Tag Archives: Wordpress

A client recently asked what they could do to make the content in their sidebar column match their main content column.

The short answer is: it’s not easily user-editable, but it can be done.

WordPress works by using “theme files” to construct a web page ‘on the fly’. The content of the page is stored in a database, but the design of the page is stored in theme files. While WordPress only requires two theme files (index.php and style.css), most WordPress web sites use at least six files. The main theme files are as follows:

• header.php – contains information for the header
• index.php, front-page.php, page.php, or single.php – calls the header and footer; contains instructions for the middle part of the page
• footer.php – contains information for the footer
• sidebar.php – contains instructions for the sidebar

In this client’s particular design, the header and footers go all the way across the page and the middle content area is split into two columns. The sidebar is a column that goes all the way from the top, just under the header, to the bottom, just above the footer. The other column is where the post or page content goes. Whichever column’s side has more content will determine how long the page is. The sidebar only appears when it’s ‘called’ to appear. Each page you see could be a different type of page. Page types are as follows:

• Front page – what the home page looks like (front-page.php)
• Page page – what a Page looks like (page.php)
• Post page – what a Post looks like (single.php)
• Category page – what a Category view of Posts looks like (index.php, category.php, or archive.php)

For example, the front-page.php theme file controls the home page and it doesn’t call the sidebar. There are other types of theme files like search.php for searches, but this is a short list.  There are also more specific theme files that can be created based on a page name. For example, I could create a theme file called “page-health-benefits.php” for the Health Benefits page and I could code it to look completely different if I wanted to. I could also call a different header, footer, or sidebar, for example.

Here are some options for when columns don’t match up in your WordPress design layout:

• Stop using the sidebar - You can eliminate the problem by only having a one-column layout.
• Page-specific theme file(s) - I can code a theme file specific for the Health Benefits page which would show a different sidebar altogether or none at all.
• Page Continuation / Pagination Code - to make the sidebar area never have white space at the end, I could code in a ‘page continuation code’ so that when the content gets to a certain length, it paginates to a ‘page 2′.
• Manually Code in Scenarios to the Sidebar: I can code in scenarios that say, “If the page is Health Benefits, then display more content in the sidebar”. This would not be something you could easily edit.

Summary

It’s not uncommon for sidebars to have more or less content than it’s corresponding column. Dynamic changes to column length are possible through custom coding. Custom coding makes the site harder to keep updated in the future, but that’s not really your problem unless you’re doing it yourself. If it really bothers you, go to a single-column layout. If you can’t get over that extra white space, contact us. We are an Indianapolis web design firm that makes custom WordPress websites.

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Q. I am getting an error with most of my plugins in WordPress. How do I fix it?

A. Disable the plugins one by one until the error goes away. Once it does, note the last plugin you disabled and you’ll have you’re culprit. If that doesn’t do it, change the theme back to default and test again. In this way you’ll rule out whether it’s a plugin or the theme doing it.

Q. How do I make my website more popular?

A. First, write content that people care about and then let people know about it. You can find out what people care about using Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, and Google External Keyword Tool. Sign up for Twitter and Google+ to post things that you have written on your site. This is part of a good content marketing and SEO strategy.

Q. How do I change the order of displayed items on a page?

WordPress defaults to displaying posts in the order of which they were posted (latest first). The easiest way is to change the date/time in which they were posted. To do this, go to the post and click Edit, then change the time so that posts are in the time order you want them.

Q. Can I install WordPress in a sub-directory or a sub-domain?

A. You can set it up inside a folder or sub-domain, but you have to create a SQL database first or (if your web host provides it) use a one-click install. Bluehost and Dreamhost both have one-click installs. Otherwise you’ll have to set up your own SQL database and upload the WordPress files manually.

Q. How to post a new page in WordPress?

A. In your dashboard, go to Pages and click, “New Page”. It may or may not display in your navigation automatically, depending on your theme.

Q. Where is the image folder in WordPress?

A. The image folder is usually a sub-directory of your theme folder, which is located under your wp-content folder. To get to your wp-content/[theme name]/images folder, you’ll either need to use a FTP client or login to your host’s web FTP panel to change the image. You can also use WordPress itself to make the change by uploading the picture to the Media directory, copying the location, and then editing the Stylesheet.css in the Theme editor.

Q. What are some good WordPress themes for businesses?

Businesses can benefit from having a custom WordPress theme created for their website. This will help them match their website to their brand and better differentiate them in the market. Watershawl specializes in creating WordPress website designs for small businesses in the Indianapolis area.

If you need Indianapolis WordPress hosting, web design, configuration, and support, Watershawl is your cloud computing expert web design and Google App implementation shop.

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I realize we just updated our logo a couple of months ago, but consider that an iteration on the way to the final product, which you can see here. The last logo was a circle of blue around an empty center, with a cutout at the bottom. It was meant to symbolize a ring of water encircling the customer, but some people just didn’t get it or thought it looked like an unfinished life preserver.

