Hi, today I’m going to give you a small PHP snippet that saves a lot of time when you work over your WordPress website. Here is what I’m talking about :

One of the well known SEO technic is linking your posts between them with in content text links. This helps you to better position your posts for certain keywords on Google. Also, it helps to keep your visitors on the site and drive some more traffic towards the older posts. Here is a good blog post about this on DIYthemes blog.

While WordPress gives you the easiest way ever to create links to your posts and pages within the text editor, when you link to your own content and your Ping option is enabled – you get notification via email to approve the trackback for the almost each link you do towards your website. This is what I call annoying…

How to fix it?

There is a really easy solution for you if you would like to disable self pinging but still notify external websites that you have linked to them. Here is the PHP code to paste into your functions.php file :

(those who use Thesis Framework, paste the code into your custom_functions.php file, those who don’t – why not visiting Thesis Framework site and see what it can offer you? )

/* REMOVE SELF PINGING */
function remove_self_pinging(&$links,&$pung) {
	$self = get_option('siteurl');
	foreach ($links as $link => $data) {
		if (false != strstr($link,$self))
			unset($links[$link]);
	}
}
add_action('pre_ping','remove_self_pinging',0,2);
/* END REMOVE SELF PINGING */

How it works?

Once the code is placed into your theme, it is hooked to the pre_ping hook and receives an array of links before WordPress send any pings. So the code checks if the array contains the links pointing to the site domain and filters them out returning (by reference) only the external links. Simple and very useful.

stay tuned,
serge

Starter – is a balanced combination of powerful software and easy to use administration panel. It helps you to save tons of time when setting up your business website.

Starter – is a child theme for Thesis Framework. It is based on more than 3 years of experience of building websites using WordPress and Thesis. It has more than 2000 lines of professional code that finally makes the famous statement Do More, Code Less become true… even if you are a beginner.

Hi, today I’m giving you the php code to paste into your custom_functions.php file that will exclude posts from children categories on WordPress parent category page.

As you might have noticed, when a category page is displayed in WordPress, it contains all posts from the current category. If the current category has children categories – the posts from those categories are also displayed. It is just fine, and suites perfectly almost all websites build on WordPress…

Why would you change this?

Well, while normally the “bigger” (parent) categories are usually used to contain “smaller” (children) categories to organize your website content, they do not contain posts assigned directly to them. The posts here are stored in children categories. What gives your content this structure :

• Category Parent
  • First child
    • Post 1, Post 2 etc…
  • Second Child
    • Post x, Post y etc…
  • Third Child
    • First Grand Child
      • Post a, Post b etc…
    • Second Grand Child
      • Post d, Post e etc…

This logic works when your posts are assigned only to the “smallest” category… Now imagine another way you need to organize your content :

• Parent Category
  • Post 1, Post 2 etc..
  • First Child Category
    • Post a, Post b etc…
    • First Grand Child Category
      • Post x, Post y etc…

As you see in this example, the Post 1, Post 2 and the First Child Category stay on the same level… In this case, displaying all posts from all descendant categories on parent category page would be confusing for the reader (I wouldn’t like to find general information posts mixed to highly specific detailed posts on one page).

For this particular content structure, I would suggest limiting the posts on any category page (parent or child) only to the posts that are directly assigned to this category and display the list of children categories for further filtering (somewhere near the top of the page). If you do it this way, your reader will not be confused by the navigation in your archives and your category pages will be more optimized for the search engines (as they contain only posts that belong directly to the subject).

Here is a down-to-earth example where this content scructure is often used (or misused, I’ll show at the end of this post why) :

Huge recipes blogs… While your parent categories may represent cuisines from different countries (and have posts about those countries), your child categories contain recipes (say meal and drinks)… Now when you visit such a site on a category page (parent) like France – you have a total mix of posts about France as a country, beverage drinks recipes mixed to foie gras recepies etc… Instead of having the posts about France and a list of links to get your drinks and meal recipes…

The php code

/* disable posts from child categories in main query */
add_filter('pre_get_posts','custom_csp_pre_get_posts',20,1);
function custom_csp_pre_get_posts($query) {
    if(function_exists('is_main_query')) {
        if($query->is_category && !$query->is_admin && !$query->is_preview && $query->is_main_query() && false == $query->query_vars['suppress_filters']) {
            $cat = get_term_by( 'slug', $query->query_vars['category_name'], 'category');
            $query->set('category__in',array($cat->term_id));
        }
    }
    return $query ;
}

Copy-paste this php code into your custom_functions.php file (you do not have Thesis ? paste it into the functions.php file of your theme). This function will limit the main query for posts on category pages to display only the posts that belong to the current category and exclude posts from children categories. Simple as that.

NOTE : this code contains is_main_query() function introduced in WordPress 3.3 . The code will refuse to work on versions below 3.3 unless you remove this conditional.

