Anyhow, the reason for this post was to provide a handy bit of mySQL code when migrating your ClassiPress site to another domain.

While going through the demo site migration process, we had to change a bunch of legacy meta_values which have the image urls hardcoded in them so the thumbnail and ad images weren’t showing up. Instead of manually having to go through hundreds of records, it made more sense to write a custom sql query to handle the same change in a matter of seconds.

I wanted to share this just in case any of you plan on migrating one of your web sites to a different domain. Keep in mind, this sql query would only be necessary if you were previously using version 2.9.3 or earlier since 3.0+ doesn’t rely on the “images” meta field.

So you’ll need to login to your mySQL admin and go to your SQL tab. There you’ll want to paste in the following code (replace the oldsite.com and newsite.com of course first). You might even want to do a test run on one record first just to be safe.

UPDATE wp_postmeta
SET meta_value = replace(meta_value, 'oldsite.com', 'newsite.com')
WHERE meta_key = 'images'

After you run this query, all your oldsite.com’s will be replaced with your newsite.com’s!

So great, you write clean code with comments but how do you create a theme and what are the proper standards you should abide by? With WordPress being as popular as it is, you would think there would be hard and fast guidelines on how to develop and release a theme but surprisingly there isn’t much.  Yes, you can find lots of blog posts from people claiming their way is correct but for me, I’ve taken advice and ideas from all sorts of sites. Another great way is to reverse engineer an existing theme by some of the best themers out there today like WooThemes or StudioPress.

The WordPress Codex also provides a theme development article and now even a designing themes for public release article which indeed helps but it’s still the wild west when you are looking for a step-by-step guide to proper theming concepts.

As I continue to rewrite and rebuild ClassiPress, I try and not only improve the product but also decrease the steps it takes to install the theme. Currently there are several steps involved like creating a new page, assigning it a page template, then getting the page id and pasting it somewhere else to exclude it from showing in the nav. Lots of steps and it can lead to customer mistakes.

Not only will this new automation make it easier for new customers, but it will also cut down on support issues. You’d be surprised with the number of people who don’t read the installation guide and then wonder why their dashboard page gives them a 404 page not found.

New in v3.0, there will be a lot of install automation happening in the background when you click the “activate” theme link. Not only will new database tables get created, but pages and your blog will be setup and then the ClassiPress templates automatically associated to them. In addition, those new pages will be excluded from your navigation without having to manually track down the page id and paste it into a field.

Doing minor things behind the scenes on install might not seem like a huge deal but it dramatically helps those who aren’t good at reading instructions (or have the patience to read through it all) and it also improves customer satisfaction. Customers will be up and running much faster with less problems.

To fix this, go into “Settings” => “Sociable” and check the “Disable sprite usage for images?” box. Save and everything should now be all fixed. If you are using WP Super Cache, you might need to clear the cache first. Also some browsers might need to clear their cache as well (ctrl+ reload page).

This downloadable e-book is designed to help you jump-start your blog by giving you 31 tasks that will turn your blog into the powerhouse you’ve always dreamed of. The great thing about Darren’s e-book is that you can do it at your own pace and in your own way. Set a goal of reading a chapter a day and take notes. I usually dog ear and highlight the important pieces and come back to them later.

The workbook uses a great approach to teaching and is designed so that you come away from the challenge having not only learned how to build a dynamic blog but you’ll have actually done something with the knowledge. 31 Days to Build a Better Blog is for virtually bloggers at different stages of their blogging which includes:

• Those who have just started a blog but who don’t know what to do next
• Those who have had a blog for a while but it’s stalled in its growth
• Bloggers with bloggers block and lacking inspiration

I was actually in a Borders bookstore the other day and saw a published version on the shelf and couldn’t help but pick it up. I first started thumbing through the chapters but soon realized I was reading it word for word. The book was addicting and I learned some things which I apply to my blogging today.

The cost of this e-book is only $19.95 and there’s even a money back guarantee. Darren is one of the best known bloggers in the world. All of his works are top notch and his latest offering is no exception. If you want a better blog, you can have it in the next 31 days. Buy it today and you’ll be able to start reading it in minutes. Trust me, it pays for itself!

This feature will be in v2.9.3 but if you wanted to get a head start and use it now, you can easily add it to your site. Use at your own risk though. This code worked fine for me but your configuration might be different.

All you need to do is edit post-form.php and paste in the following code at the top.

