All About Wordpress - Themes, Plugins, Tips and Tweaks

[DigitalDude]

I have been using wordpress for a long time. People who are already hooked up to it will know that it is a great piece of software and is infinitely extensible. As many people are now turning to hosted wordpress from their free blogs, thought I would share my experiences and resources here.


Official Wordpress Links

Download - http://wordpress.org/download (the main stuff)
Themes - http://themes.wordpress.net (tons of themes can be searched by various conditions)
Plugins - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins (top reason for the popularity of Wordpress)
Documentation a.k.a Codex - http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page (the place you'll probably never visit unless someone says RTFM )
Support Forum - http://wordpress.org/support (the place you'll rush to if you have screwed up your blog big time)


DOWNLOAD AND INSTALLATION

Installation of Wordpress is pretty simple. Just download the zip file, unzip it, edit the 'wp-config-new.php' with your mysql database details and rename it to 'wp-config.php', upload all the files to the server through FTP, point to your domain and complete the installation. Thats it If you are clueless, there is a thread by Giga on installing Wordpress locally. The installation part should come in handy.



THEMES

One of the biggest concern for a wordpress newbie is choosing a right theme for the blog. Settling on a theme is pretty difficult decision to make. Apart from the official links another important website to visit is http://weblogtoolscollection.com by Mark. New themes, Plugins are released here and there is a lot of discussion on Wordpress. So if you are serious about blogging I recommend either visiting it regularly or subscribing to the feed.

A website that is more similar and as useful as the official themes site is http://www.wpthemesfree.com It contains a HUGE collection of wordpress themes on a number of categories. The difference is that the official wordpress theme site (and also the WebLogToolsCollection) does not allow the submission of Sponsored Themes. For more info regarding the issue of sponsored themes visit this site Lorelle.

So If you are undertaking the adventure of finding a great theme for you blog please stop by the following places before you go rampant on Google

10+1 Tips for Choosing a WordPress Theme (Concise and Quick)

Choosing a Wordpress Theme (More Detailed and a bit old. But a 'must read'.)


From The Smashing Magazine Blog (an Excellent Design Resource) :

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen

21 Fresh, Usable and Elegant Wordpress Themes

10 Fresh, Elegant and Clean Wordpress Themes

8 Fresh Wordpress Themes



PLUGINS

It is a fact that the number one reason for the popularity of Wordpress is the extensibility through plugins. There are a ton of them out there. Plugins can be easily downloaded from the official plugins directory by searching for what you want. A few resources to look first are listed below:

50 Best WordPress Plugins for Power Blogging

WORDPRESS GOD: 300+ Tools for Running Your WordPress Blog (this is a HUGE page.. its a triumph if you can go through the entire thing )



I will periodically post more info about themes, individual plugins, other tips and tweaks Others who use wordpress are also welcome to post useful resources for wordpress. You can also post any queries regarding wordpress, the themes, plugins or any wordpress specific help that you need.


[Wordpress Logo Courtesy: 3nhanced ]

[Gigacore]

well compiled. Sure it will be useful for beginners!

[a_k_s_h_a_y]

good work !

[adi007]

wow...this is want i wanted...
looking for more posts....

[salilrane]

awsome.....tutorial ........................

nice job

[New]

Nice tut..You have made a nice blog.

[adi007]

small contribution from me

Tutorial on how to add option to every posts in wordpress or websites....
link to the tut

[ThinkFree]

Great work

[adi007]

Another small tut from me...

Adding Shoutbox in wordpress

Read it here

[topgear]

Great work for newbies like me. Inspired very much. ( Will start a blog on wordpress soon . Thanks.

^^ Will check that for sure pal.

[DigitalDude]

good work there adi.. I also have a few other ways which I will post later

for now:

Few Installation Fundas for Wordpress


Installing Wordpress Locally i.e. in your PC
Install WordPress Locally - 1 Of 2
Install WordPress Locally - 2 Of 2


Installing Wordpress in a USB Stick
How to install Wordpress on a USB stick


Installing Themes and Plugins with OnClick Plugin and Firefox Extension
OneClick Plugin and Firefox Extension


Post-Installation Checklist
WordPress: The Complete Post-Install Checklist

and finally
Wordpress Blog Maintanence Checklist


a few old articles but still very relevant


_

[superboysahil]

If u dont want to go through all this then..

i have a website that allows you to use wordpress technology to the max. u can also put your adsense or any html code. You also have a large variety of themes to choose and can have a theme uploaded especially for you.