Why recipes do not fit into regular wordpress posts

Now the details about recipes… I worked as a bartender for 10 years and know that each food/drink recepie has at least 3 classification criterias :

• Recipe Type
  meal, snack, drink etc…
• Ingridients
  beef, salt, wine etc…
• Ustensils
  oven, frying pans, mixing glasses etc…

if you want to have a better classification you need criterias like Origins, Difficulty etc…

The sad news is that WordPress blog posts have only two criterias available : categories and tags. I have my heart bleeding when I see average people who are excellent in the kitchen trying to fit their recipes into two dimensional classification… Guys, custom post types exist, and they need to be used here!!! This will save your time and creativity !!! Instead of struggling against wordpress structure, hire people like me to create a perfect tool for you, so that you may continue your websites without headache!

What the theme developpers have not told you – google has a special microformat for recipes. Using this microformat, you have better chances to be found on google if someone is searching for the recipe (and not the blog entry)…

cheers,
serge

Hi, today I’d like to show you how you can easily add a credit to your featured images under Thesis WordPress theme. Just watch this video tutorial.

and here is the link to download the WordPress Featured Image for Thesis plugin.

Feel free to ask for more tutorials about this plugin or Thesis theme. I’ll publish them on my blog.

cheers,
serge

Yesterday, I had a request from a client to guide him on installation of my Advanced Child Theme for Thesis (v1.0.1 – beasty free edition). Here we are, this video explains step by step the process of download and installation of the child theme.

I know the video is quite “raw” , but you have all the necessary info now on how to install the child theme into your WordPress site. By the way, this request gave me the idea of a new category on my blog – video answers (no link for the moment). Where I would post my YouTube videos about the products and the codes I do for the clients.

By the same occasion, this will be a live experiment on the Inbound marketing strategy used by Marcus Sheridan from The Sales Lion.

If you would like to ask a question about Thesis or WordPress or any of my premium plugins, feel free to contact me about that.

cheers,
serge

Hi, today I’m giving you the php code to display the list of child categories in Thesis Archive Intro.

Why this snippet? Well, imagine you have a rather complex website with a lot of categories and you would like to make the navigation easier for your visitors… While there is a lot of plugins and php snippets to create a breadcrumps that help you visitors to find their way towards the home page, I have not often seen the php used to help your visitors find their way towards the deepest parts of your content.

Now you have an example of such a code. Simply copy-paste this php snippet to your custom_functions.php file of your Thesis and have fun!

/* display a list of sub categories */
add_filter('thesis_archive_intro','custom_list_category_children',10,1);
function custom_list_category_children($html) {
	if(is_category()) {
		global $wpdb, $wp_query;
		$children = $wpdb->get_results( "SELECT term_id FROM {$wpdb->term_taxonomy} WHERE parent = {$wp_query->queried_object->term_id}" );
		if(count($children) != 0) {
			$args = array(
				'taxonomy' => 'category', 
				'title_li' => '', 
				'use_desc_for_title' => 1, 
				'echo' => 0,
				'child_of' => $wp_query->queried_object->term_id 
			);
			$list = wp_list_categories($args);
			$output = '<div id="category_children_list" class="format_text"><h4>Sub categories</h4><ul class="sub_categories">'. $list .'</ul><div class="clear"></div></div>';
			$html = substr_replace($html, $output, -7, 0);
		}
	}
	return $html;
}

Sure, you may adjust the output of the snippet and the CSS applied to it, but this is just a simple trame how to do it.

Feel free to ask questions in comments.

Thesis has a great feature – Multimedia Box – special box displayed above the sidebar in the right top corner of your site. The hot spot, one of the best places of your site where you may put your subscribe forms, ads or whatever. There are a lot of tutorials about what you can do with this multimedia box. Today I would like to add my part to those tutorials.

Some background first. By default, thesis allows you to display the following items in the multimedia box :

• Rotating Images
• Video
• Custom HTML code

Also, you may overwrite the content of the box on by-post basis using the Multimedia Box settings on edit post screen in the admin. If you’re good in PHP coding you may add your own functions as well to the multimedia box via your custom_functions.php file.

All sounds perfect, exept for one thing…

Thesis Multimedia Box does not allow you to use wordpress shortcodes in it…

This sucks, as shortcodes are handy to use and allow you to add more dynamic stuff to your site without messing too much with PHP code. Today, I’m publishing the code I’ve done for a client of mine to fix this issue.

PHP code to enable shortcodes in Multimedia Box

Simply copy-paste this code into your custom_functions.php file and start using shortcodes in Thesis Multimedia Box!

/* SHORTCODE SUPPORT FOR MULTIMEDIA BOX */
function custom_catch_mm_box() {
	ob_start('do_shortcode');
}
function custom_flush_mm_box() {
	ob_end_flush();
}
function custom_add_mm_box_shortcode_support() {
	if(thesis_show_multimedia_box()) {
		add_action('thesis_hook_before_sidebars','custom_catch_mm_box',99,0);
		add_action('thesis_hook_after_multimedia_box','custom_flush_mm_box',0,0);
	}
}
add_action('wp_head','custom_add_mm_box_shortcode_support',90,0);
/* END SHORTCODE SUPPORT FOR MULTIMEDIA BOX */

The PHP code explained

Catch the HTML output and filter it for shortcodes

function custom_catch_mm_box() {
	ob_start('do_shortcode');
}

This function blocks the output of the HTML to the visitor’s browser and passes it through the shortcode filter do_shortcode to see if the HTML contains shortcodes. And if yes, the shortcodes will be executed.

