If you run a WordPress website and you want your site to be more friendly when viewed using a cell phone we found a plugin that makes it pretty easy. It’s called WordPress Mobile Pack and it’s available through the WordPress plugin library. After you install this plugin you choose one of the built in mobile themes and set the method of detection and your set. When a mobile device accesses your site it is automatically detected as such and displays your condensed mobile site formatted for the small screen. Regular visitors using a computer browser will see your normal site.  There is a link that you can enable or disable put at the bottom of your site allowing users to switch between the mobile or standard theme so you always have the choice.   This works real nicely for most WordPress sites but if you have a magazine styled front page or a custom design of some sort it may not display well for your home page and there is not much you can do.  All in all the plugin is very nice and you should check it out HERE!

Giving your WordPress website different different sidebar widgets for different sections is easy enough to do using a plugin called “Widget Context“.  Once you install this plugin you get some extra functionality in your dashboard’s widget menu.  When you put any widget into your sidebar you can choose what sections of you website this widget will show up on.  It can be displayed on your home page, blog page, single posts, single pages, search page, archive page and more. 

You can also use negative logic and hide that particular widget from certain sections.  Whatever works best for your design.  Here’s a look at the functionality block that gets added to your widget settings.  Just select where you want or don’t want that widget displayed, save, and your all set.

A nice plugin to use, so you can have different widgets displayed in different sections of your WordPress Website or Blog.  It adds a setting block at the bottom of your selected widgets in your dashboard and allows you to use some code to determine where on the site that particular widget is used.

Some code Examples:

• is_home() — just the main blog page
• !is_page('about') — everywhere EXCEPT this specific WP ‘page’
• is_category(array(5,9,10,11)) — category page of one of the given category IDs
• is_single() && in_category('baked-goods') — single post that’s in the category with this slug
• current_user_can('level_10') — admin only widget
• strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'], "google.com")!=false — widget to show when clicked through from a google search
• is_category() && in_array($cat, get_term_children( 5, 'category')) — category page that’s a descendent of category 5
• global $post; return (in_array(77,get_post_ancestors($post))); — WP page that is a child of page 77
• global $post; return (is_page('home') || ($post->post_parent=="13")); – home page OR the page that’s a child of page 13

Note the extra ‘;’ on the end where there is an explicit ‘return’.

Use ! (NOT) in front of a conditional tag to reverse the logic, eg !is_home() to show a widget on any page except the home page.

More Info and Download Here.

After that, using FTP or file manager you have to create a new folder in your wp-content/plugins folder called /header-images and upload the new header files there.   Upload your original header file there too if you want to use it. Install the plugin by uploading or through the WP dashboard and activate it.   One more step.  There is one string of code that you must copy and paste into your header.php file.  Its usually placed right after the line that calls your original header graphic.  There are more detailed instructions included.   This plugin also supports flash headers.

Now in the page or post editor you will be able to select your header image of choice.   Works well in Artisteer 2.4 themes.

Here’s a gallery example

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Here’s a Slideshow example

Here’s an example of the Smooth Gallery

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Smooth Gallery can also be coded into custom templates for special page effects and even custom Home Pages.

If your going to display photos on your site or blog these two plugins are  a must.

Now you can do the same thing with your posts. Using the plugin called the “Single Post Template Plugin” , by Nathen Rice, you can do the exact same thing with your posts or articles.  With this you copy the single.php file and insert the template code at the top just like in a page template.  You can do the different sidebar thing or code in different ads to the top or bottom of your new templates.  Just like a Page,  when you edit or create a Post, you have a drop down to select the the post template you want to use.

This pluging does require a little extra work but it adds a nice touch to your blog or website and gives it additional functionality to set it apart from the rest.

Nathen Rice has some other nice plugins too and you can check them all out at http://www.nathanrice.net/plugins/

Plugins are add-on features to your WordPress driven website.  There are simple announcement plugins, statistic plugins, photo gallery plugins, all kinds of technical plugins, email Forms, Spam, Security, you name it.  Plugins give you the ability to customize your site or blog and help you create your unique web presence.  Here’s a link to a Large List of great and very useful plugins.

http://mashable.com/2007/08/16/wordpress-god300-tools-for-running-your-wordpress-blog/

You can also always check wordpress.org for a large selection of great plugins.  www.wordpress.org

We found a nice little plugin that allows you to make a timed announcement and you can display it in a widget or at the top of your blog. Or with a little php code you can put it anywhere. You might think, well I can just use a text widget. Yea but, This nice little plugin lets you display your message for a duration of time and you also have the ability to show different messages to different level users. The top of the blog display may have problems with certain themes but the widget should work well with any. We used it as a widget and made it an “About Me” block with a picture even. Since the plugin works through the control panel giving you a spot to put your message, with html, we just uploaded a picture and pointed to it it the message.  

Check it out here.  http://ericulous.com/2007/03/09/genki_announcement/ 

We’re finding it very useful.

One of the great things about WordPress is that you can install “Plugins”. Plugins supply additional functionality to your WP Blog. Some things you can see and some things you can’t. We always seem to install a favorite set of plugins for any blog and then there are others that we install according to the specific needs of your site. Such as photo galleries or music players. The plugins we install all the time are listed below.

All In One SEO Pack – Adds good meta decsription and keywords to all your pages and posts automatically plus you can add even more.

Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a correct XML Sitemap and notifies Google and other search engines of its status.

StatPress – Basic Real Time Stats of visitors and spiders with many details.

The above plugins and many more can be found at wordpress.org .

There are many other Plugins that we use and they all add terrific benefits to your site. These are what we consider essential for a site that wants to be indexed in the major search engines.

Other plugins can also be installed to give your site features like photo galleries, email forms, event listings, Gig listings, music players and more… Your possibilities are endless due to the efforts of all the people that contribute to the WordPress effort.

Please Contact us with your questions about WordPress.

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