advertisements on their blogs by automating paid reviews, text links, banners, and collecting payments for the blog owner. Some premium plugins allow bloggers to create a number of full-featured review websites.

All in all, premium WordPress plugins can meet the needs of most bloggers in terms of earning money online. Premium plugins provide solutions for bloggers who want to monetize their blog by helping them do it successfully. The monetary benefits are worth the money spent for purchasing these plugins. With premium plugins for WordPress at their disposal, bloggers do not need to acquire technical knowledge or skills to maximize their blogs’ potential to drive huge profits. Before purchasing premium plugins on the Internet, a conscientious blogger should do an extensive research on certain premium plugins that can cover his needs. Of course, careful preparation is important in any undertaking. Enhanced WordPress experience and improved money making strategies can be achieved if bloggers use the right premium WordPress plugins for their needs.

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Help With WordPress

Help With WordPress

Depending on the type of help with WordPress you’re looking for, there are many different options. Let’s take a look at the various options, based on the situation.

If you’re having specific problems with plugins, templates or errors with your WordPress installation itself, then the first stop should be the forums at WordPress.org. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other users are constantly posting and sharing tips, helping each other solve similar problems.

Searching the forums can sometimes be a daunting task, but there are some ways of doing a more effective search. If you’re experiencing trouble with a plugin, try going to the plugin directory FIRST, then look for a link in the sidebar (under the big download button) called “”Forum posts”” — clicking this will take you directly to a list of posts regarding that plugin. Do this
before trying a general search on the Forums homepage. The reason is that doing a search there will give you results from ALL of the forums which can be very distracting as you will have to sort through a lot of posts that don’t match your issue.

The same procedure can also be done when looking at a template listing inside the template directory. It’s a much faster way of finding the help you need. Sometimes template developers have their own sites with forums for troubleshooting issues with their themes, so try looking in Appearances > Themes for a link to the developer’s site for help. This is usually the best approach so that you don’t have to wade through forum posts that don’t match your topic exactly.

Additionally, when making a post in the forums (only after you can’t find someone else with the same problem) make sure you write an appropriate tag such as the plugin or template name, or the specific section inside the WordPress administration. This can make a big difference whether or not other users find your post or not.

In addition to searching at WordPress.org for solutions, you can also find help with WordPress in the form of tutorials on sites like YouTube or HubPages.com. These sites are full of video and text tutorials that can train you on virtually every aspect of using the WordPress CMS. Chances are someone has written a tutorial on the exact topic you’re looking for, so search those sites and you’ll become a WordPress pro in no time!

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An Introduction To WordPress Plugins

An Introduction To WordPress Plugins

WordPress is an amazing CMS system that is renowned for its flexibility as not only a blogging platform, but a platform for those who are simply seeking to publish content based websites to the Internet. It is for this reason that usage of WordPress has skyrocketed over the fast few years, as such, a very active community has given the platform support by developing what would have to be the largest directory of plugins for a single platform in history. So, what is a plugin?

A WordPress plugin is a simple script or software package that extends the functionality of the WordPress platform further than what the original developers of the platform have decided upon. It is for this reason that the CMS is quite raw, and offers only basic functionality such as creating posts, pages, and editing basic code. A plugin is generally installed via the plugin administration area in WordPress, and can either be done automatically from the plugins directory hosted by WordPress, or can also be done manually via FTP, or via an upload in the back end of WordPress.

In most cases, you will never need to install a plugin manually, however, as the availability of premium plugins is rising significantly, this is happening more and more. There are two plugin types that you will more than likely find. Freely available plugins, and premium plugins.

Free plugins are usually available en-masse in the WordPress plugins directory, and are searchable based on set keywords and criteria, however premium plugins are usually available via their own marketplace or shopping cart. Needless to say, the need to pay for a plugin generally warrants extra functionality such as code tweaks, creation of clone WordPress installations, and so on, more often than not, functionality that exceeds its own monetary value significantly.