Display the modified HTML

function custom_flush_mm_box() {
	ob_end_flush();
}

This function displays the buffered HTML that was modified and now contains shortcode output.

Smart Hooker

function custom_add_mm_box_shortcode_support() {
	if(thesis_show_multimedia_box()) {
		add_action('thesis_hook_before_sidebars','custom_catch_mm_box',99,0);
		add_action('thesis_hook_after_multimedia_box','custom_flush_mm_box',0,0);
	}
}
add_action('wp_head','custom_add_mm_box_shortcode_support',90,0);

This function is added to the head section of wordpress and checks if the multimedia box will be displayed on this page (thesis_show_multimedia_box() returns true if the box is enabled) – if so, it adds our two previous functions to the needed hooks :

• thesis_hook_before_sidebars – to start buffering the multimedia box content and filtering it via do_shortcode
• thesis_hook_after_multimedia_box – to display the modified content of the multimedia box.

Related links

if you would like to learn more about shortcodes in wordpress – you may start by visiting Shortcodes API page on codex.

Hope this helps,
cheers,
serge

PS UPDATE

just to answer some of the comments below you have these screenshots as well :

A couple of days ago I had a request from a client (actually it was a request from a developper working for his client) about the easiest way to customize the 404 page in Thesis Framework.

Well, quite easy, you may say, if you know these two hooks available in this WordPress Theme :

1. thesis_hook_404_title
2. thesis_hook_404_content

As you guys, might have noticed – common easy ways to fix something are often reveal a headache when managed by the user (I mean the final client who knows not that much about hooks and php). I just do not imagine that guy editing the php code in order to change a couple of words in his 404 message… a simple user interface would be great to have for this situation.

Before, I give you the final PHP code, I’d like to talk about one thing that might be useful for all of us (clients and developpers) – administration of the business website. Here is the actual situation as I see it (you are welcomed to be not agree – let’s discuss in comments) :

When the administration of a website is concerned – all the developpers can be more or less split in two categories :

• Flexible code developpers
  the guys who code the function and the user friendly interface to give their clients the control over the new function
• The others…
  the guys who code the function…

Both categories code the functionality that work and make their clients happy. But the first one have their clients even happier, because their clients do not need to do three extra things :

1. call a developper each time when they need to modify something in the function output
2. waste money for extra tweaks that could be actually done by themselves
3. waste time on communication with their site developper for such a small things

As a business website owner – you certainly prefer the flexible code developpers. As a developper, you might be teased to be “the others…” as it means – another way to get the reccuring sales, right?

Wrong!

Why being the flexible code developper means being richer

• Clients are far happier when they see that they are saving money (show them why)
• Your services start to have higher appreciation (and cost more at the beginning while stay cheap at a long run) – this brings more clients
• Your final code is likey to be even more portable and can be used on other projects (this saves your time)
• You’re not bothered for “silly” tweaks (this saves your mood and creativity)
• Come on guys, there are a lot of other stuff you may sell to your clients on recurring payment basis (hosting, update help, teaching on membership site and so on – be creative in other areas than coding, this will make your life richer)

If you’re a developper, what do you think about this?

If you’re a client, what do you prefer : flexible code that costs more and has less headache or the locked to rigid by your wallet?

Now let’s get back to our sheeps (code). First, I put the whole code block to be used on your thesis sites (it does not work on other wordpress themes). Simply copy-paste the following code into your custom_functions.php file and enjoy the new settings in the admin (see admin -> settings -> reading)

Easy code to customize your 404 page under Thesis

/* 404 page */
function custom_add_fourofour_settings() {
	register_setting( 'reading', 'fourofour_settings' );
	$description = '<p class="description">'. __('You may adjust the 404 page content here in this section.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
	add_settings_section( 'fourofour_settings-section', __('404 Page Settings','custom_lang'), create_function('',"echo '". $description ."';"), 'reading' );
	add_settings_field( 'fourofour_settings-title', __('404 Title','custom_lang'), 'fourofour_settings_title_field', 'reading', 'fourofour_settings-section' );
	add_settings_field( 'fourofour_settings-content', __('404 Content','custom_lang'), 'fourofour_settings_content_field', 'reading', 'fourofour_settings-section' );
}
function fourofour_settings_title_field($args = null) {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array();
	$title = (!empty($options['title'])) ? $options['title'] : '';
	echo '<p><input type="text" id="fourofour_settings_title" name="fourofour_settings[title]" value="'. $title .'" class="large-text code" /></p>';
	echo '<p class="description">'. __('Enter here the title to use on 404 page.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
}
function fourofour_settings_content_field($args = null) {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array();
	$content = (!empty($options['content'])) ? $options['content'] : '';
	echo '<textarea id="fourofour_settings_title" name="fourofour_settings[content]" class="large-text code" rows="7" >'. stripslashes_deep($content) .'</textarea>';
	echo '<p class="description">'. __('Enter here the content to use on 404 page.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
}
function custom_echo_fourofour_title() {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array('title' => null);
	$title = (!empty($options['title'])) ? '<h1>'. $options['title'] .'</h1>' : false ;
	if(!$title) {
		thesis_404_title();
	}
	else {
		echo $title ;
	}
}
function custom_echo_fourofour_content() {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array('content' => null);
	$content = (!empty($options['content'])) ? wpautop($options['content'],1) : false ;
	if(!$content) {
		thesis_404_content();
	}
	else {
		echo $content ;
	}
}
add_action('admin_init','custom_add_fourofour_settings', 50, 0);
remove_action('thesis_hook_404_title','thesis_404_title',10);
remove_action('thesis_hook_404_content','thesis_404_content',10);
add_action('thesis_hook_404_title','custom_echo_fourofour_title',10,0);
add_action('thesis_hook_404_content','custom_echo_fourofour_content',10,0);
/* END 404 page */