Our new logo essentially means the same thing as the old logo: it’s a water shawl surrounding the customer representing the suite of services we provide. But one peculiar thing happened once the new logo was created. I was on my way to Lafayette to visit a networking meeting and I realized that the “water shawl” could also represent a “cloud”. It was if a light bulb went off and I didn’t know how I had missed it before. Watershawl was a cloud consulting firm that specialized in WordPress web design and Google Apps integrations.

What is Watershawl?

Watershawl has helped small businesses around Indiana build cloud-powered, WordPress web sites; and cloud-based email, document, and sales management. Watershawl provides cloud technology consulting to help small businesses do more with cloud applications and platforms like WordPress, Google Apps, and Salesforce.com. Our services range from cloud marketing to cloud migration to cloud management. Cloud technology helps small businesses market their business, reduce spam, and be more productive all at a lower price point than traditional software.

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After reading what Fusion Alliance wrote about Information Security and writing what I did about WordPress Security, I thought I’d write a bit more about how we keep our client’s WordPress web sites secure here at Watershawl.

WordPress Updates

WordPress is updated regularly to address new security issues that may arise so we’re always updating our client’s to the latest version to keep them secure. Since version 2.7, WordPress has featured automatic updates and the WordPress Dashboard lets us know when the updates are available.

WordPress Plugins

One of the most common attacks against a WordPress web site is HTTP exploit payloads for specific vulnerabilities in outdated plugins. Plugins are add-on software that runs on top of WordPress. Think of WordPress as the operating system and plugins as the programs. If you’re not using a plugin, delete it from the system.

WordPress Themes

If your WordPress theme uses custom scripts to render thumbnails or other images they might be susceptible to being exploited. This happened to one of our web hosting clients who purchased a theme they were using on their WordPress web site. A hacker exploited the vulnerability and used our server to begin sending out spam before it was stopped.

Secure FTP (SFTP)

We use secure FTP (SFTP) to transmit files, which means we protect our server passwords while transmitting your files on the Internet. If you’re still using regular FTP, you’re sending your password via plain-text over the Internet, which is like using a post card to send your credit card information to someone.

WordPress Backups

In the event that all of these security steps still lead to a problem with our client’s site, we make local backups of all of our client’s sites and because we use two web hosts for our web hosting, we can restore those backups on another web host in order to keep your web site up in the event of a problem.

If you’re looking for an experienced WordPress web designer and WordPress web host in the Indianapolis area, contact Watershawl at 317-572-7521.

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If you’re using WP e-Commerce to turn your WordPress website into an online shopping cart, you may have ran into a Paypal error that says, “Error Detected, Your shopping cart is empty.”

This can happen when you’re trying to pass a required field like “Name” over to Paypal, but it’s blank. Why would it be blank? Because one of the fields in the Product page that Paypal needs to process the order is empty. It can happen when you start to add variations to an item, but you don’t name the variations.

You need to put in a name in the “Name” field under the “Variations” under each product in the Dashboard. Once you do that, that Name is what is sent to Paypal during the checkout process. It doesn’t work without that.

You can tell which product have variations by looking at the “Stock” category in the Dashboard > Product page. If the variations are turned on, it will show “0~”, other wise it will show “NA”. Once you go in to edit an individual product, you’ll see a “Variations” module. If the “Sizes” is checked, the “Name” field has to be filled in for it to work.

All products with variations need the name field filled in, in order to pass that name to Paypal.

If this doesn’t fix your problem, try one of these references instead:

http://getshopped.org/forums/topic/paypal-standard-2/
http://gallery.menalto.com/node/91326
http://getshopped.org/forums/topic/paypal-shopping-cart-is-empty-error-detected/
http://quirm.net/forum/topic.php?id=4376
http://www.webassist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19706
http://getshopped.org/forums/topic/paypal-error-detected-your-shopping-cart-is-empty/

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WordPress Scheduling and Online Estimators

Our Noblesville carpet cleaning client wanted a way to keep track of appointments and allow clients to schedule and possibly even pay on his website. His site runs on WordPress so we looked into a WordPress plugin for a calendar that we’ve used before successfully, however it has to be updated manually and doesn’t interact with other estimator scripts or even with Google Calendar. The All-in-One Event Calendar allows you to import a Google Calendar, but it didn’t meet all of his needs. The Appointy Scheduler said that it can 2-way sync with Google Calendar (meaning that if someone makes an appointment online, it can sync to your phone); allows someone to book an appointment; will send them an SMS alert prior to the appointment; and allows you to accept pre-payments. That sounded like what he was looking for, but it didn’t have an estimator. The WebReserv plugin and Booking Bug are other options similar to the Appointy Scheduler.

When we looked into a WordPress price estimator we only found the Thickthumb Price Calc, but it’s not very built out. To get a custom estimator script built, it meant hiring a programmer to make it for him as that’s not something we do, but we expected to pay around $200 for this based on what we saw at Freelancer. However, there is a estimator script that can be bought for $30 and customized here. Knowing all of this, it makes the WordPress Calculator plugin look quite reasonable and maybe the best bet.

Other Online Service Scheduling Software

The simple ability to schedule online is a something you can get for free from  Schedulicity. CEO, Jerry Nettuno, said ”We learned it’s not really the calendar. Anybody can have an online calendar. For a service-based business, the relationship with customers is much different than in other types of businesses. Giving them the tools to manage that relationship is where things get interesting.”