And its Free!


Not giving the link as I dont want to be a spammer so PM me

[DigitalDude]

^^^ I guess you are using wordpress mu.

there is a lot of difference between working a 9 to 5 job and having your own company... a lot of people like to be the latter and to the people who wants to be the former this is not the thread




_

[superboysahil]

yep me using that script

[DigitalDude]

New list of some excellent themes has been posted by Smashing Magazine:

20 More Free First-Class Wordpress Themes

(Aryayush would love this theme http://www.7graus.com/tech/wordpress/leopress/

The tiger is striking again; now in WordPress. This 3-column WordPress theme looks exactly like the user interface in Mac OS X Leopard looks like. The navigation is also similar. Have fun tweaking the Leopard for your needs.)

A facebook like theme http://foxinni.com/my-themes/faceboo...rdpress-theme/

A useful post from weblogtoolscollection:

10 Plugins To Combat Comment Spam

From DailyBlogTips:

8 Post Types To Expand and Highlight Your Blog’s Content

and a useful tool Zemanta: Content Suggestion Engine For Bloggers



_

[topgear]

Thanks DigitalDude & Gigacore
I am now rolling my blog @ :
http://topgeartopspeed.wordpress.com/

[DigitalDude]

Wordpress 2.5 has been released

http://wordpress.org/development/200...ss-25-brecker/

I can a number of changes to make the admin interface more intutive. A few irritating problems in the WYSIWYG editor is also gone.. its more fluid and frequently used settings are made prominent (like changing permalink of a post). The gallery feature is also quite cool. See the sneak peek and screencast to know about the new changes.

Download it http://wordpress.org/download/


Other posts related to WP 2.5 Release:

Screencast and WordPress 2.5 RC2

2.5 Sneak Peek

__________________________________________________ _______________________________________________

Also vote for Wordpress in the Webware 100 Awards (Publishing & Photography Category):




http://www.webware.com/html/ww/100/2...?compid=103450


_

[adi007]

i have upgraded my wordpress to latest version....
yepeee......this was my first upgrade...
i must say this new version looks cool..
BTW to those people who are afraid or dunno anything about upgrading there is a plugin called wordpress automatic plugin....

I have no words to describe this plugin....wonderful plugin...
i upgraded the wordpress via it within 5 mins.....it will do all the tasks...
it's as easy as installing a windows software by clicking next,next....

get it from http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plu...de-plugin.html

[drgrudge]

5 mins? I use Instant Upgrade and it takes hardly 30 seconds.


By the way, Chris pearson released a Theme: Thesis . Is it good? Planning to buy a change my theme for sometime now...

[DigitalDude]

@adi
its always better to give the wordpress.org url for plugin downloads though you mentioned the author's website

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...matic-upgrade/


@drgrudge

I like pearson's themes esp neoclassical but I find it hard to customise the CSS and theme files.. too complicated same for K2 theme also
but I dunno... since its a paid theme it must have a lot of customisation options in the admin panel itself (just a guess)

also check these websites http://premiumthemes.net and http://wpremix.com

[adi007]

Originally Posted by drgrudge

5 mins? I use Instant Upgrade and it takes hardly 30 seconds.


By the way, Chris pearson released a Theme: Thesis . Is it good? Planning to buy a change my theme for sometime now...

WPAU has carried out task like backup of the database,backup of web space etc,. before up gradation....and moreover i choose the manual method in it not the automatic one...

is there any live demo of thesis avilable..?

[adi007]

Another small tutorial from me...

Wanna create a Random post option in your wordpress blog just like Random article option in Wikipedia…..?

Then read this small tut…..

* In order to have random post or Random article facility in the wordpress powered blogs,you need to download the Random Redirect plugin.
Link: http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugi...m-redirect.zip

*Activate the plugin

*The plugin will create a link to blogurl/?random which will redirect to a random post of your blog.For example in case of my blog the link will be http://blog.aditech.info/?random Now we have to create make use of this link. This method will differ from theme to theme but the important point is the random post will be given at the link blogurl/?random.In almost all the themes there will be nav_menu.php file.Edit this file in the Theme editor and add the following lines

<li><a <?php if (is_page('?random')) echo('class="current" '); ?>href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/?random">Random post</a>

That’s it…
Hope you liked this small tutorial…

Source

[hsr]

GR8 tut DD you are always D Best !!!
^^ adi, how'd ya get a .info domain? free or what? please tell me if it's less than 1000 a year, i don't need hosting... just redirection.

