… how to remove the website section when leaving a reply/comment …

The solution may be obvious to some and can be readily derived from the information found on the WordPress codex page for the `comment_form` function, but if you are new to WordPress and/or not familiar with writing a function to use with `add_filter`, here is a very simple and working snippet to use in your theme:

function wpfa_remove_comment_website_section(){
    $commenter = wp_get_current_commenter();
    $req = get_option( 'require_name_email' );
    $aria_req = ( $req ? " aria-required='true'" : '' );
    $fields =  array(
        'author' => '<p class="comment-form-author">' . '<label for="author">' . __( 'Name' ) . '</label> ' . ( $req ? '<span class="required">*</span>' : '' ) .
                    '<input id="author" name="author" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['comment_author'] ) . '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></p>',
        'email'  => '<p class="comment-form-email"><label for="email">' . __( 'Email' ) . '</label> ' . ( $req ? '<span class="required">*</span>' : '' ) .
                    '<input id="email" name="email" type="text" value="' . esc_attr(  $commenter['comment_author_email'] ) . '" size="30"' . $aria_req . ' /></p>',
        'url'    => '' /** removes website section */,
    );
    return $fields;
}
add_filter( 'comment_form_default_fields', 'wpfa_remove_comment_website_section' );

Ideally, this will be placed in the ‘functions.php’ file of your theme, but better yet this should be included in the Child-Theme you created of the theme you want to modify.

Yes, seriously. Although this sort of thing is not too likely to exist in the wild here are a few tips and idea to keep in mind when developing a theme.

Let’s start from the end with ‘post-format’ posts and work our way back to the beginning. It wasn’t all that long ago WordPress introduced default post-formats that could be easily added to themes. Here’s a one-liner to put in your functions.php file that does it all, well it’s a good example from the codex showing two post-formats:

add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'gallery' ) )

Post-formats have been around since WordPress Version 3.1, if you are not familiar with them yet you should go back and read more about them.

Our next step back is to Sticky Posts introduced back in version 2.7. If you are not familiar with sticky posts then definitely take a few moments to read the articles linked to … I can wait.

So far, so good … right? Good!

Now let’s get to the beginning of the post title: No-Title; and, yes, this is something that should be addressed when developing a theme. The Shadow knows … otherwise one may never know the imagination of the end-user, or if their personal taste demands one (or many) posts are published without a title. Generally speaking, each of these items are handled well enough on their own but what happens when you combine them? If you have thoroughly tested your theme then most any combination of these elements should have been easily and clearly addressed; most of which can be done with simple CSS, too.

The key CSS elements to address for these items are the following:

• .format-aside
• .format-gallery
• .format-< post-format > – substitute < post-format > with the appropriate term
• .sticky

There may, or may not, be a theme CSS element used for a post without a title but that is well beyond the scope of this post; just remember to test each ‘post-format’ with and without a title.

Now last, but not least, the simple CSS element to remember for the final testing: ‘.format-< post-format >.sticky’ … again substituting the < post-format > for *all* of the ‘post-formats’ used in the theme. Note there is no space between, for example, .format-aside and .sticky the element would be: .format-aside.sticky … these elements are automatically generated by WordPress if the theme uses the `post_class` function correctly.

Granted this was a bit long written but hopefully helpful. It’s just something I found that required a lot more to properly address than what I first suspected as I was updating my theme Desk Mess Mirrored to version 2.0.

Themes are REQUIRED to use wp_title filter to filter wp_title() (RECOMMENDED), or pass argument to wp_title() (OPTIONALLY), in order to modify document title content

This has been discussed, worked through, and for the most part sorted out … but there doesn’t appear to be any sort of example code to work from. This presented an opportunity to have a look around the WordPress codex and the source code for some ideas how to filter the `wp_title` function.

Essentially, the idea behind the code (below) is to take a basic function call of `wp_title` add some relevant text (a la default themes: Twenty Ten / Twenty Eleven) then filter it back into the function; and finally to echo this to the HTML <title> tag.

