article-stack

amtyThumb plugin provides best way to generate thumbnail of an image. It can extract first image from any post. It provides you a single function to do this.

Now just edit your any plugin to display thumbnail along with post list.

Go to setting page of WP-PostViews page. You will find following text in Most Viewed Template:

<li><a href="%POST_URL%"  title="%POST_TITLE%">%POST_TITLE%</a> - %VIEW_COUNT% views</li>

Add %THUMBNAIL% option to above text

<li><img src="%THUMBNAIL%" /><a href="%POST_URL%"  title="%POST_TITLE%">%POST_TITLE%</a> - %VIEW_COUNT% views</li>

Modify wp-postviews/wp-postviews.php
search for “$output .= $temp;”. Add below line just before the searched test.

$temp = str_replace("%THUMBNAIL%", amty_lead_img(75,75,1,'','','zoom',$post->ID);, $temp);

You can edit plugin in the same manner. Otherwise wait for coming version of amty Thumb Post which has capability to display mostly, recently, rarely …. posts with thumbnail and with any style.

Read more about using amtyThumb here. This article will guide you more about amty_lead_img() function & to insert a thumbnail in your post using shortcode.

While developing some pages of my new site thinkzarahatke, I faced problem to display a multiple select category box. WordPress provides wp_dropdown_categories() function which display you a combo(select) box of categories. You can select only one category at a time.

Since I dint found any other function which can help me and I was not willing to use any plug in for the same so I set multiple attribute to select box at run time using jquery.

$(function() {
           $(".multiselect").attr( 'multiple', 'multiple' );
});

Using the above code you can make multi select category box easily.

CATCHA is required for humanity check. So you can save your site from any script attack. If you are running a site on wordpress platform then implementing CAPTCHA would be so much easier. The same script you can use to integrate in any PHP site.

function Display_captcha(){
	$common_captcha = new ReallySimpleCaptcha();
	$common_captcha_defaults = array(
			'chars' => 'ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ23456789',
			'char_length' => '4',
			'img_size' => array( '72', '24' ),
			'fg' => array( '0', '0', '0' ),
			'bg' => array( '255', '255', '255' ),
			'font_size' => '16',
			'font_char_width' => '15',
			'img_type' => 'png',
			'base' => array( '6', '18'),
			);

	/**************************************
	* All configurable options are below  *
	***************************************/

	// Set Really Simple CAPTCHA Options
	$common_captcha->chars = 'ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ23456789amty';
	$common_captcha->char_length = '4';
	$common_captcha->img_size = array( '72', '24' );
	$common_captcha->fg = array( '0', '0', '0' );
	$common_captcha->bg = array( '255', '255', '255' );
	$common_captcha->font_size = '16';
	$common_captcha->font_char_width = '15';
	$common_captcha->img_type = 'png';
	$common_captcha->base = array( '6', '18' );

	// Set common Form Options

	// Generate random word and image prefix
	$common_captcha_word = $common_captcha->generate_random_word();
	$common_captcha_prefix = mt_rand();
	// Generate CAPTCHA image
	$common_captcha_image_name = $common_captcha->generate_image($common_captcha_prefix, $common_captcha_word);
	// Define values for common form CAPTCHA fields
	$common_captcha_image_url =  get_bloginfo('wpurl') . '/wp-content/plugins/really-simple-captcha/tmp/';
	$common_captcha_image_src = $common_captcha_image_url . $common_captcha_image_name;
	$common_captcha_image_width = $common_captcha->img_size[0];
	$common_captcha_image_height = $common_captcha->img_size[1];
	$common_captcha_field_size = $common_captcha->char_length;
	// Output the common form CAPTCHA fields
	$common_captcha_arr = array(
		array ( 'img',$common_captcha_image_src,$common_captcha_image_width, $common_captcha_image_height),
		array ( 'text',$common_captcha_field_size),
		array ( 'hidden',$common_captcha_prefix),