How it looks

Here are the screenshots of the code working on my testing site :

404 page example on front side

404 page message example on front side

404 settings pannel in wordpress admin

404 page settings in thesis framework

How it works

If you’re interested in understanding how this php code works – here is the code split in parts and explained.

Register our user interface

function custom_add_fourofour_settings() {
	register_setting( 'reading', 'fourofour_settings' );
	$description = '<p class="description">'. __('You may adjust the 404 page content here in this section.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
	add_settings_section( 'fourofour_settings-section', __('404 Page Settings','custom_lang'), create_function('',"echo '". $description ."';"), 'reading' );
	add_settings_field( 'fourofour_settings-title', __('404 Title','custom_lang'), 'fourofour_settings_title_field', 'reading', 'fourofour_settings-section' );
	add_settings_field( 'fourofour_settings-content', __('404 Content','custom_lang'), 'fourofour_settings_content_field', 'reading', 'fourofour_settings-section' );
}

This function registers our user inteface in the wordpress admin :

registers settings to be saved in the database (place where the final user has his customisations stored to be used on the front side). 'reading' is the option group where we need this stored.

$description – the text under setting section title

add_setting_section – creates additional setting section on the reading page in the admin

add_setting_field – adds the inputs to the newly created section

more info here Settings API WordPress.

Display setting fields (text inputs)

function fourofour_settings_title_field($args = null) {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array();
	$title = (!empty($options['title'])) ? $options['title'] : '';
	echo '<p><input type="text" id="fourofour_settings_title" name="fourofour_settings[title]" value="'. $title .'" class="large-text code" /></p>';
	echo '<p class="description">'. __('Enter here the title to use on 404 page.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
}
function fourofour_settings_content_field($args = null) {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array();
	$content = (!empty($options['content'])) ? $options['content'] : '';
	echo '<textarea id="fourofour_settings_title" name="fourofour_settings[content]" class="large-text code" rows="7" >'. stripslashes_deep($content) .'</textarea>';
	echo '<p class="description">'. __('Enter here the content to use on 404 page.','custom_lang') .'</p>';
}

These two functions serve to display our setting fields and help the user to store the 404 page title and content into wordpress database.

$options – the data already stored in the database (if any, if no – just an empty array)

Display the 404 title and 404 content on the front side

function custom_echo_fourofour_title() {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array('title' => null);
	$title = (!empty($options['title'])) ? '<h1>'. $options['title'] .'</h1>' : false ;
	if(!$title) {
		thesis_404_title();
	}
	else {
		echo $title ;
	}
}
function custom_echo_fourofour_content() {
	$options = (get_option('fourofour_settings') != '') ? get_option('fourofour_settings') : array('content' => null);
	$content = (!empty($options['content'])) ? wpautop($options['content'],1) : false ;
	if(!$content) {
		thesis_404_content();
	}
	else {
		echo $content ;
	}
}

These two functions fire on the front side the title and the content of the 404 page (if any added via our interface, if the option is empty – they display the default thesis 404 title and content)

Hook the things into their right places (and remove the default thesis actions from there)

add_action('admin_init','custom_add_fourofour_settings', 50, 0);
remove_action('thesis_hook_404_title','thesis_404_title',10);
remove_action('thesis_hook_404_content','thesis_404_content',10);
add_action('thesis_hook_404_title','custom_echo_fourofour_title',10,0);
add_action('thesis_hook_404_content','custom_echo_fourofour_content',10,0);

add_action – adds a function to a hook
remove_action – removes the function from the hook (note it works much better when you know the function position in the hook – the third parameter to remove_action('hook_name','function_name',$position) function)

more info here add_action() and remove_action() .

Fell free to ask for more details in the comments.

cheers,
serge

What Next ?

If you liked this article – you may spread the word by clicking the share buttons in the footer – this will help me to have more traffic, pay my bills and create other tutorials (thank you!)

If you are interested in more thesis tutorials like this – you may shoot me an e-mail about what you have in mind

If you have some code to share and drive the traffic to your site – you may join the team and publish a guest post on this site.

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Why I’ve chosen E-junkie for me

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• Stable service and helpful support (I made my own research about company performance and experienced the helpfulness of their team when developped a plugin to use e-junkie with wordpress sites)
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PS if you have any particular questions about this shopping cart solution, you may ask them in comment section.