<?php
/**
* WPFA WP Title
*
* Utilizes the `wp_title` filter to add text to the default output
* @link http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/wp_title
*
* @package WPFA_WP_Title
* @since 0.1
* @link https://gist.github.com/1410493
*/
if ( ! function_exists( 'wpfa_wp_title' ) ) {
    function wpfa_wp_title() {
            global $page, $paged;
            // Default title
            $title_text = wp_title( '|', false, 'right' ) . get_bloginfo( 'name' );

            // Add the blog description (tagline) for the home/front page.
            $site_tagline = get_bloginfo( 'description', 'display' );
            if ( $site_tagline && ( is_home() || is_front_page() ) )
                $title_text .= " | $site_tagline";

            // Add a page number if necessary:
            if ( $paged >= 2 || $page >= 2 )
                $title_text .= ' | ' . sprintf( __( 'Page %s', 'wpfa-wp-title-textdomain' ), max( $paged, $page ) );

            // Use `apply_filters` on `wp_title` and echo
            $wpfa_wp_title = apply_filters( 'wp_title', $title_text );
            echo $wpfa_wp_title;
    }
}
// End WPFA WP Title
?>

Hopefully this will be useful, or maybe it will not … but it will be found in the next release of Desk Mess Mirrored as that is the theme where I first wrote and tested it with.

Enjoy!

As I was recently updating some of my plugins in preparation for WordPress 3.3 I decided to better implement the style elements being used in these plugins. The current best-practice methods point to using the `wp_enqueue_scripts` hook with the `wp_enqueue_styles` function. Let’s get our eyes on a snippet for this:

function WPFA_Styles() {
        wp_enqueue_style( 'WPFA-Plugin-Style', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-style.css', array(), '0.1', 'screen' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'WPFA_Styles' );

We create a function to enqueue our stylesheet; then we use `add_action` to hook into `wp_enqueue_scripts` and we’re done … or are we?

What if we wanted to let the end-user add their own styles to the plugin CSS elements but not have them over-written with the next plugin update? Easy, just add another `wp_enqueue_style` into the `WP_Styles` function like this:

function WPFA_Styles() {
        wp_enqueue_style( 'WPFA-Plugin-Style', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-style.css', array(), '0.1', 'screen' );
        wp_enqueue_style( 'WPFA-Plugin-Custom-Style', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-custom-style.css', array(), '0.1', 'screen' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'WPFA_Styles' );

This is fine, but what if the custom stylesheet does not exist? Although it will not cause any significant issues there is no reason to actually enqueue a file that does not exist. The solution to this is straight forward as well, just check if the file is available to be used … but how?

Let’s look at the complete example to see where I add the `is_readable` conditional check:

/**
 * Enqueue Plugin Styles
 *
 * Adds plugin stylesheet and allows for additional custom stylesheet to be added by end-user. Custom stylesheet is only enqueued if it is available to be used.
 *
 * @package     WPFA_Styles
 * @link        http://wpfirstaid.com/2011/11/enqueue-plugin-custom-stylesheet/
 * @version     0.1
 * @author      Edward Caissie <thedoctor@wpfirstaid.com>
 * @copyright   Copyright (c) 2010-2011, Edward Caissie
 *
 * @internal    Note: all stylesheets enqueued in this manner are expected to be in the root folder of the plugin.
 */
function WPFA_Styles() {
        /** Enqueue Style Sheets */
        wp_enqueue_style( 'WPFA-Plugin-Style', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-style.css', array(), '0.1', 'screen' );
        // Only enqueue if available
        if ( is_readable( plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-custom-style.css' ) ) {
            wp_enqueue_style( 'WPFA-Plugin-Custom-Style', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'wpfa-plugin-custom-style.css', array(), '0.1', 'screen' );
        }
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'WPFA_Styles' );

Note the use of `plugin_dir_path` in the conditional check, this is key as the `is_readable` function requires the path and will not work using the URL.

This may appear as a Mallory-Everest idea, but there have been use-cases where an additional custom stylesheet solved the issues at hand. Hopefully this will be of use to you.

Although I have complete confidence in the stability of the beta versions I would still only suggest / recommend this practice to those with a reasonable knowledge of PHP and the ability to recover from any potential catastrophic disaster (read: BACK-UP everything first!!!).

Here are the basics, as each version changes these may not be exactly the same but should still serve as a general guideline:

1. Back up your WordPress installation (all of it).
2. Using your preferred text editor, open the /wp-includes/version.php file in core to edit.
3. Find and change $wp_version to a ‘point value’ greater than the current version, for example: 3.3-alpha.
4. Go to your the Administration Panels (“Dashboard”) of your WordPress installation.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the “stay updated” link in the bottom-right corner. (Refresh the page if the link is not there.)
6. Follow any additional prompts, such as updating the database, etc.

