WordPress Class Spring 2013


spring wordpress classS13-028: WordPress-Web Development for the Right Side of Your Brain

This class focuses on using the free open-source software called WordPress. WordPress makes it easy to create and deploy your own professional website. The user interface is designed let you present your business or ideas in an attractive format to the public without having to know complex programs. Learn set up, common uses, how to add plugins and design themes and search engine optimization as well as integration with common free social networking tools like Youtube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. No prior knowledge of HTML, web publishing or ownership of an existing website required but you should be familiar with web browsers such as Internet Explorer and programs to format text such as Word.

Mondays, April 15 – May 20

9am – noon

$82 (early bird $77)

Register Online

taught throughThe Lifelong Learning Center
310 South Curtis Street
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 549-8765
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Class Picture 2013

Wordpress Class picture Winter 2013-small

(front) Rita Tucker, Nancy Lee
(mid) Sandy Evenson, Judy Broughton, Michele Fauth, Lois Mcelravy, Mike Evock
(back) Steve Randall, Dan Mahoney, Fred Cooper, Berry Hicks

I have the pleasure of teaching WordPress to another great group of happy, creative folks.

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Massive Press Theme

Here’s a very nice premium theme.  It has 3-columns and is geared for slide shows and ads and only costs $50.

Massive Press Theme

I haven’t tried it myself so can’t vouch for ease of configuration.

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WordPress Teacher’s Assistant

Wordpress Teachers AssistantWordPress Opportunity

Description:  Teacher’s Assistant for WordPress:  Web Development for the right side of the Brain. Provide computer assistance for students as they build their websites with WordPress.  We’ll cover all the hottest new plugins and features of the latest release of WordPress 3.4.

Requirements:  Working knowledge of the WordPress dashboard.  Help students follow instructions.  Previous students are ideal candidates.

Date:  Mon July 16-Aug 20

Time:  9-noon

Compensation:  This is a volunteer position

Note:  This class is taught through adult continuing ed and is a creative and motivated group of entrepreneurs.  This creates a very synergistic environment and a great opportunity to be inspired and inspire.  When not helping students, you can work on your website.

 

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WordPress Class Winter 2013


Wordpress Class Winter 2013
F13-024: WordPress-Web Development for the Right Side of Your Brain

This class focuses on using the free open-source software called WordPress. WordPress makes it easy to create and deploy your own professional website. The user interface is designed let you present your business or ideas in an attractive format to the public without having to know complex programs. Learn set up, common uses, how to add plugins and design themes and search engine optimization as well as integration with common free social networking tools like Youtube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. No prior knowledge of HTML, web publishing or ownership of an existing website required but you should be familiar with web browsers such as Internet Explorer and programs to format text such as Word.

Mondays, Jan 14-Feb 25

9am – noon

$82 (early bird $77)

Register Online

taught throughThe Lifelong Learning Center
310 South Curtis Street
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 549-8765
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Widget Logic

Widget Logic control field

Widget Logic control field added to every widget

The popular plugin Widget Logic allows custom control over all of your sidebar widgets.  This allows you to pick and choose which pages or posts will have the widget.

Ordinarily, when you place a widget in a a sidebar under Appearance -> Widgets that widget will appear on all pages/posts.

With this powerful plugin, a layperson has complete control over when to display a widget.

A new control field is added to every widget (see picture).  Don’t be intimidated by the php code in this field.  The basics are very straightforward. If you only want the “recent posts” widget to display on the blog page for instance, add “is_home()” to the control field.

Examples

  • is_home() — just the main blog page
  • is_page('about')just the page named about

  • is_user_logged_in() — shown when a user is logged in
  • 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’.

Basic Logic

These logic operators can be used in combination with the code above.

  • ! (NOT) to reverse the logic, eg !is_home() is TRUE when this is NOT the home page.
  • || (OR) to combine conditions. X OR Y is TRUE when either X is true or Y is true.
  • && (AND) to make conditions more specific. X AND Y is TRUE when both X is true and Y is true.

example: !is_user_logged_in() — shown when a user is not logged in

A full list of WordPress built in conditional tags that can be used in the Widget Logic control field can be found here.

Writing Logic Code

The text in the ‘Widget logic’ field can be full PHP code and should return ‘true’ when you need the widget to appear. If there is no ‘return’ in the text, an implicit ‘return’ is added to the start and a ‘;’ is added on the end. (This is just to make single statements like is_home() more convenient.)

