28 July 2007
Eric Rasmusen, erasmuse@indiana.edu
This file is now at http://www.rasmusen.org/a/wordpress-rasmusen.txt


USING WORDPRESS

 This text file contains my notes on how to use Wordpress. Wordpress
is poorly documented, so this is  important. I  will add to this file
over time.


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  POSTING BY EMAIL
 To do this, install the WP-cron and WP-cron-mail plug-ins.

Then, send delayed emails. Don't use Thunderbird--it puts in bad
formatting end-of-line symbols. Instead, use  Lettermelater,
http://www.lettermelater.com/account.php, a free website.


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TRACKBACK SPAM

 Trackback spam is impossible to block. All I can do is end
trackbacks. I tried several other tricks and plugins. To stop
trackbacks, go to OPTIONS, DISCUSSION, and uncheck the box that allows
them. That, however, only disallows them on future posts. For past
posts, use this idea from http://wordpress.org/support/topic/19950

Run this query in the SQL field in phpMyAdmin for your WP database:

Update wp_posts set ping_status = "closed" where post_date <
"2005-09-05"

What that means is that you need to  find the server address for your
wordpress database. For me, that is wp3.rasmusen.dreamhosters.com.  I
log in there with username and password.  The program phpMyAdmin
starts right up and asks me to choose a database. After I do, a new
window appears. SQL is a box I can click. Then I can type in the three
lines of command above, and it will apply them to all my past posts.




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COMMENTS IN WORDPRESS TEMPLATES

I've found out how to put comments in Wordpress templates, which I
suppose are written in PhP.<!--more--> I can add a date comment like
this:

 <!--  August 19, 2005 -->

 The stylesheet is in some other language, perhaps HTML, so a comment
would look like this:

/* Eric Rasmusen, 13 June 2005 */

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THE <!--more--> COMMAND

If you put

<!--more-->

 between two lines of a post like this:

<p> I came across an article on Roman Catholic political doctrine.
Since I had a couple of old posts (August 5, 2003) on this and the
question of Moslem and Roman Catholic loyalty to the U.S.
Constitution, I thought I'd combine them.
<!--more-->
</p><p>  <a HREF="http:
//www.globalengage.org/edu/cfia/tbr_archive/winter04-
pkuzmic.pdf">This   article</a> says <small> <blockquote> <span STYLE=
"font-
family: times"> <p>Prior


then on the index page the post will end at "them" and   "Read the
rest of this entry »"  will appear. The   reader will have to click on
that to get to the rest of the post.

 DO NOT HAVE BLANK LINES BEFORE OR AFTER <!--more-->

DO NOT PUT <!--more--> IN THE MIDDLE OF A BLOCKQUOTE-- it will mess up
the index page.


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STYLE FILES


  http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/style.css


   http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/index.php.txt

   http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/post.php.txt

   http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/footer.php.txt

 http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/sidebar.php.txt

 http://www.rasmusen.org/x/images/archive.php.txt


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Fixing the  Number of Posts Shown  in Wordpress

Wordpress has an annoying design flaw: the same number of posts must
be displayed on the main weblog page and on every archive page.<!--
more--> Thus, if you want just 20 posts to show on your main page,
only 20 posts will show up in your monthly archive.  You can change
the number "20" in OPTIONS/READING, but it has to be uniform.

I found a fix <a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/21819#post-
124216"> here. </a> At the very start of the Archives Template,
insert

< ?php $posts = query_posts($query_string . '&nopaging=1'); ?>

That will turn off the 20 post limit for archives.


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 TO CREATE A COLORED TEXT BOX:

 In style.css, put:

#banner { background-color:blue;   width: 700px; padding-right: 20px;
padding- left:20px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; margin:
30px 13em 0 3em; }

That makes a box of color FFFCC with  colored blank padding all around
the text and with white blank space all around the textbox.

Then on the page itself, e.g. index.php, insert (if you want white
writing):

<div id="banner"><font color=white>  MY TEXT HERE </font> </div>

You can use all kinds of tags inside the division, e.g.

<div id="banner"> <I><B>MY TEXT HERE</B> </I></div>



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HAVING JUST TITLES ON ARCHIVE LISTING PAGES, NOT EXCERPTS

From this site:

http://developedtraffic.com/resources/wordpress-notes.php

 I found out how to make the archives list titles instead of complete
entries, an obvious improvement to Wordpress.  It involves REPLACING
almost the entire page with this:


<ul> <?php if ($posts) : foreach ($posts as $post) : start_wp(); ?>
<li id="catpost-<?php the_ID(); ?>"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"
rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>"> <?php
the_title();
?></a> (<?php the_date(''); ?>)<p />
      </li>
<?php endforeach; else: ?> </ul>

<p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>

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PHP FILES

 I can't put "php" in any filename, or my browswer will try to execute
it as a Php file. Thus, I need to rename my template index.txt instead
of index.php.txt.



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