Marc Woodward, vice president of marketing for GenBook, concurs. “The sophistication of the average small business user demands a rich feature base,” he says. For example, “It has to be real-time. Can a customer schedule an appointment and get instant confirmation? They don’t want to wait to hear back or be presented with three choices. We’ve heard anecdotes of customers standing in front of the salon, wondering, ‘Can I get my hair cut now? Can I get a massage now?’”

In fact, Melody McCloskey, CEO of StyleSeat, says her service for beauty and wellness professionals is “a platform for people to run their entire business on, from maintaining a website to building word of mouth and retaining clients.”

For web design service and WordPress setup and configuration in the Indianapolis area, consider Watershawl Web Design and Technology Consulting where we make the web work better for you.

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This WordPress guide is intended to be a primer for WordPress beginners learning how to login and post a page or a post for the first time. It’s not meant to be an guide on how to use WordPress in general.

How to Login to Your WordPress Website

In order to edit your website using WordPress, you will first need to login. You can do that by going to http://[yourdomain.com]/wp-admin. You’ll need to enter your username and password provided to you by your web designer or host.

If you get it wrong, don’t worry about locking yourself out like you can on some other websites. Unless there is a specific plugin (an add-on piece of software for WordPress installed by your web designer), you won’t get locked out.

How to Navigate the WordPress Dashboard

Once you login, you will see your dashboard. From there you can click on “Posts” to view current posts or “Add New” to add a new post. A post is just a term for a specific type of web page within the content management system. It is different from a “Page” for example. Media is where pictures you have uploaded can be managed. Comments (if enabled) can be approved, deleted, or replied to from the “Comments” link. “Profile” is where you can change your password.

How to Write a Post

Under the “Posts” heading on the left navigation, click on “Add New”. You can type your post just as you would in any other advanced text editor like Microsoft Word. There is even a button with many smaller boxes in it which opens up more editing options like the ability to change text color and underline. Its the second icon from the right in the editing toolbar.

To add a picture or music, use the “Upload / Insert” menu just above the editing toolbar. The box-in-a-box icon opens a window which allows you to select files. To add or edit a link, highlight the word or phrase, then click the chain-link icon in the menu. You’ll have the option to type or paste a link in or link to existing content on your site by clicking “Or link to existing content”.

How to Add an Image to a Post

click the camera icon above the editing box. When the box comes up, upload the image, fill in the options, and click “Add to Post”. Options like left, right, and center will do that to the image relative to the text.

Click “Select Files” then choose options for the picture. You can add a title, a link, or a caption as well as left, right, or center the picture. These settings can be changed at any time so if you’re not sure, just go with the default. Once the picture is in your post, if you don’t like it, hover over it and click the properties button to change options.

How to Publish or Update a Post

Once you are satisfied with the way your post looks, click “Publish”. Once you do this, it becomes live on your website. To preview it first, click “Preview”. When you are done, simply log out or close your browser. If you’ve already published and are just editing, the button will say “Update” instead. This button saves your changes.

Watershawl is an Indianapolis-based SEO web design company specializing in converting static HTML web sites into dynamic, easily editable web sites with blogging functionality using WordPress. Contact us with your fears and your problems and we’ll see if we’re a right fit for you.

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This is a cool WordPress charting tool to visualize your WordPress posts by category into an auto-updating chart. It works by querying WordPress for its posts counts and then using the Google API for creating charts to create and display an image. The JPG that is returned is actually stored on Google’s servers, but displayed on whatever post or page you add it to. The plugin currently uses a shortcode (category-chart) to display and doesn’t work in the sidebar, nor does it have a widget. And if you want to change the charts title, width, and height, you’re going to have to manually edit the one PHP file it uses to run. It’s simple enough to figure out where to make changes, but here is what the pie chart looks like by default:

Thanks to Elvin Haci for making this neat WordPress post charting plugin.

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Watershawl is a WordPress implementation shop serving the greater Indianapolis area. We specialize in developing web sites for WordPress using professional web design techniques. WordPress is an open source, fully supported content management system (CMS) that was originally developed for blogs, but can be used for almost anything. We chose WordPress because it allows our clients to manage their own content if they so choose, not to mention all the built-in functionality like search and RSS.

Another one of WordPress’ greatest features is the ability to add software called plug-ins that add functionality for SEO, web forms, or social media, just to name a few examples. And for those who stay up at night worrying, WordPress has backup tools and we at Watershawl use international web port monitoring to make sure your web site is up at all times.

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HHS Services, also known as Home Handyman Specialists, specializes in Electrical, Plumbing, and Remodeling projects around Carmel, Fishers, and Noblesville, Indiana areas. They contracted with our 3×300 Sale and as part of that package we revamped their web site, added social media buttons, and their first of many videos. This site uses a custom WordPress theme with widgets and customized menus. We are currently maintaining HHS’ social media management for them to allow them to focus on what they do best – electrical, plumbing, and remodeling work around Central Indiana.

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