Wordpress
Wordpress is the software I use for this and several other sites. It’s traditionally considered blogging software, but can be used as CMS (Content Management Software) as well. It’s a powerful platform with a wide variety of publicly available themes and extensions to extend functionality. It’s also dead-easy to use and it makes it very easy to add content to your sites (as the thousands of posts/pages here are testament to.)
I’ll use this page to get a round up of wordpress related links (main site/forums/themes/plugins).
For starters, you can download and install wordpress yourself from Wordpress.org.
Do you want to create wordpress templates? Then you might be interested in Artisteer. It can be used to create wordpress templates.
Calendar Plugin - this displays a calendar on a page and let’s you insert events through the admin panel.
On wordpress.com they’ve integrated the polldaddy plugin to all wordpress.com blogs which enables you to add polls and surveys from polldaddy.com (looks pretty nice as polls go.)
I’ve never been big on web site based polls of course, mainly because if it’s a poll on a controversial topic people can easily game it and tell all their friends to go and vote, but…. that can have it’s advantages too…. (traffic.)
Here’s one that took me a bit of searching: I wanted to have a page with a slightly different template file. I copied the file to a new name and made the changes to the template and thought that would be enough, but it wasn’t. It still didn’t show up in my drop down list of templates in the page editing screen. So, I found this:
After you’ve done all that, go to the very top of the bio.php page and insert the following code above the call for the header:
<?php
/*
Template Name: Bio
*/
?>Once you get this code at the top of the template, save your file and upload it to your server.
From this site.
Wordpress Plugins
About the same time I was looking to replace the built in wordpress search with Google’s custom search.
I found this good guide. That guide suggests the mightysearch plugin. Essentially I made a new page for the search results (stripped out contextual ads to make room for googles “stuff”.) I also put the search box code from google in the searchform “page” in my template. I then installed and configured mightsearch. (You need to add the search box and results form script to the correct place.) Then you can insert it easily in your template with the following:
<!–-mightysearch–-> - to call both search form and search result on the page <!–-mightysearch_form–-> - to call only search form on the page < !–mightysearch_result–> - to call only search result on the page
(There should be two hyphens before and after mightsearch in each of the above.)
I’ve also found a great List subpages plugin. It’s called Xavins List Subpages. I don’t know why, but many theme editors seem to devalue pages. I love the pages because they exist outside the date based post hierarchy and I feel like they have better visibility. I say many theme makers devalue pages because they’ll give enough space in their template for 3 or 4 pages without breaking the theme and requiring a bit of surgery or they’ll limit it to only viewing one level of pages. My problem with that has always been how people can find the sub pages.
So… what this plugin does for you is it let’s you put a left bracket xls and right bracket in any page and it will automatically generate a list of sub-pages. This is a great timesaver for me because I have many pages with many subpages and each time I create a new sub-page I have to go back and add a link in to the parent page. This will do it automatically even if you forget which is nice. I still like to get a link in the context of a paragraph in the parent page, or at least write out a description, but this way I can filter the page list to one or two levels deep and then won’t have an orphaned page in my layout. (As long as I remember to insert the subpage code in each page.) It is also possible to use code in the template to do the same thing, but I prefer it in the page content show that its more easily found.
Along the same lines, here is the homepage of the plugins author with more detail on the subpage plugin. Also, more info on the wp_list_pages function in wordpress. The sub pages plugin supports all of the options of wp_list_pages with one additional option.
“wordpress” - Google News
Microsoft squeezes out Oxite 'open source' blogger platform - Register
 CNET News |
Microsoft squeezes out Oxite 'open source' blogger platform
Register, UK - … the platform - which sounds like a spotty teen's best friend to us - will compete with the likes of market big boys Wordpress and Google’s Blogger. … Microsoft launches open-source blogging platform |
Be Your Own BOSS with Quintura Site Search - Marketing Pilgrim
 Marketing Pilgrim |
Be Your Own BOSS with Quintura Site Search
Marketing Pilgrim, NC - … I was pretty excited to see how it might improve on the limited (reverse chronological only) search results of the default WordPress search engine. … |
Microsoft's New Open Source Web CMS - CMSWire
 CMSWire |
Microsoft's New Open Source Web CMS
CMSWire, CA - J.Boye likens Oxite to WordPress, which itself is moving from being just a blogging engine to a powerful website platform. Now to be honest, … Microsoft Releases Open Source Blogging Platform |
WordPress Plugin Pack: Real Estate - Technosailor
 Technosailor |
WordPress Plugin Pack: Real Estate
Technosailor, MD - by Aaron Brazell on December 8, 2008 · 0 comments We continue our WordPress plugin pack series that we started yesterday with the Photography pack, … |
Wordpress could face serious competition - from Microsoft - The Inquisitr
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Wordpress could face serious competition - from Microsoft
The Inquisitr, Australia - Now before you begin laughing your asses off at me take a deep breath and get your Wordpress love back where it belongs. Calmed down? … |
LinkedIn's New Free Apps, Part Two - ITworld.com
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LinkedIn's New Free Apps, Part Two
ITworld.com, MA - It allows you to upload a variety of blogs based on the major platforms, including Movable Type, Vox, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal, … |
WordPress 2.7 now on WordPress.com, nearing standalone release - Ars Technica
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WordPress 2.7 now on WordPress.com, nearing standalone release
Ars Technica, MA - By Dave Moyer | Published: December 07, 2008 - 11:00PM CT As we've covered previously on Open Ended, the newest version of the open source WordPress content … |
WordPress Plugin Pack: Photography - Technosailor
Technosailor |
WordPress Plugin Pack: Photography
Technosailor, MD - by Aaron Brazell on December 7, 2008 · 0 comments Every day, I get emails, IMs and other questions asking me “What plugins do I have to have in WordPress? … |
WordPress 2.7 arrives tonight - CNET News
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WordPress 2.7 arrives tonight
CNET News, CA - Web based blogging tool WordPress.com is getting a big update in a few hours with the release of version 2.7. The update is going out to all WordPress.com … WordPress 2.7 - 20 Must See Features |
Neotrope Launches WordPress News Feeds Plug-in - MarketWatch
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Neotrope Launches WordPress News Feeds Plug-in
MarketWatch - 1st a free news feed plug-in for WordPress, the popular blog and CMS application. The plug-in allows a business site, content portal, or blogger running … |
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