You should now be running the latest version of ‘trunk’.

Of course there is a widely used plugin (WordPress Beta Tester) by Westi that does most if not all of the above for you … I just like to do this manually.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

If you do not want to display this text it is actually very easy to do. It can be done with a line of CSS or a minor edit to the theme in question. The following is based on using the comment_form function in its default state:

<?php comment_form(); ?>

To hide the message above with CSS, add one of the following to the end of your style.css file:

p.form-allowed-tags { display: none; }

p.form-allowed-tags { visibility: hidden; }

Using the display property “removes” the block of text whereas using the visibility property simply “hides” the text leaving the block being filled with nothing. Which method is best will be more due to aesthetics than anything else.

If you want to edit your theme files, look into the comments.php template file (again a standard default naming convention, your theme may vary), and find the default code noted above and change it to the following:

<?php comment_form( 'comment_notes_after=' ); ?>

Always remember, any edits you make to the theme may be over-written with the theme’s next update … always back-up your work.

The function itself can be found in all the themes currently available from Cais at BuyNowShop.com via the WordPress Extend Themes repository. There have been a few minor changes to the function since it was introduced; and, it is just recently undergoing much more dramatic changes.

That being the case, I thought this would be a great opportunity to revisit the function and discuss what has changed since the last time I wrote about it here.

// Start BNS Dynamic Copyright
if ( ! function_exists( 'bns_dynamic_copyright' ) ) {
  function bns_dynamic_copyright( $args = '' ) {
      $initialize_values = array( 'start' => '', 'copy_years' => '', 'url' => '', 'end' => '' );
      $args = wp_parse_args( $args, $initialize_values );

      /* Initialize the output variable to empty */
      $output = '';

      /* Start common copyright notice */
      empty( $args['start'] ) ? $output .= sprintf( __('Copyright') ) : $output .= $args['start'];

      /* Calculate Copyright Years; and, prefix with Copyright Symbol */
      if ( empty( $args['copy_years'] ) ) {
        /* Get all posts */
        $all_posts = get_posts( 'post_status=publish&order=ASC' );
        /* Get first post */
        $first_post = $all_posts[0];
        /* Get date of first post */
        $first_date = $first_post->post_date_gmt;

        /* First post year versus current year */
        $first_year = substr( $first_date, 0, 4 );
        if ( $first_year == '' ) {
          $first_year = date( 'Y' );
        }

      /* Add to output string */
        if ( $first_year == date( 'Y' ) ) {
        /* Only use current year if no posts in previous years */
          $output .= ' © ' . date( 'Y' );
        } else {
          $output .= ' © ' . $first_year . "-" . date( 'Y' );
        }
      } else {
        $output .= ' © ' . $args['copy_years'];
      }

      /* Create URL to link back to home of website */
      empty( $args['url'] ) ? $output .= ' <a href="' . home_url( '/' ) . '" title="' . esc_attr( get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) ) . '" rel="home">' . get_bloginfo( 'name', 'display' ) .'</a>  ' : $output .= ' ' . $args['url'];

      /* End common copyright notice */
      empty( $args['end'] ) ? $output .= ' ' . sprintf( __('All rights reserved.') ) : $output .= ' ' . $args['end'];

      /* Construct and sprintf the copyright notice */
      $output = sprintf( __('<span id="bns-dynamic-copyright"> %1$s </span><!-- #bns-dynamic-copyright -->'), $output );
      $output = apply_filters( 'bns_dynamic_copyright', $output, $args );

      echo $output;
  }
}
// End BNS Dynamic Copyright

What’s changed:

1. A `function_exists` conditional check has been added
2. Better internationalization string formating has been applied.
3. Default arguments have been set to generate a common notice.
4. The `apply_filters` function has been implemented to allow for easier customization.

Also to note, the defaults are now written slightly different than the orginal generated copyright notice structure. The following are the current defaults:

• ‘start’ => “Copyright”
• ‘copy_years’ => the copyright symbol + the dynamically generated years with published posts
• ‘url’ => points to the top level domain with the web site title as anchor text
• ‘end’ => “All Rights Reserved.”