Plugins can transform WordPress almost into its own separate systems. For example, there are many premium shopping cart and membership site plugins that will transform WordPress from a blog to a paid of free membership site. Some will also transform the installation into a sales letter with a payment portal, and other plugins will offer much more simple functionality such as admin extension, social media links, and clone wordpress backup files for your own security. To get started, simply enter the plugins area within your WordPress admin area, and select ""add new"". In this area, you will be able to explore plugins, and their functionality further, and most importantly, you will be able to experiment with different plugins and get a grasp of this brilliant functionality that lies within WordPress.

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WordPress Plugins – What Are Their Security Risks

WordPress Plugins – What Are Their Security Risks?

The WordPress platform owes a lot of its popularity to the availability of thousands of plugins that perform any function a site owner may need. Simply put if you need to do something there is probably an existing plugin to do it. But what are the security risks that come with installing WordPress plugins? I will tie these threats to the central principles of information security which include Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Confidentiality – Goal is to prevent the disclosure of information to unauthorized individuals or systems

Integrity – Goal is to ensure that data cannot be modified without detection

Availability – Goal is to ensure your site is available when someone tries to access it.

Plugins vary in code size from very simple to very complex. 99.9% of plugin users do not have the time or expertise to do a security review of the code prior to installing a plugin. That means you are at the mercy of the developer that nothing malicious has been programmed into the plugin that could affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your site. For this reason it is best to stick with WordPress plugins that have a large user base and come from more trusted sources.

Plugins are primarily developed by individual developers or very small teams with limited budget for testing. That means if you are an early adopter of a plugin you are the equivalent of a beta tester so it is wise to avoid being on the bleeding edge of adopting a new plugin version unless there is a security vulnerability in the old version that is actively being exploited in the wild. Otherwise you risk something going wrong with the plugin that could negatively impact the availability of your site. For this reason it is important to have a viable backup of your site prior to installing a new plugin or upgraded a currently installed one.

When you install a WordPress Plugin you are installing an application. That means you should careful consider whether you need and intend to use the plugin regularly. Each plugin installed required additional site administrative overhead in the form of applying upgrades to ensure you are running the latest version. For this reason it is important to only install plugins that will be activated on your site and plugins not active should be removed to eliminate a potential source of vulnerability.

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WordPress – Create a New WordPress Theme (1st in a Series)

WordPress – Create a New WordPress Theme (1st in a Series)

WordPress is a wonderfully flexible blogging framework.

If you use WordPress much, you will eventually want to make some changes in the appearance of your blog.

Often the best way to give your blog a facelift is to create a new WordPress theme. The developers of WordPress have made this easy to do. This article tells you how to create a new theme. Future articles will tell you how to make visual modifications in your theme.

Note that this article presumes that you are developing on a PC or Mac and uploading your work to your Web site.

Here is the procedure for creating a new WordPress theme, in a nutshell:

1. Start with an existing theme that you want to modify.2. Copy that theme folder to a new theme folder.3. Edit the “”style”” css file in the new theme folder.4. Upload the theme folder to your Web site.5. From the WordPress Admin console, activate the new theme.

That is all you have to do.

The following sections provide detailed descriptions for implementing the above steps.

Start with an Existing Theme

Pick a theme that is already installed in your blog. It does not need to be activated, just installed. Pick one you like.

Copy the Them to a New Theme Folder

Both the old theme (the one you start with) and the new theme (the one you are creating) should be located in the themes folder of the wp-content folder.

Here is the hierarchy: main WordPress folder / wp-content / themes

If for example, you are copying the “”WordPress Default”” them to the “”John Doe”” theme, you will copy the “”default”” folder to the “”john-doe”” folder.

Edit the “”style”” css file in the new theme folder

Now that you have copied the old theme to your new theme folder, you need to edit the “”style”” css file.

