In this article, I'm going to explain how to format a division as multi-column. Only CSS Flexbox will be used. I'm amazed how CSS Flexbox is powerful, and easy. The two columns division follows: (more…)
Flexible Columns
Category: Tips & Tricks
Shortcode to display plugins info for their author
With this shortcode, getting information about plugins of an author, is easy. To add this shortcode, and make it theme independent, we'll use a small plugin. First, create a PHP file fpw-shortcodes.php (it can have a different name, if it does not conflict with anything), with the following content:
How to get complete MySQL version in WordPress
There are two ways of getting MySQL version in WordPress. First (popular) is to use $wpdb global object and its db_version() method. Second (less known) is to use $wpdb global object combined with its two properties use_mysqli and dbh plus two PHP functions mysql_get_server_info() and mysqli_get_server_info().
Themes and FPW Category Thumbnails
What should I do if my theme does not support post thumbnails? Can your plugin still be used? Can FPW Category Thumbnails plugin display thumbnails?
I've been asked these question so often that I felt it deserves some action. There are numerous good free themes not providing post thumbnails support at all. Should we stop using them? Not at all. There are solutions to this problem, unfortunately all of them require modifications of the theme files. Then there is FPW Post Thumbnails plugin. It is the cleanest and the least obtrusive standalone help. Its functionality will be included in the next version of FPW Category Thumbnails as well. You can find it in WordPress repository.
Background transparency problem in NextGen Gallery thumbnails
For some time I didn't keep my post thumbnails in NextGen Gallery. On this website they are all PNG images with a transparent background. The thumbnails created by NextGen were losing background transparency and their background was black. It was unacceptable because of theme switching. My themes use different backgrounds and thumbnails looked rather ugly. Finally I found this post: ...plugin-nextgen-gallery-problems-with-png-transparency-thumbnails which offered a solution. It requires a modification of NextGen plugin code and after every upgrade of NextGen you'll have to remember to re-apply this patch.
Introducing WordPress 3.1 Post Formats
Some people hate it and some love it. I belong to the second category. If you, as a webmaster, don't like it, simply do not enable theme support for post formats. I think that post formats bring incredible possibilities to website presentation.
Basic requirements: WP 3.1, theme support, knowledge of CSS and WP filters, imagination, and creativity.
Using fonts hosted on your site
In Using Google Font API article I've presented one method of incorporating specific fonts into your website. The Google's method will free you from any legal problems related to hosting unlicenced fonts, however, there are couple of drawbacks. Fonts have to be downloaded from Google's servers and that takes time. Secondly, there are only 14 fonts available as of today.
How about hosting your own fonts?
Using Google Font API
For many years web developers had to rely on fonts being available on viewers' machines. Not any more - thanks to Google Font API.
I'll present just one simple example of this method. For a list of available fonts go to Google Font Directory. For a complete documentation visit Google Font API.
Making WordPress faster – tip #2
Minimizing number of http requests is the key to better response time. After displaying a page/post view page source and see how many javascripts and css files had been loaded. If you use many plugins this number could be quite large. There is one plugin which can really help.
Theme Switcher Reloaded – Limit selections
Theme Switcher Reloaded plugin by Themebot allows the viewer to make a selection from available themes and it does it well. This plugin is being used on our website ( see the sidebar ).