	);
	return $common_captcha_arr;
}

function Verify_captcha($prefix,$code)
{
	$question_captcha = new ReallySimpleCaptcha();
		$question_captcha_prefix = $prefix;
		$question_captcha_code = $code;
		$question_captcha_correct = false;
		$question_captcha_check = $question_captcha->check( $question_captcha_prefix, $question_captcha_code );
		$question_captcha_correct = $question_captcha_check;
		$question_captcha->remove($question_captcha_prefix);
		$question_captcha->cleanup();
		if ( ! $question_captcha_correct ) {
			return false;
		}
		return true;
}

< form
< ?php $common_captcha_arr = Display_captcha(); ?>
< p class="common-form-captcha">
< img src="<?php echo $common_captcha_arr[0][1]; ?>" alt="captcha" width="<?php echo $common_captcha_arr[0][2]; ?>" height="<?php echo $common_captcha_arr[0][3]; ?>" />
< input id="common_captcha_code" name="common_captcha_code" size="<?php echo $common_captcha_arr[1][1]; ?>" type="text" class="textfield2" />
< input id="common_captcha_prefix" name="common_captcha_prefix" type="hidden" value="<?php echo $common_captcha_arr[2][1]; ?>" />
< /p>
< /form>

if(! Verify_captcha($_POST['common_captcha_prefix'],$_POST['common_captcha_code'])){
  :
}

* You would have to download & Install really-simple-captcha

Many visitors are never interested to download the contents first then check them. They want to take snapshot about the contents from your site/article/post itself. You must help them to view documents online instead of downloading any document to their local PC or to installing any plugin. It’ll remove an overhead from your visitor and will increase hits on your site.

What you need to embed

1. Word document
2. Power point presentation
3. Excel worksheet
4. PDF documents
5. Video

I already had suggested about how to embed documents using google . But if you want to avoid any manual intervention then TGN plugin (for wordpress users) would be a good option.

How to use TGN

While writing an article, you can use short code to embed any document on your page. TGN must be installed in advance.

YouTube
[ youtube article-stack]

VideoReadr
[ videoreadr article-stack]

PDF
[ pdf article-stack]

PowerPoint
[ powerpoint article-stack]

Microsoft Word
[ word article-stack]

Note that: remember to replace “article-stack” keyword with valid link for your documents or video ID.

There is a very simple solution to display word documents , presentations, excel files etc on your own webpage itself. So people can read them directly without downloading the article and installing any plugin. You can take the help of google for this purpose.

For this,

1. Either upload the documentation file on your server or arrange a link of any other server
2. Place your link after the given link

   http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=

   For example;

   http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jvds.nl%2Fclimateuncertaintyethics.ppt&embedded=true

Definitely, you would have to use “iframe” tag for this purpose. Read article Highly searched keywords in year 2010 for live demo.

Tip
Instead, if you are willing to display a website, document etc in a popup like thickbox then read the power of wordpress inbuilt thickbox. You can do it without installing any extra plugin.

Many people search for plugins to add support of jquery based thickbox. But do you know this is already included in your wordpress bundle. Let’s try

Suppose you want to open a webpage into thickbox. Just add following code at the end of last link we made above

&embedded=true&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=400&width=650

And add following code to your anchor tag.

  class="thickbox"

For Example

For more guidance, refer jquery thickbox

There is common thinking in everyone’s mind that if you want to secure your wordpress blog then you must disable users to get registered on your site.

Registration on a site always attracts hackers. Many plug-ins may secure your blog. But some of them might be proved as a powerful & useful tool for hackers.

Here I am discussing about a plug-in which is very useful in point of security. But I used this to hack my own site.

Let’s do it.

http://localhost/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=WordPressFileMonitor&display=alertDesc

or
< your blog url >/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=WordPressFileMonitor&display=alertDesc

This hack will help you to collect more information about the site like latest changes, posts in draft, plug-in recently installed, theme, and various path along with file name.