Every theme has a “”style”” css file. That file starts out with some information that WordPress uses to display information about the style in the admin console. You will need to change this information. A skeletal version of this information looks like the following:

Theme Name: Theme name hereDescription: Description of theme here

Version:
Version number

Author:
Your Name

Author URI:
Your Web Site (if you have one)

Licensing Information

A filled in version would look something like the following:

Theme Name:
John Doe

Description:
This is a theme that John Doe created to for his personal Web site.

Version:
1.00

Author:
John Doe

This theme is offered under the GPL License.

Upload the Theme Folder to Your Web site

Using FTP or whatever system is in your editor/Web design software, upload the new theme folder to your Web site.

Activate the New Theme

(i) Log into your WordPress management console.(ii) On the left side of the console, about 1/2 way down, click on the “”Appearance”” link.(iii) Your theme should show up under “”Available Themes””, in the lower right hand side of the page.(iv) Click on the “”Activate”” link for your theme.

WordPress should now be using your theme.

Check the New Theme

If you want to check that you are actually using the new theme, do “”view page source”” and search for wp-content/themes/xxxxxxx where xxxxxxx is your theme name.

Summary

Creating a new WordPress theme is easy. Future articles will tell you how to change the appearance of your new theme.

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Of WordPress and Widgets

Of WordPress and Widgets

One of the world’s largest blog hosting sites, WordPress, achieved its status by offering users with loads of features, apparently more than its competitors do. However, one feature that truly sets them apart from the rest is WordPress Widgets which is quite simply, the use of widgets on WordPress blogs.

Widgets are basically plugins or tiny applications which can be placed on your blog’s sidebar. In WordPress, the most convenient aspect of putting up widgets is it is easily done without the need of html or web page editing expertise. With the ability to add and arrange widgets at your fingertips, it’s you can get your blog to look the way you want it to be making it a personalized one indeed in no time at all.

There are also huge amounts of widgets available online apart from those available in WordPress and can be obtained from websites such as www.widgetbox.com. Other than providing you with widgets of all sorts, they provide you guides on creating your own widgets to truly add a touch of personality and originality. These guides are even handy for the really tech-savvy individuals like developers and theme and plugin authors. Widget creating is important for them who work for WordPress as they have to keep tabs on the thousands of people from over 130000 blogs many of whom are constantly downloading WordPress programs each day.

With the use of Javascripts as well as Ajax, widgets are quite simply little boxes which represent content elements located within the sidebar of your theme. One downside to this is that once the widget is what it is, its look and the way it works can’t be modified. Among the elements which come as standard are;

Archives – A collection of links for older posts sorted by month.

Blogstats – A display of statcounter as well as a record of the amount of traffic coming into your blog.

Calendar – A calendar which dates can be used as links if there were any entries posted on that date.

Categories – A list of categories for post sorting and searching purposes.

Links – Quite simply, a blogroll arranged according to their respective categories.

Pages – A list of links to every page.

Most Recent Posts & Comments – A list of the most recent posts as well as comments that have been approved.

Meta/admin – A collection of links directing you to meta functions such as logging in and logging out, entries and comments RSS, Site Admin and WordPress’ homepage.

Search – A search tool to search within your blog.

Text – A feature allowing the insertion of HTML, Javascript or simply any form of plain text and can open up possibilities for miscellaneous text widgets.

Another interesting thing is the ability to add RSS feeds sourced from elsewhere using the new widgets available. With functions like these, the uses of widgets encompass almost every thinkable thing where only your imagination is the limit. However, too many widgets may not only cause your blog to slow down, but may end up spoiling the look of your blog as it is never advisable to have too much of a thing and this includes widgets.

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Using dynamically related files: Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress from lynda.com

Watch the entire course at www.lynda.com In Dreamweaver CS5 and WordPress, author Joseph Lowery shows Dreamweaver designers and developers what they need to know to create sites with WordPress and Dreamweaver. This course demonstrates CSS customization to Spry web widget integration in WordPress themes to create advanced blog and other page types. It also covers basic WordPress specific features, including plug-ins and administration, and more advanced workflow techniques, such as incorporating WordPress-stored data in Dreamweaver dynamic pages.

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