[DigitalDude]

^^^
at present .info is Rs.99/- for first year and then Rs.300+ for subsequent years..

but I would advise to go for a .com itself as you'll be paying the same Rs.300+ per year and also .com has good respect than .info

adi went for .info probably because .com is not available I guess

_

[adi007]

@hari_sanker_r:Thanks for the compliments..

i brought the domain and webspace from Cyrus_the_virus for one year...
Refer the thread 250MB Space + 2.5GB Transfer for Rs12/month!!!
for more info

If you just want the domain then be quick coz in http://www.godaddy.com/ you will get the .info domain for 1$(39 or 40 rs) for first year...It's their new .info promotion scheme...

Don't think that .info is inferior with respect to .com...
Just google for "upload shoutbox in wordpress" ...You will find my site in the first result..I came to know about this from Awstats

But i must say that .info is not as famous as .com...but i am sure it will be coz allmost all names and keywords in .com has already been alloated...

Hey i just forget to tell,...you will get .co.cc redirection for free
visit http://www.co.cc/
ex:i have made http://www.adiworld.co.cc/ for free..check it out...

But i prefer .info or .com...
@Digitaldude:Yup that's the second reason i opted for .info coz aditech.com is already taken...

[adi007]

Another small tip from me

The mistake in made with my RSS feeds…

RSS feeds are a must have feature in any blog or site.Now-a-days no one is having enough time to manually navigate to their favorite web blogs or sites in order to view new or updated articles.

I added the RSS feature using feedburner.I got nearly 15-20 Subscribers within one week of the blog launch itself.I was extremely happy but this happiness didn’t lasted too long.Gradually the number of subscribers went on decreasing.I wished to know why this is happening.So i subscribed into my own feeds.

Within minutes i came to know where i had gone wrong.My feeds were partial.The feeds were like this

I must say that partial feeds are worthless.It is better that the site or blog has no feeds feature at all instead of giving partial feeds.

The default selection of feeds is partial itself.You need to change it.To change it go to Options(Settings)>>Reading in WP admin menu.Change the option to Full Text as show in the screenshot

Another important note:If your use <!–more–> in your posts then the full feeds will have just the contents before <!–more–>To avoid this you need to use the plugin Full Text Feed
Plugin link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/full-text-feed/

But if you are using Wordpress 2.5(like me) then there is no necessity for this plugin coz this nasty feature has been corrected in wp 2.5

Hope you will learn from my mistake and make your feeds full..
I just hope that i can again get those RSS subscribers back….
If you like this small tip then please subscribe to my full rss feeds…..

Source

[iMav]

guys what about seo tools

[ravi_9793]

Originally Posted by iMav

guys what about seo tools

1) All in one SEO

http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/

2) Sociable
http://www.maxpower.ca/sociable/2006/01/26/

[iMav]

my turn my turn to suggest some plugins

Originally Posted by Manan

The ones I have installed so far:

Embedded Video Link - A plugin to integrate various video links as videos in your blog posts. It supports almost all video portals and most commonly video formats. (Download)

Fotobook - Merges your Facebook albums in your blog, adds a 'Photos' link to your navigation bar and pulls images from your Facebook account. It's pretty customizable you can choose the albums to show or hide. (Download)

Homepage Excerpts - Shows a user-defined excerpt of posts on the home page or a defined no. of full posts on the Home Page, makes the home page look neat IMHO. I have set it to show only the latest post in full and excerpts of all others. (Download)

Redirectify - Adds external links to your navigation bar, really helpful. (Download)

uBerdose (All in SEO Pack) - Search Engine Optimization Pack, I have not fiddled with it so cant say much about it, but if it does what it is supposed to then it rocks. (Download) Thank You Ravi for this one.

Twitter Updater - If you don't know Twitter - I won't blame you, none the less Twitter is an update service that will send users (who have setup a twitter account in their IMs) a message whenever you update your status on the Twitter site, this service is very helpful for bloggers and blog readers. Readers can simply follow you - a blogger's updates and so whenever you - the blogger publishes a new post the people who follow your updates will get a IM on their chat client with the title and a link to the new article.

• Sign Up on Twitter
• Download Twitter Updater

[IT Idiot]

you guys have forgot the feedburner.. there is loads of option in publicize