Helping You Rock Out Your Site Like A Rockstar!

In fact, I have been exercising this on a few sites for clients that wanted their users to not even be lead to the WordPress backend, even to edit their user profile. Theme My Profile works well with the plugin Theme My Profile, and were both created by Jeff Farthing. Of course, you can use this plugin by itself as mentioned on Jeff’s page for the Theme My Profile plugin.

This plugin is a very nifty tool and eventually I will have it so profiles will be viewable too. Everything just takes time. The plugin works great and I have no found any bugs with it. You can even specify who has access to this feature and who does not.

My only issue is that I think there could be more added to this plugin to give the “theme my profile” that extra oomph. While it does let the user have a more uniformed experience with changing their profile, this plugin could also use options like adding social profiles, and the addition to work with a custom author page and author box for posts. (Please note that you can add extra social profiles through adding a few actions to your functions.php file, but I think it would be nice if bundled in this plugin.) I do not know what you would think, but for me, this would just be very enticing if these options were added.

Have you used this plugin? What are your thoughts?

I found a nifty WordPress plugin and this one themes your login page to conform with your current layout. It is called Theme My Login and it was created by Jeff Farthing. Now, this is different from the tutorial on theming your WordPress login page.

As further explained on Jeff’s site, his plugin overrides the wp-login.php and profile.php pages. The plugin includes a widget you can place a login form in your sidebar too! Jeff offers a support forum for his plugin… well actually, he has authored a few plugins. As a side note, I will be blogging about another plugin he has created very soon.

Although anyone who has a knack at coding can customize their own WordPress login page, Jeff’s plugin is great for those not as savvy in design. It is also great for those wanting to brand their site more effectively. Although I would put a link on my site to WordPress anyday, a custom login page is just an added attribute that I personally like to see on sites.

Have you tried out this plugin or know anyone who uses it?

There is a Custom Admin Branding plugin for that, but why bother when you can insert a few lines into your theme’s functions.php file?

However, if you like to change up your site’s theme sometimes, you probably want to change the log in page too. A lot of people have been really hooked into branding their WordPress log in page, especially since guest blogging has become popular.

Here is the code I put together for Blondish.net. This is all merely adding CSS and an action to your theme’s functions.php file. (Note: some people like to be tidy and can put this in another file and reference it to the functions.php file.)

Adding the action for your custom login:


add_action('login_head', 'my_custom_login_logo');


Replace the WordPress logo:


function my_custom_login_logo() {
echo '<style type="text/css">
.login h1 a { background-image:url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/blondishnet-2011-bottom-logo.png) !important;height:80px;width:401px;margin-bottom:5px;no-repeat scroll center top transparent; }


Adding your own background to the login page:


html, body {background: url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/blondishnet-bg.png) !important;}


Removing the Back to blog link:


#backtoblog { display:none; }
</style>';
}


Customizing the login box area:


#login {width:401px !important;}
.login form {background: url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/blondishnet-bg2.png) !important;}
.login label {color: #fff; font-size: 16px;}
input.button-primary:active, button.button-primary:active, a.button-primary:active {
background-color: #EEA2BB !important; background-image: none !important; color: #BA314C !important; border-color: #BA314C !important;}
input.button-primary, button.button-primary, a.button-primary {background-color: #EEA2BB !important; background-image: none !important; color: #BA314C !important; border-color: #FAD5E1 !important;}
.login #nav a, .login #backtoblog a {color: #BA314C !important;}
.login #nav a:hover, .login #backtoblog a:hover {color: #000 !important;}
</style>


Replacing the WordPress.org link that is on the login page (where you put your site’s name or logo):


<script type="text/javascript">
function loginalt() {
var changeLink = document.getElementById(\'login\').innerHTML;
changeLink = changeLink.replace("http://wordpress.org/", "' . site_url() . '");
changeLink = changeLink.replace("Powered by WordPress", "' . get_bloginfo('name') . '");
document.getElementById(\'login\').innerHTML = changeLink;
}
window.onload=loginalt;
</script>


Now, the full code in action:


add_action('login_head', 'my_custom_login_logo');

</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
function loginalt() {
var changeLink = document.getElementById(\'login\').innerHTML;
changeLink = changeLink.replace("http://wordpress.org/", "' . site_url() . '");
changeLink = changeLink.replace("Powered by WordPress", "' . get_bloginfo('name') . '");
document.getElementById(\'login\').innerHTML = changeLink;
}
window.onload=loginalt;
</script>
';
}


You can customize more of the page too, so just view the source of your login page (or you can click “Inspect Element” in Chrome or Firefox to get view the element you need to change) and you can put other CSS attributes into the code above.

Some people really would like to have a tag page. Well, on this tutorial, you will be able to add a tag cloud to a page without making a template or even using a plugin.

You can use the template where you create a page and can select it, but perhaps you want to add it to another page, like the 404 page. You will have to be familiar with the WordPress loop and your theme’s files to be able to complete this tutorial.