This 2012 is rather busy for me. At least I’m entering it with my laptop overloaded…

A week ago or so, I was asked by a client (happy new year, David!) to code a function to display featured posts in a magazine style in the thesis feature box. Rather simple job, at a first glance. But as the budget was correct (100 USD), I wanted to code something really easy to use for a beginner and a powerful tool for a developper (so that it is easy to adapt it to many other cases). I often see similar requests on DIYthemes forums, so many potential cases where to use such a code.

Here is how it should look out of the box :

Displaying featured posts in thesis_feature_box hook

The Idea of featured posts plugin

Main idea is to show a set of most important content of your site on the front page. So that the new visitor clearly see where to go by clicking an image (people adore clicky images).

How to accomplish this in thesis theme

Thesis has a box that you can use to add anything you want – Feature box. It is easy to configure it to be displayed on your front page, blog home page or all over your site via the Design settings. The difficulty for a beginner is that to add something to this box you need to use php function added to a hook thesis_hook_feature_box… While adding a function there can be easy even for a beginner, coding such a function could be quite a challenge.

This is what this plugin does.

How featured posts plugin works

The plugin has two parts :

1. setting page – where you can configure what content and how it is displayed
2. loop – the function itself that displays the featured posts

Why a plugin and not a custom function?

Well, there are plugins and plugins. While some of them are badly coded and eat too much ressources for poor result, the others give you a functionnality you need and a human interface to control what the plugin does and how it does it… without too much jams. But all plugins are actually custom functions. So a badly coded php function stays bad thing for your site even if it is in your theme file and not in the plugin directory.

I coded it as a plugin for two reasons :

1. code portability – install it from zip file, activate and you’re good to go
2. automated distribution – it is not me personnaly who installs it on your site when it is 4:00 am (last client of mine has 11 hours time gap with me)

Features of the plugin (a teaser of)

• Real human interface to control the plugin functionnality. Yes you may configure pretty much everything you need in the featured post display via click-click way.
• Better image output.
• SEO for image links and titles (there is no Permalink to or thumbnail for stuff, just post or image titles).
• Generates thumbnails either WordPress way or Thesis way (note in thesis way the posts are searched for images if you screwed up the right thesis post image settings).
• Character level of control over the excerpt lenghts (the length for first post is different from the others).
• Brandable read more links and their CSS classes.
• Possible shortcode integration into a page or post.
• etc…

So if you interested in the similar functionnality to display your featured posts in thesis (or other wordpress theme), stay tuned by filling into the form below.

Thesis is a great framework to use on your WordPress site. It gives you control over SEO, great design tools for styling your site in a simple way and is flexible as probably no other wordpress theme. But to push it to its limits – you will need to learn and use php and css codes. Sometimes it may be quite embarrasing for beginners…

That’s why we created this quick start child theme – Thesis Advanced Child theme.

Thesis Advanced is an extension to your thesis that enables more functionnalities for your professional website without any php coding from your part. Simply upload it via admin interface and activate. Your site will still continue to rock on thesis but you will get more out of it. Here is the summary of features that Thesis Advanced gives you out of the box :

• 3 Navigation menus (top, primary, footer)
• Logo manager (site logo, login page logo)
• Landing pages (creating landing pages was never that easy)
• Author promotion tools (team page, better author archives, rel=”author”, author photo and more)
• Affiliate link replacer (simply replace DIYthemes link with your affiliate link)
• Widgetized areas (Header Widgets, Multimedia box, Feature box, Fat footer, Landing page widgets, after content widgets and more)
• Social share buttons (yes you have them out of the box)

Total work of more than 100 hours and more than 1500 lines of professional code you would pay quite a sum… for free…

Download Thesis Advanced Child Theme

Notice : this version is not supported in Thesis 1.8.4 (at the time of this note – latest Thesis version)

If you are looking for Premium child theme – Starter 101 (compatible latest Thesis) click the image below or check our dedicated store.

…

You may read more about this child theme further on this page or download the theme directly here by clicking this button.

Compatibility

The child theme is compatible with WordPress 3.3 and later. Note it will run only if you have Thesis Framework 1.8.2 installed on your site.

NOTE : DO NOT TRY TO INSTALL THIS CHILD THEME UNDER THESIS 1.8.3 nor UNDER THESIS 1.8.4 … the update is here : Starter 101 premium child theme for Thesis

How to install

You may install this child theme directly from your admin pannel, no ftp upload needed. See also How to Install Advanced Child Theme for Thesis (video tutorial)

• Add Thesis Advaced Child theme to your cart (it’s free)
• Once you have finished the shopping – hit view cart button
• Enter your client’s details (I need your adress and zip code for tax calculation – in europeen countries VAT is added)
• Complete checkout
• You will be redirected to the thank you page with download link (you will also get a copy of the link into your mailbox)
• Download the theme zip file
• Go to your admin – themes
• Click install themes link
• Hit upload link and point to the theme zip file that you have just downloaded
• Upload theme file
• Activate the child theme
• Go to design setting under Thesis and hit “big ass save button”
• You’re done – now you may head to the Themes section – advanced settings to configure the child theme features