Very Advanced

The ‘widget_content’ filter

When this option is active (tick the option tickbox at the foot of the widget admin page) you can modify the text displayed by ANY widget from your own theme’s functions.php file. Hook into the filter with:

add_filter('widget_content', 'your_filter_function', [priority], 2);

where [priority] is the optional priority parameter for the add_filter function. The filter function can take a second parameter (if you provide that last parameter ’2′) like this:

function your_filter_function($content='', $widget_id='')

The second parameter ($widget_id) can be used to target specific widgets if needed.

A WordPress filter function ‘takes as input the unmodified data, and returns modified data’ which means that widget_content filters are provided with the raw HTML output by the widget, and you are then free to return something else entirely:

Example filters

add_filter('widget_content', 'basic_widget_content_filter'); function basic_widget_content_filter($content='') { return $content."<PRE>THIS APPEARS AFTER EVERY WIDGET</PRE>"; }

The motivation behind this filter is to to render all widget titles with the excellent ttftitles plugin like this:

add_filter('widget_content', 'ttftext_widget_title'); function ttftext_widget_title($content='') { preg_match("/<h2[^>]*>([^<]+)/",$content, $matches); $heading=$matches[1]; $insert_img=the_ttftext( $heading, false ); $content=preg_replace("/(<h2[^>]*>)[^<]+/","$1$insert_img",$content,1); return $content; }

People often ask for a way to give widgets alternating styles. This filter inserts widget_style_a/widget_style_b into the text usually found in a widget’s main definition:

add_filter('widget_content', 'make_alternating_widget_styles'); function make_alternating_widget_styles($content='') { global $wl_make_alt_ws; $wl_make_alt_ws=($wl_make_alt_ws=="style_a")?"style_b":"style_a"; return preg_replace('/(class="widget )/', "$1 widget_${wl_make_alt_ws} ", $content); }

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How to use featured image as header.

Twenty Ten theme has a nice feature that allows you to setup different header images on each page or post.  Here’s how.

From the page/post editor page:

  1. Click Featured Image (widget on right) -> Set Featured Image
  2. Click Select or drag and drop file
  3. Click “Use as featured image”
  4. close the “set featured image” box
  5. Update page
Troubleshooting Problems

If your image doesn’t display, it may be because the image is not big enough.  For the best results resize your images to fit the Twenty Ten header size of 940 x 198 exactly.

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WordPress Class Fall 2012

Wordpress Class

F12-029: WordPress-Web Development for the Right Side of Your Brain

This class focuses on using the free open-source software called WordPress. WordPress makes it easy to create and deploy your own professional website. The user interface is designed let you present your business or ideas in an attractive format to the public without having to know complex programs. Learn set up, common uses, how to add plugins and design themes and search engine optimization as well as integration with common free social networking tools like Youtube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. No prior knowledge of HTML, web publishing or ownership of an existing website required but you should be familiar with web browsers such as Internet Explorer and programs to format text such as Word.

Mondays, Sept 10-Oct 22 (no class Sept 24)

9am – noon

$82

taught throughThe Lifelong Learning Center
310 South Curtis Street
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 549-8765
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Testing on multiple browsers

It’s important to test your website on various browsers and display devices.  Here are some resources to help you in this process.

http://browsershots.org – FREE 80 browser & operating system combinations

http://crossbrowsertesting.com – $30/mth- interactive and automated batch testing

iPad

http://ipad-emulator.org

http://ipadpeek.com

 

 

 

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WordPress Class TA needed

Teacher's AideWordPress Opportunity

Description:  Teacher’s Assistant for WordPress:  Web Development for the right side of the Brain. Provide computer assistance for students as they build their websites with WordPress.  We’ll cover all the hottest new plugins and features of the latest release of WordPress 3.4.

Requirements:  Working knowledge of the WordPress dashboard.  Help students follow instructions.

Date:  Mon July 16-Aug 20

Time:  9-noon

Compensation:  This is a volunteer position

Note:  This class is taught through adult continuing ed and is a creative and motivated group of entrepreneurs.  This creates a very synergistic environment and a great opportunity to be inspired and inspire.  When not helping students, you can work on your website.

 

 

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