Step 1. Take a template that you already have for your existing theme for your site, preferably page.php. Copy that template’s code into a text editor like Notepad.

Step 2. Paste the following code in where you put your content. Instead of the WordPress loop, you will include the following code. Note (again):Make sure you are in the HTML format instead of Rich Text. The ‘number=0′ means that you want all of the tags to show. Note: You can also create a new page, and have the following code within a template and choose that template format.


<?php wp_tag_cloud('number=0'); ?>


Make sure to label the template as well. If you are not sure how to, at the beginning of the file, include the following:


<?php
/*
Template Name: Tag Cloud Page
*/
?>


You can add header tags (h2 or h3, whichever you use within your content) before it, or you can do without the header tags as the page will already be defined with its own when you publish it.

Step 3. Save file as a different name in the .php extension. Please note that you may need to choose “All Files” to properly name the file or the actual extension will be .txt (text file.)

Step 4. Upload the template to your theme’s folder.

Step 5. Create a new page in your WordPress backend and choose the new template your just loaded up.

Very simple, right?

I like to use this code to display the first full entry and then the rest of my entries as excerpts from my main page. This is not hard to do and only requires that you replace a few code snippets. You can apply this to your theme’s index template file (most commonly index.php), or whatever your blog template file may be called.

Look for the following code in the loop in your:


<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>


Replace with the following.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php $postcount = 0; // Initialize the post counter ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); //start the loop ?>
<?php $postcount++; //add 1 to the post counter ?>


This code allows your blog to see how many posts you have.

2. Look for the following code. You are going to be replacing the_content


<?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); ?>


with:


<?php if ($postcount == 1) : // if this is the first post ?>
<?php the_content('Read the rest of this article ->'); //Show the full post ?>
<?php else : //if this is NOT the first post ?>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<?php endif; //end of the check for first post - other posts?>


The code basically tells your blog to show the first as the full entry and the following posts as excerpts.

I hope you enjoy this simple computer desktop wallpaper. It is another WordPress related one for those who are fans.

Why do I make these? Because I like WordPress enough as a fan and have met many like myself who share the enthusiasm. When I attend and speak at WordCamps (WordPress conferences), I always see people have WordPress stickers on their laptop. So, I thought maybe a desktop wallpaper would be a nice addition too.

The wallpapers are in 3 different sizes. If a bigger size is needed, leave a comment and I will make it so. I am working on putting a navigation by category for WP Addict so it will be easier to find things as the site grows.

WordPress Moon Wallpaper 800x600 (275)
WordPress Moon Wallpaper 1024x768 (297)
WordPress Moon Wallpaper 1280x1024 (309)

And by the way, if you are a fan, and want to give a few WordPress related freebies (like themes, wallpapers, banners, etc…), you are welcome to contribute. Contributions means that you get a mention on the site, and getting a back link to your site. This is also for tutorials or any WordPress related news. Also, if you are a WordPress newbies, feel free to use the contact form for questions you have.

I really enjoy using StatPress. Let me re-phrase that – I really enjoyed using StatPress for a time. I would review StatPress Reloaded, but it is only compatible to 2.9.2 and seems to not have any updates since WordPress is on version 3.3 (December 2011.)

StatPress is a real-time statistics plugin for users to install on their WordPress blog and be able to check through their administration panel. Stats includes are visitors per day, feeds per day, what browsers people are using when visiting, referring sites, and IPs. The plugin was created by Daniele Lippi. Note: Recently Daniele introduced StatPress.org, but still has a StatPress support forum at his site.

The plugin is great, but word of caution is to make sure anyone using this plugin limits the days that they will allow StatPress to collect information. This is important as you can drive up your database. This is also a plugin that does not remove itself fully when you uninstall. You have to go in and manually remove the data tables. This plugin can be bulky and even crash at times.

Sometimes it is slowly when gathering data, so if you have a larger site, you might have to wait a few extra moments for this plugin to do its work. It is useful, but for larger sites, this plugin might not be ideal.

On top of that, if you forget to clear out your data, you will run up your diskspace before you know it.

In my humble opinion, it is probably better to try Google Analyticator or the WordPress.com statistics instead.

Do you use StatPress or have you? Or do you use another statistics plugin.

Here is a wallpaper I made called WordPress Sunflower. Yeah, I know, fan art pretty much.

Anyone who has items they made as a fan of WordPress, you are welcome to pitch in to the readers. Just use the contact form to tell me what you have or would like to offer. You definitely get mention and link credit for your work.

WordPress Sunflower: It comes in 3 different sizes. If your resolutions is larger, please use the contact form and I will cut a larger from my larger raw image for you and anyone else who might have the same.

WordPress Sunflower Wallpaper (800x600) (276)
WordPress Sunflower Wallpaper (1024x768) (208)
WordPress Sunflower Wallpaper (1280x1024) (254)

Feel free to download them. Even though I do not put my name on them, please do not claim as your own. Hope you like them.