Features

Here is the list of features your thesis theme gets when you install and activate this free child theme :

3 Navigation Menus

Better navigation for your site? No problem! Benefit from WordPress menus (drag-and-drop) interface. Create your menus and select where you would like to display them :

• Top (top right corner)
• Primary (under header)
• Footer (centered in the footer after the widgets)

Landing Pages

A business website without a landing page? This sounds as a car without weels… The Advanced Child theme for thesis gives you an easy to use interface to transform any page / post on your site into a landing page. Simply check boxes to disable header or footer (or both) and select a no_sidebars.php template to display only what matters – your conversion page content (works on any properly registered post type as well as on you blog posts). This also allows you to add landing_page css class to body for better styling and add an extra widgetized area to place your opt-in form after the content.

Logo Manager

Frustrated with adding the logo to your site via CSS? This feature is easy to use as never : simply upload your logo to your media library, copy the URL of the image and add it to the settings of the theme. The theme will generate the css rules itself. More than that – the wordpress login page can be easily branded to match your site logo (and links) via the same interface. Thus you skip all the headache with login / register plugins – simply use customized version of default wordpress login form. A must for beginners.

Author Promotion

By default, Thesis does not display enough info about the blog authors. The Advanced child theme helps you out with that by socializing your author profile and displaying author’s photo, social sites links and bio on author archive pages. Also, it supports new Google author microformatting and tweet via data. This can be simply set in author profile page.

Your site has multiple authors? Not a problem, simply create a page where you talk about your team, select that page as your Team page in theme settings – you’re done. The child theme will list all your team members with their photos and links to their archive pages automagically.

Note : author links should be enabled in bylines via Thesis Design options.

Share Buttons

Adding social share buttons (google plus, stumble upon, linkedin, twitter, facebook) to your thesis theme without a plugin was never that easy : simply select the position of the share buttons and hit update settings button. If you would like to display a message before the share buttons – simply add text to the special text area in the theme settings interface.

Extra Widgetized Areas

• Header – widget in the right side of header area
• Multimedia Box – now you may simply add widgets to your multimedia box, all you need is to set it to display custom code via design settings in thesis
• Feature Box – you may add slider widgets, opt-in boxes or any HTML codes in text widget to your feature box, simply activate it on desired position via thesis design settings and drop widgets into Feature Box sidebar
• Footer – need a fat footer on your site with columns of widgets? Simply place them into your Footer sidebar, the theme will generate the needed CSS code to display them in columns
• Footer Bottom – need your fat footer become even more widgetized? Drop more widgets into Footer Bottom sidebar to display another set of columns with widgets. The simpliest way to add a second row of widgets
• Site Bottom – need to display some text (copyright message or links) at the very bottom of your site after the DIYthemes link? Set it as text widget in the Site Bottom sidebar

Even More Widgets

Now the funny part of widgetized areas – after content widgets. The solution to add dynamic widgets or opt-in forms to be displayed on your site within the content area. Simply add the widget to the corresponding sidebar, the theme will display it without any further headache.

• Front Page Widgets – widgets will be displayed as horisontal columns on your static front page (same as we have set on thesistut.com)
• After Blog Post Widgets – widgets will be displayed full width after the main content of your blog posts, the easiest way to add a subscription form for engaged readers and construct your mailing list or simply display your featured / related blog posts
• After Static Page Widgets – same functionnality for your static pages (ie promote your content on static pages of your website)
• Landing Page Widgets – this sidebar is triggered via checkbox on edit screen, you may add opt-in form via text widget or a list of featured products via Custom Killer Entries widget

DIYthemes Affiliate Link Replacer

By default, the Thesis Theme displays a credit link to DIYthemes. If you do not have developper option you need to keep that link in the footer. Well, none prohibits you to replace that link with your own affiliate URL and get some cash from reselling Thesis. This child theme helps you out with that : simply add your affiliate URL to the theme settings and the DIYthemes URL will be automatically replaced.

In the free version the link to thesistut.com is also displayed (this is the only way of payment we ask for using this child theme on any of your or your client’s sites). But still you may earn commision on our other products. Sign up as affiliate and add your own affiliate URL to the theme options. This link will replace the default thesistut.com link.

Download

Hi, I was recently asked by a client (a doctor) why his website needs a blog… Well, we’ve spent a couple of hours of total talk and mail communication on this subject to finally convince him to start a business blog (really helpful reasoning was : money spent on marketing of the website vs time invested into blog posts writing).

Now imagine, how much I laughed when I saw this video on Jim’s website. The whole our debate in less than 5 minutes… See the video below.

Hi,

I’ve run the lottery and here are the winning user names!!! To my great surprise 5 out of 20 are the people I know personnaly. Congratulations!

here is the list :

1. Philippe Lance
2. esznola
3. Peter Markovic
4. DanitaHeadland41
5. Nancy
6. AgustinThew92
7. Noel Saunders
8. SommervilleHoesly487
9. JudiePummel748
10. OctaviaLangefels
11. GeraldHabsberger
12. Borisoscbm
13. sbkohic
14. Skyler Christensen
15. PollmanMaker171
16. Mike W.
17. WP-THESIS
18. William_Taft
19. Lee_Powers
20. Avinash D’Souza

I will mail you your discount codes today. Happy usage. It would be nice that you comment on this post and leave your site link, so that we could select a site that will get the bonus prize – Site Review by our team!

cheers,
serge

Merry Xmas!!!