All of these paramters are now easily customized using the common WordPress structure, for example:

bns_dynamic_copyright( 'start=Mine, All Mine!&end=This means you, scrapers!' );

… would produce the following for this site (as of this writing):

Mine, All Mine! © 2009-2011 WP First Aid This means you, scrapers!

Of course, the above may not be appropriate for your own website … or maybe it is.

All the same, feel free to implement this updated function; and, don’t forget to look for it in the next releases of themes from BuyNowShop.com

Enjoy!

There are three basic steps to a reset:

1. Drop all the database tables in the WordPress database.
2. Re-install WordPress.
3. Add test data.

That was easy!

Now, let’s go into some more details.

In step 1. above I wrote “Drop all the database tables in the WordPress database”; this is easily accomplished via a straight forward MySQL command:

DROP TABLE `wp_commentmeta`, `wp_comments`, `wp_links`, `wp_options`, `wp_postmeta`, `wp_posts`, `wp_terms`, `wp_term_relationships`, `wp_term_taxonomy`, `wp_usermeta`, `wp_users`;

… or you can use the commonly found phpMyAdmin application if your hosting service provides it via your control panel. Be very careful with this step as it is non-recoverable unless you have a proper backup; all of your existing test site data (posts, pages, etc.) will be lost.

In step 2. above, you simply go to your test site. Follow the prompts to install WordPress. All of the files are still there, the installation just needs to be re-initialized.

Step 3. above can be accomplished in many ways, I would suggest simply importing the Theme Unit Test data as provided by WordPress.

Just follow the link; right-click; and, choose “Save … As…” Different browsers have different terms for this function but it should be clear which one to choose. For example, Firefox uses “Save Link As…”; Chrome uses “Save link as…”; and, Internet Explorer uses “Save Target As…” If you are importing your test data simply go to the Administration Panels and under Tools choose Import. If you have been through this process before it will be quite simple and proceed quickly. If you have not imported data into this site you will be prompted to install the WordPress Importer. Just follow the on-screen prompts in either case.

These are some additional optional actions you will most likely find very beneficial as well:

• Remove the initial default posts that WordPress creates during the installation process.
• Re-activate/install these test plugins:
  • Theme Check
  • Log Deprecated Notices
  • Debug Bar (requires WordPress 3.1+)^{1, 2}
  • BNS Support
  • BNS Login
• Modify your test site default theme to include all the new WordPress 3.1 Post Formats
  • For example, change line 81 in functions.php of  Twenty Ten to:

    add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'gallery', 'link', 'image', 'quote', 'status', 'video', 'audio', 'chat' ) );

  • Update the Theme Unit Test posts as neeeded

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/search.php?q=Christmas

Of course, the plugin authors have their own merry making to add to the season as well and you can find a listing of the Extend Plugins repository with this little search:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=Christmas

Don’t forget to use the “Sort by” function on the search pages to arrange the results to your preference.

Installing WordPress is a snap, and most Web hosts now offer one-click installation that lets even non-technical users get up and running very quickly with their new site. Using pre-existing WordPress themes and widgets enables you to assemble your site piece by piece through a drag-and-drop interface, with the end result being a slick new site that not only looks professionally-designed but also allows you to easily add new content and pages using just a Web browser.

WordPress also has a few cards up its sleeve for anyone using it to build poker sites, as its easier than ever to incorporate a wide range of features and functionality, far past simply adding pages for a PokerStars review or listing available poker bonuses. Developed by the same minds behind WordPress, BuddyPress is similar open-source software that enables site owners to add social networking features to their sites.

Since poker is at heart a social game, creating a pokersite with social networking features such as chat, messaging, and individual blogs for members can be a no-brainer, as it lets poker fans come together in a community setting and share their love of the game. It’s also a snap to install plugins that let users share their favorite hands (with graphics for cards), post the worst bad beat they’ve taken at the tables, and vote on polls and quizzes about what the best way to play certain hands in different situations.

By using all of the WordPress options available to you, a poker website that in the past might have cost thousands of dollars to develop and weeks or months to implement can be created for free, in just a day or two, with no real technical expertise needed. This is great news for both site owners and poker fans, as it means that more and more great poker sites will be created and developed over time.

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