jacogriesel

Yeah…

This might be the single problem I have with the Support forums. I know lots of people don’t even mind reading the codex – they just toss a question into the forum and hope for a quick fix.

Whenever I read a question on the forum, I try to give a proper answer. Referring someone (who I good-heartedly assume already consulted the codex) back to the codex, is counter-productive. What’s the use of the forum then?

Aren’t we suppose to share knowledge here? If somebody does the effort to post code and explain a problem being encountered, the least one can do is just ignore it. If you have to react, then react in the spirit of a support forum.

apljdi – this remark is not intended as a personal attack. I’m a total n00b regarding coding themes in WordPress, and I’ve taken it upon myself to consult all documentation available and exhaust webwide searches before showing my lack of knowledge by asking a question on a forum. But sometimes the answer is just not that obvious. And, as I’ve been learning, I’ve been sharing my knowledge with other newcomers. It’s just that I’ve noticed members of this forum really like to give people a snotty, off-hand answer before, and if, they really try to help.

Come on, people! WordPress is open-source. Let’s share our knowledge in that spirit. By acting as a know-it-all dismissive wise-ass you only hurt the spirit of open-source. Think about that before giving someboy with a legit question an answer like “read the codex” or “go google it”. That’s not what this support forum was meant to be.

And if this ranting pisses some people off, so be it. Maybe it’s time then to do a little soul-searching.

Back on the topic: after consulting the codex, after lots of googling, and after hours of tinkering with the code as supplied at the top, I still haven’t found an answer to my question. If somebody would be kind enough to examine my code and make concrete suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

The display of the date is a styling matter. Mostly. As far as the code goes, I suggest fiddling with:

<?php echo date('l d F Y '); ?>

For the blog RSS:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" title="Title goes here"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/meta/blogrss.png" /></a>

For the comments RSS:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>" title="Title goes here"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/meta/commentrss.png" /></a>

Hope that helps!

@ nickycdk

I would rather use pages in the top three blocks and extract excerpts from them into those blocks. In the post-it block I’ll extract an excerpt from the latest post in the blog.

I created a <div id=”twitterstatus”> in the sidebar.php and pasted it there. I don’t like widgets!

This means that you’ll have to edit your theme’s sidebar.php (or whichever page you want to display it on – I’ve included a special “Tweets” page on my site, and inserted the code inside the loop).

I believe there is a way to get this into your widgets, but I haven’t tried that.

Best of luck!

Ignore EVERYTHING I wrote above! Here’s a VERY nice script, and it’s straight from Twitter. Just paste the code wherever you want to display your tweets, and make the styling changes you want. Alternatively, you can go to https://twitter.com/goodies/widgets to set up your own widget.

<script src="https://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script>
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: 'profile',
rpp: 4,
interval: 6000,
width: 240,
height: 70,
theme: {
shell: {
background: '#f59f0a',
color: '#000000'
},
tweets: {
background: '#214a68',
color: '#ffffff',
links: '#ecfa25'
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: true,
loop: false,
live: true,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: true,
behavior: 'all'
}
}).render().setUser('YOUTTWITTERUSERNAME').start();
</script>

It works perfect on my site!

I think it can be done. From what I see, the first block (top left) is static, much like a header would be, or it could be an excerpt form a page (though it doesn’t currently link anywhere…) The second and third (top middle and right) are excerpts from pages. The bottom right block {Post-it) can be used to display excerpt(s) from content in the actual blog.

I didn’t explore the website any further than the frontpage, but I believe you can achieve the desired effect and results with WP.

Best of luck!

It’s clear WordPress isn’t the problem – your theme is! Yes, you can replace the “gray avatar that automatically shosw up all over”.

The “horizontal links that lead to static pages” are controlled and formatted by your theme – they’ve got nothing to do with WordPress’s capabilities.

If you’re planning on making “the links at the top” point to your posts and comments you will run out of space very quickly. What I believe you mean is that you want your categories to display in “the links at the top”. Once again – that is controlled by your theme.

I suggest you start by looking at other WordPress websites, see what template’s closest to your needs, and then proceed from there. I’m building my first template now, and I’m amazed by the power and versatility of WordPress. Just dig deeper – you’ll be amazed! And don’t settle for just any old template…

As far as my knowledge goes, you can do all this with the right plugins and hard-coding. Start by searching through the plugins available, and then you’ll get a better picture of what you’ll have to develop yourself (or ask somebody else to!).

Best of luck!

Thanks a lot! I’ll look into it and report back!

OK, here’s a home-made hack I’ve devised. Copy the following into your functions.php:

function LastTwitter() {

$options = get_option('widget_Twidget');
$account = $options['account'];  // Your Twitter account name
$title = $options['title'];  // Title in sidebar for widget
$show = $options['show'];  // # of Updates to show

echo '<div id="twitter_div">'
.$before_title.$title.$after_title;
echo '<ul id="twitter_update_list"></ul></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://twitter.com/javascripts/blogger.js"></script>';
echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="https://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/'.$account.'.json?callback=twitterCallback2&count='.$show.'"></script>';
}

function Twidget_control() {
$options = array('account'=>'YourTwitterAccountName', 'title'=>'', 'show'=>'1');
}

In the second last line, enter your Twitter account name, as well as the number of tweets to display.

In my sidebar, I did the following:

<div id="twitterstatus">
<div id="twitterlogo">
<a href="YourTwitterRSSFeedURI"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/social/twitterbanner.png" alt="Get our Twitter feed" border="0" title="Get our Twitter feed" /></a>
</div>
<h2>Latest Tweets</h2>
<?php LastTwitter(); ?>
</div><!--END: twitterstatus-->

For some reason, the title in the function doesn’t show up in the sidebar, by I side-stepped that by adding my own title in the sidebar (the <h2>…</h2> part)

I used/hacked Sean Spalding’s Twitter Widget ( https://seanys.com/2007/10/12/twitter-wordpress-widget/ ) – hope nobody minds!

Let me know if it’s working for you!

RESOLVED!

Thanks pboosten! I’ve read and I’ve learned – thanks a million!

This is the link I’m trying to create to point to an archive page with all the author’s posts:

<p>Read all <strong><?php the_author(); ?>'s</strong> entries <a href="<?php the_author_posts(); ?>"><strong>here...</strong></a></p>

This is the link to the author’s email address:

<a href="<?php the_author_email(); ?>"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/authoricons/email.png" alt="Send <?php the_author(); ?> an email" border="0" title="Send <?php the_author(); ?> an email" /></a>

All this is inside the loop on the single page, and it all links back to the current post being displayed. What am I doing wrong?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Aaaahhh… Figured out why the link to WP Recipes doesn’t work. It’s that damn . after com – try this:

https://www.wprecipes.com

Better yet, try this link:

https://www.wprecipes.com/how-to-display-your-latest-twitter-entry-on-your-wp-blog

Best of luck!

That’s strange – just went there and everything’s working…

Try this link…

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/04/15-useful-twitter-plugins-and-hacks-for-wordpress/

May I ask why you don’t want to use a plugin? I’ve just tried to insert a Twitter hack in my sidebar, and the latest tweet showed up, but it refused to update. Instead I used the Twitter for WordPress plugin, and that worked like a charm.

Do let me know if you find a good working hack, as I also try to use as little as possible plugins.

Best of luck!

I recall seeing a couple of hacks similar to what you’re looking for at https://www.wprecipes.com. Maybe you should check them out.