Wordpress - software to create a website

This post is here to say Thank you WordPress! Do you know what a WordPress is? No, it is not only the software someone would be damn wise to choose to create his/her business website (especially when you know little to nothing in website development)…

WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

WordPress team

WordPress – is The Thing that changed my life…

Here is how.

Back in 2009 I was a barman speaking 3 languages and having a damn good knowledge of “old french school” bartendering. One of my projects was to create an online school for bartenders to share that knowledge and make it more accessible in countries like Russia and some others… My biggest problem at that time was NO KNOWLEDGE AT ALL IN WEBSITE CREATION (and no budget to hire a webdesigner).

I was advised to use WordPress as it is easy to set up a website with this software (or Content Management System). Well, I strarted using it. And it was beyond my expectations!!! Easy – even more easy that you can imagine. You may create a website in minutes and if you know how to design/code you may create a decent site within a week or so. If you’re a code ninja you may build a business website in several hours (disclamer : supposing you have your texts and images ready and handy). If you spend a week over the site and you know what you do – you may build a complex website from scratch that will bring clients into your business.

The most advantage of WordPress is – it can be used by every one. No matter how much you know about website building, you just may create and update your website yourself.

The result of the story

3 years later, I live from website bulding and selling my softwares online using my own scripts… I stopped the bar as my hobby became my business. See the changes? So thank you WordPress and great thanks to Alex Ayvengo (the guy who advised me).

So if you’re now in the period of search for the software you need for your website – do not hesitate to use WordPress. Click the button below to visit their website

Visit WordPress site

cheers,
serge

PS some useful info about WordPress vs other content management systems

I’ve already published an announcement of creation a child theme for Thesis Framework, today I’m giving you some screenshots of where the work is. Finally, some features I was reserving for the payed version will be included in this child theme by default :

1. Logo manager – easy way to control the logo of your site and login page logo
2. Team Page and advanced author profile with author socila profile links and tag line
3. Better author archives
4. Support for Google author microformat easy set up via user profile
5. Support for tweet via functionnality on twitter button (editable in user profile)
6. Easy way to include social sharing buttons on singular pages and multipost pages

See the screenshots below to get the idea of how it will look like in the wordpress admin

Logo manager

Child Theme Options - logo manager

Login branded

The main logo of the site is added as a background image for the text logo generated by Thesis. Automagically, no need to code it yourself. Simply add image to your media library, copy its URL to the field, add sizes and you’re done!

The login logo needs to be resized before upload. Once the image is in your library – paste the link to the image in the setting field and the login page will have the neat logo instead of the one done by WordPress. Thus you skip the headache with all kinds of plugins for login branding, simply use the beautiful and functionnal default login page.

Social Sharing Buttons

Well, I got fed up with all support requests for the social buttons on DIYthemes… I had my heart bleeding when reading all newbees asking how to add social share buttons without a plugin to their WordPress / Thesis installations… Now it is supported by default. I used a better version of my code from here : Ultimate Share Buttons for Thesis. Simply ameliorated and with a user interface to control the buttons.

Social Sharing Buttons manager - no more headache

Author Archives and Author Descriptions

I used the ready snippets I have to push your author archives beyond what is done at the moment. All authors have more complex profile settings to control their social profile links, tweet via data in twitter button (try to retweet this article to see what I’m talking about), google author microformat is now supported by default – so youy skip tons of headache setting it up. And … all this is now displayed on your team page and in the author archive introductory content. The author posts can be formatted via default Thesis interface (they look same as Archive in the Design Settings). See the screenshot below :

Thesis author pages now have introductory content and support Google author format

So stay tuned, I’m working hard to release this child theme for Thesis before Christmas.

cheers,
serge

PS UPDATE : beta version is downloadable now for free – click this button :

PPS UPDATE 2 : as was asked in the comments section below – here is the code to be used if you want to display author box with custom photo instead of gravatar just after the post content :

here is the php to be used with the current version of the child theme (NOTE otherwise the code will not display all author information )

fixed version of the code (tested on Thesis 1.8.2 , WP 3.3.1 and Advanced Child theme – beasty