You’ll find many posts over wordpress security plug-ins. But I had excluded all plug-ins which do less work that you can do by changing some settings. Like creating .htaccess file etc.

I also not mentioned plug-ins related to SSL. SSL certificates let you connect to your server with encrypted channel which is very secure. You need to buy SSL certificate. You can use shared or private certificates. But in both cases you need to payment. Since most of the bloggers doesn’t go for buying SSL certificates. So I avoided them.

You can achieve full security by using very less number of plug-ins. Some of them are;

Akismet - It helps you to protect from SPAM. In simple words you can say. If someone comments on a post just for advertisement or uses offensive word then Akismet can stop them.

Block Bad Queries (BBQ) - I hope all of you are aware with SQL injection. SQL injections are nothing but some complex SQL queries written with the aim of breaking your site security. And to get internal information of your site database as much as possible. This plug-in can control SQL injection & base64 attacks till some extension.

Login LockDown - Login LockDown controls number of unsuccessful login attempts. So you ever be safe from brute force & dictionary attack.

WordPress File Monitor - As its name suggest, it monitors all files on your server. This plug-in tells you about what files are changed on your server. So that you can identify whether the mentioned files are changed by you or by some script.

Let’s start

Develop your plugin and test it locally.

Notify WordPress team about your work

a. Create you account on wordpress .
b. Select “Add your plugin” from left menu. Fil basic information about your plugin or theme. So that wordpress team can access it and test it.

Wait for mail
Once your plugin is submitted to and tested by wordpress team you will get a mail. like this

    Your plugin hosting request has been approved.
    Within one hour, you will have access to your SVN repository at 

http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/YOUR-PLUGIN-NAME/

    with your WordPress.org/bbPress.org username and password (the same one you use on the forums).
    Here's some handy links to help you get started.
    Using Subversion with the WordPress Plugins Directory 

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/svn/

    FAQ about the WordPress Plugins Directory 

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/faq/

    WordPress Plugins Directory readme.txt standard 

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/readme.txt

    readme.txt validator: 

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/validator/

    Enjoy!

It may confuse you little bit. But forget it

4. Download “Tortoise SVN” from http://subversion.tigris.org/. [you may have to login to download it]

5. Once the installation is done.

1. Create a folder somewhere on your hard disk.
2. Right click on the folder. And select “Create repository here”.
3. Some folders will be created inside the folder you opted for repository.
4. Again right click on the same folder. And select “SVN Checkout”. [To know more in detail you may visit wordpress]
5. It will ask for login ID & Password. Use the id you use to login on wordpress plugin site.

6. Inside your plugin directory you will get three more folders

1. trunk
2. tags
3. branches

7. Copy your plugin files in “trunk” folder.(dont archive them)

8. Make a readme.txt to tell something about your plugin or theme. refer its format.

Note
To check whether contents of your readme.txt are valid or not. Go to read me validator. Here you can paste contents of readme.txt. And can validate it.

Extra files
Providing screenshots to viewers of your plugin is really a good idea. It may fascinate users to use your plugin. Take some screenshot. And place them into “tags” folder of your repository folder. And specify their path into readme.txt.

Note
tags folder contain a version folder like “/2.0/”. All files are placed only inside version folder. This version must be similar to the version specified in you readme.txt

Save your work

What else. Just right click on your repository folder and select “SVN Commit”. Your work will be uploaded to wordpress server. You may check it by following http://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/YOUR-PLUGIN-NAME/

You may also refer my repository directory structure for further help.

I never suggest using PNG images since they are bigger in size and not compatible with many browsers. Although you can fix their appearance so their transparency can persist. But sometimes they are needful for web designers. So here I am mentioning some PNG fixes as per my experience.

These fixes may fix transparency of a PNG image. But you would have to test it with various version of internet browsers like IE 5,6,7 etc, various internet browsers like chrome, Firefox, epic, IE etc. And on various platform like Mac , Windows, Linux, Mobile OS.

