WordPress is such a powerful tool out of the box that it is surprising to find something that it doesn’t have a function for. Here is a code snippet that will allow you to show tags that are related to a specific category. The nice thing about this snippet is that it does not require any complicated custom DB queries but uses WordPress’ built in features.

It is as simple as pasting this code wherever you would like to display tags for a specific category. If you would like to change the appearance of the tags, take a look at the options available for wp_tag_cloud(). Don’t forget to change the category name on line 1.

<?php
$custom_query = new WP_Query('posts_per_page=-1&category_name=blog');
if ($custom_query->have_posts()) :
	while ($custom_query->have_posts()) : $custom_query->the_post();
		$posttags = get_the_tags();
		if ($posttags) {
			foreach($posttags as $tag) {
				$all_tags[] = $tag->term_id;
			}
		}
	endwhile;
endif;

$tags_arr = array_unique($all_tags);
$tags_str = implode(",", $tags_arr);

$args = array(
'smallest'  => 12,
'largest'   => 12,
'unit'      => 'px',
'number'    => 0,
'format'    => 'list',
'include'   => $tags_str
);
wp_tag_cloud($args);
?>

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I needed to get just the post slug for a project I have been working on. I found several sites that had similar ways of getting the post slug but I came up with an approach that utilizes WordPress’ get_permalink() and PHP’s basename().

The common approach:

$post_obj = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
$post_ID = $post_obj->ID;
$post_title = $post_obj->post_title;
$post_slug = $post_obj->post_name;

My approach:

$slug = basename(get_permalink());

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• Subscribe to Comments – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
• WP-PageNavi – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-pagenavi/
• WP-DB-Backup – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
• Google XML Sitemaps – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

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I know you are thinking… you did what? But it’s true. I have reached a milestone in my life. I just created my first ever WordPress theme. I am also very pleased with how it turned out. It took me about 8 hours to complete but most of that time was spent waiting on the trial version of Photoshop CS3 to download and fixing an annoying CSS issue. I am sure there will be some bugs that I need to fix but so far, so good.

I would like to thank Small Potato for his very basic tutorial titled “So you want to create WordPress themes huh?” If you are new to WordPress or just want a fresh, clear view of stepping through a theme then I suggest you start with his tutorial.

I would also like to thank Photoshop CS3 for making my first theme beautiful. I couldn’t have done it without you. Wink.

Next on the agenda:

1. Validatation of XHTML & CSS
2. Checking design in different browsers with help from IE NetRenderer
3. Finding and fixing any bugs

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If you set a static page as your front page, it can be a little tricky figuring out how to link to a page that shows your latest posts. So far I have come across two solutions you can use with your WordPress blog when linking to such a page.

Solution One

Create a link in your sidebar or somewhere on your site that looks like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=all You should replace the http://www.yourdomain.com/ with the location of your blog.

Solution Two

You need to create a new page template by copying an existing one. In your new page template, find this line:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Then replace that line with this code:

<?php $my_query = new WP_Query('showposts=10');

while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post();

$do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>

The code you just added creates a loop and retrieves the latest 10 posts and will display them on a page you create with your new template.

If you know of another solution to accomplish this task, please share it with my readers and me by commenting below.

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Problem

The visual editor packed with WordPress is beautiful and very user friendly. But if you are like me, sometimes a visual editor is not going to cut it. When writing a post or a page, you have two options: Visual or Code. Selecting the Code tab can be somewhat sneaky. For example, you create your post in Dreamweaver then copy and paste it into the code view. Once you have published that post and go back to edit it you will find that WordPress has completely changed and rearranged your HTML and CSS. This can be very aggravating but there is a solution.

Solution

From the WordPress admin section click on Users. Edit your user profile by checking the ‘Disable the visual editor when writing’ and then click Update Profile. Now you can write your posts and pages with HTML and CSS and not worry about WordPress changing your code. Hooray for code preservation!

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WordPress is very fascinating. I am new to blogging but have a moderate understanding of HTML & CSS. If you are interested in designing a WordPress theme that you can call your own, you first have to read the tutorial titled “Dissection of a WordPress theme.” In a matter of a couple hours I was able to follow this tutorial and after doing so I feel like I have a foundational understanding of the different parts that make up a theme.

The tutorial takes the default theme ‘Kubrick’ which is packaged with WordPress and dissects it piece by piece. It summarizes different parts in the code but does not bog down the reader with a large amount of overwhelming detail. There are four parts to the tutorial which are as follows:

1. Part one – Pulling it apart
2. Part two – Complete design, header, and footer
3. Part three – The sidebar
4. Part four – The content

Now I must put what I have learned to the test and attempt to create my own theme. Thank you John Godley for your excellent work!

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I assumed turning on permalinks in WordPress would be as easy as selecting the radio button and clicking update. Little did I know I would be looking at 404 pages for 2 hours. After extensive research I came to the conclusion that there isn’t any known solution to this problem. I have read many posts that say different things. Having lost all hope of fixing this error I decided to close my browser window and start all over. I opened my browser again, went to www.joshstauffer.com, clicked on ‘About‘, and viola!… Permalinks now work! Why? I don’t know.

Solution: If you would like to use permalinks and you are using GoDaddy for hosting, all you must do is turn permalinks on and wait. I am not sure how long to wait but rest assured the permalinks will begin to work after a short period of time.

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