/* AUTOR BOX AFTER THE POST
NOTE : additional php code to be used with Advanced Child theme for thesis
download link : http://thesistut.com/store/thesis-free-child-theme/
*/
function thesis_advanced_post_author_bio_box($content) {
	if(is_singular() && (!is_singular('page') || !is_singular('attachment'))) {
		global $post, $thesis_design ;
		$user = new WP_User($post->post_author);
		$output = "";
		$width = (get_option('thumbnail_size_w') != '') ? get_option('thumbnail_size_w') : '150';
		$height = (get_option('thumbnail_size_h') != '') ? get_option('thumbnail_size_h') : '150';
		$prefix = THESIS_SCRIPTS_FOLDER . '/thumb.php?src=';
		$postfix = "&w=$width&h=$height&zc=1&q=100";
		$link_before = $link_after = '';
		if($user->user_url != '') {
			$link_before = '<a href="' . $user->user_url .'" rel="nofollow" title="Visit website of '. esc_attr($user->display_name) .'" >';
			$link_after = '</a>';
		}
		$output .= '<div id="post_author_box" class="author_box"><p class="post_tags author_introduction">'. __('Written by :','thesis_advanced_lang') .'</p><h3>'. $link_before . $user->display_name . $link_after .'</h3><div class="author_box_text">';
		if($user->__get('user_tagline') != '') {
			$output .= '<div class="author_tagline"><p class="user_tagline">'. wp_filter_nohtml_kses($user->__get('user_tagline')) .'</p></div>';
		}
		if($user->__get('user_photo') && $user->__get('user_photo') != '') {
			$align = ($thesis_design->image['post']['x'] == 'right') ? ' alignright' : ' alignleft';
			$frame = ($thesis_design->image['post']['frame'] == 'on') ? ' frame' : '';
			$output .= '<div class="author_image">'. $link_before .'<img class="author_thumb'. $align . $frame .'" alt="'. esc_attr($user->display_name) .'" src="'. $prefix . $user->__get('user_photo') . $postfix .'" />'. $link_after .'</div>';
		}
		$output .= '<div class="author_text_box"><div class="author_bio">'. force_balance_tags(wpautop(wptexturize($user->__get('user_description')))) .'</div></div>';
		if(function_exists('thesis_advanced_return_social_profiles')) {
			$output .= '<div class="author_social_links">'. thesis_advanced_return_social_profiles($user->ID) .'</div>';
		}
		$output .= '</div><div class="clear"></div></div>';
		$content .= $output;
	}
	return $content;
}
/* add the author box to the post output */
add_filter('the_content','thesis_advanced_post_author_bio_box',9,1);
/* END AUTOR BOX AFTER THE POST */

PPS 3 – UPDATE 3 – Author box with counter of posts and linked to the author archive PHP CODE :

/* AUTOR BOX AFTER THE POST WITH COUNTER
Since 1.0.1 (beta)
NOTE : additional php code to be used with Advanced Child theme for thesis
download link : http://thesistut.com/store/thesis-free-child-theme/
*/
function thesis_advanced_post_author_bio_box_with_counter($content) {
	if(is_singular() && (!is_singular('page') || !is_singular('attachment'))) {
		global $post, $thesis_advanced, $thesis_design ;
		if(empty($thesis_advanced->options['team']['author_box'])) {
			return $content;
		}
		$user = new WP_User($post->post_author);
		$output = "";
		$width = (get_option('thumbnail_size_w') != '') ? get_option('thumbnail_size_w') : '150';
		$height = (get_option('thumbnail_size_h') != '') ? get_option('thumbnail_size_h') : '150';
		$prefix = THESIS_SCRIPTS_FOLDER . '/thumb.php?src=';
		$postfix = "&w=$width&h=$height&zc=1&q=100";
		$link_before = '<a href="' . get_author_posts_url($user->ID,$user->user_nicename) .'" rel="nofollow" title="View all posts by '. esc_attr($user->display_name) .'" >';
		$link_after = '</a>';
		$output .= '<div id="post_author_box" class="author_box"><p class="post_tags author_introduction">'. __('Written by :','thesis_advanced_lang') .'</p><h3>'. $link_before . $user->display_name . $link_after .'</h3><div class="author_box_text">';
		if($user->__get('user_tagline') != '') {
			$output .= '<div class="author_tagline"><p class="user_tagline">'. wp_filter_nohtml_kses($user->__get('user_tagline')) .'</p></div>';
		}
		if($user->__get('user_photo') && $user->__get('user_photo') != '') {
			$align = ($thesis_design->image['post']['x'] == 'right') ? ' alignright' : ' alignleft';
			$frame = ($thesis_design->image['post']['frame'] == 'on') ? ' frame' : '';
			$output .= '<div class="author_image">'. $link_before .'<img class="author_thumb'. $align . $frame .'" alt="'. esc_attr($user->display_name) .'" src="'. $prefix . $user->__get('user_photo') . $postfix .'" />'. $link_after .'</div>';
		}
		$output .= '<div class="author_text_box"><div class="author_bio">'. force_balance_tags(wpautop(wptexturize($user->__get('user_description')))) .'<p class="post_tags">'. $user->display_name .' has written '. get_the_author_posts() .' posts on '. get_bloginfo('name') .'</p></div></div>';
		if(function_exists('thesis_advanced_return_social_profiles')) {
			$output .= '<div class="author_social_links">'. thesis_advanced_return_social_profiles($user->ID) .'</div>';
		}
		$output .= '</div><div class="clear"></div></div>';
		$content .= $output;
	}
	return $content;
}
remove_filter('the_content','thesis_advanced_post_author_bio_box',9);
add_filter('the_content','thesis_advanced_post_author_bio_box',9);
/* END AUTOR BOX AFTER THE POST */