Testing a page against so many browsers is really a tough job. Specially when you asked to test it on various platforms. You can use one click solution for this. It’ll not only save your time but money as well.

If you are wrodpress blogger then HITS- IE6 PNGFix might help you to fix PNG transparency in IE6. You may try it to other browsers as well. But author claims to fix in IE6 only.

1

This fix, based on jquery, is ultimate. It supports all version of IE above than 5.5 (including). Click on the image for online demo and how to use guide. You can directly download it from andreaseberhard.

twinhelix PNG fix claims to fix transparency problem of any PNG file as well as ALPHA problem. It supports all the images inserted on the HTML page using < img > or background images. Click on the image to visit their demo page and how to use guide. I am not sure this fix is compatible with CSS3. But I had tested it against EPIC and firefox. And found it effective.
You can download this fix directly from twinhelix.

Please report me if you find any link broken.

PNG transparency is not only the problem for web designers. There are some more problems related to margin, floats etc. These problems always make me worry. But I have cure for margin Fix and floating fix. Please let me know if you are facing any other CSS related issue. Moreover, CSS compatibility charts can help you giving an idea about what part or browser you are missing from testing your webpage. I would like to find out more effective solutions as well as improving my knowledge.

If you are planning to edit/create your own wordpress theme, XAMPP will be a best option to test it. Although creating WP themes using Artisteer is too easy and editing existing themes using ThemeDreamer is very simple. But how would they look in various browser is important. And at this point you need some platform where you can run wordpress.

Xampp will let you test your wordpress blog or any other PHP, JSP etc site locally. This tutorial will tell you about how to configure xampp and about how to configure wordpress on xampp.

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

Replace the above code with below code.

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress');
/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'root');
/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', '');
/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php

or 

http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/.

Finally, your local server is ready to run your blog. Now the turn is to install some themes and plug-ins. You may also need some sample posts if you want to save your time while testing.
You can try my plug-in initially. It’ll give you more options to test. Read other articles over wordpress. And remember to make a user locally to complete your testing.
If you had published your site and want to test its appearance on various browsers and platform the browsershots can help you.

Please leave your feed backs, suggestions and ideas for another easy setup of any blog.

I seen many people asking site owners about their CMS platform.
It is easier to know it yourself. There is a fixed path pattern of every CMS. If a site is using wordpress CMS then path pattern should be like,

Domain Name/wp-admin

If you get wordpress login page by entering above path then you surely can say that site is built on wordpress CMS. But wordpress provides an easier way to change the path of wordpress installation directory. This option is available in wordpress dashboard under settings option. If a user had changed the path then it is really difficult to guess the path. Specially when site owner restricts crawler to index their site contents. In this case below google search will not help you

inurl:wp-admin site:article-stack.com

Well! it is pretty easy to know wordpress installation directory path. Use the below path

Domain Name/robots.txt

You’ll get a text file containing path as follow

Sitemap: Domain Name/sitemap-web.xml

User-Agent: *
Disallow: /wp/wp-admin/
:
Disallow: /go/
Disallow: /forums/profile/

If robots.txt revealing the path you are trying to hide then you must know why robots.txt is imported for your site.

In case of above example, wordpress installation directory is Domain Name/wp/

Well!! I had updated this article and deleted blah blah detail about this plugin. It makes me bore. Even though you can visit amtyThumb Post for more detail, features, FAQ, how to use it etc.

Why I deleted details from here?

With the version 7.0, amty thumb post has been changed a lot. You must have been read enough about it on wordpress plugin repository. If you miss something there, comment here. I’ll solve your problems

Why do you like this plugin?

Fully customizable plugin to show Recently written, Recently viewed, Random, Mostly & Rarely Viewd, Mostly Commented posts with thumbnail.

Supportable plugin: amtyThumb

Screen Shots:

More images