<?php if ( get_option('filter_html') == "yes" ) { ?>
 
<script type="text/javascript" src="../wp-includes/js/tinymce/tiny_mce.js"></script>
<script type='text/javascript' src='../wp-includes/js/tinymce/langs/wp-langs-en.js?ver=3241-1141'></script>
 
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
tinyMCE.init({
mode : "exact",
theme : "advanced",
elements : "description",
theme_advanced_buttons1 : "bold,italic,underline,separator,strikethrough,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright, justifyfull,bullist,numlist,undo,redo,link,unlink",
theme_advanced_buttons2 : "",
theme_advanced_toolbar_location : "top",
theme_advanced_toolbar_align : "left",
languages : 'en',
disk_cache : true,
width : "395",
height : "200"
});
-->
</script>
 
<?php } ?>

You might need to change your .js paths or some of the parameters but this should work. I’ve set it up to use the existing tinyMCE code bundled with WordPress so you don’t need to download or install the core tinyMCE package.

If you get everything working properly, it should look like this:

Then try submitting a new ad and see how it works out. For examples and additional parameters you can add/remove, go visit the tinyMCE example page and have at it.

Don’t have a .po or .mo file for your theme or plugin yet? Follow these steps on how to generate your first WordPress .pot file. Another good article with resources about how to translate WordPress into your language is located here.

So what the heck are those .mo, .po, and .pot files anyhow and why are they included in my download?

Well, the files aren’t really important if English is your primary language but if you want to have WordPress, a WordPress theme, or even a plugin localized in your native language then those files are golden.

• .mo stands for Machine Object
• .po stands for Portable Object
• .pot stands for Portable Object Template

The file that you want is ideally a .po file since it’s the raw editable text scraped from the entire WordPress theme/plugin. The .mo file is the compiled export of the .po file which is used by WordPress.

Here are the steps to translate/localize a .po or .pot file into another language

1. Download a gettext file editor like poedit and install it.
2. Open the English .po file that came with your WordPress theme or plugin with poedit. If you only got a .pot, just rename it to .po and open it in poedit.
3. Now go through and translate all the text one line at a time in the bottom box.
4. Then “File” => “Save as” to your desktop or a folder on your computer. This will output a .po and .mo file.

As you can see from the screen shot below, the top part of the file contains the entire list of text that needs to be translated. Each line represents a place within the WordPress theme or plugin that stores the text. If you click on different lines, you’ll notice the section below displays that exact line of text. What’s even cooler is if you right click on any line, you’ll see a file name and line number like “comments.php line 121″. That is the exact place in the theme or plugin where this text is being used.

Now here’s where you need to pay attention. The blank box below that is where you will type in your translations. So in the screen shot I translated “Page not found” into Spanish by typing in the correct translation in the box below.

Important Note: Some text characters need to be converted into html entities otherwise they will not display correctly. A very common example is a word containing an apostrophe or single quote (‘) which needs to be replaced with ' — for example, Chloe O’Brian should be written as Chloe O'Brian. Kind of strange I know but that’s just how the parser works. For a complete list of html entities, visit W3Schools.

One other thing worth mentioning. PoEdit might give you an error related to “% comments” while you try to save the file (usually when you have a K preceding it like in German, “% Kommentare”). Usually if you just ignore the error, it will save fine. I will try and fix that comment translation issue in the next release.

After you start making updates, you’ll notice the upper right portion of the file will begin to fill in. Once you finish the translation (make sure to save often), you will have your final raw file.

Now that you’ve completed your translations, you can plug-in your file and see if it works. The .po file is your editable file which you can always load back up in poedit and update. The important file is the .mo file. This is what WordPress will use and if it’s for a new theme like ClassiPress, it needs to be placed in the /wp-content/themes/classipress directory.

I also forgot to mention that the naming of your .mo files is very important and must match the desired locale otherwise it won’t work. The naming convention is based on the language code (e.g. pt for Portuguese) followed by the country code (e.g. _BR for Brazil). So, the Brazilian Portuguese file would be called pt_BR.mo. See the complete list of language codes and country codes to find your exact locale.

You will also need to make a change to your WordPress wp-config.php file (located in your WP root directory) with the correct language codes like the example below. If you don’t have a WPLANG entry then create one.

define ('WPLANG', 'pt_BR');

Assuming you’ve made all these changes, you should now be able to reload your WordPress theme and see it in your native language! If it’s not working, chances are you didn’t use the correct naming conventions for your .mo file or in your wp-config.php file. If you see part of your site translated you either didn’t translate the entire .po file or the .po file wasn’t completely translated correctly in the first place.

So if you recently purchased ClassiPress and a language pack file (.mo) is not available for your native language, you should follow the steps above and create your own. ClassiPress is designed to work with virtually any language so just take the included .po file and translation away! Make sure to contact me and send over a copy so others can download your language pack. You will get full credit for the work and a link back to your site in return.

How to Update an Older .POT File

If you’ve previously translated an older version of ClassiPress and upgraded your site to the latest version of ClassiPress, you’ll notice the translation file no longer works correctly. This is due to the fact that the ClassiPress code has changed and the old .mo language file can no longer find the text locations.

Before I explain how to update your old language file to include the latest text to translate, I wanted to go behind the curtain and show you how it works. The .POT file is essentially a mapping of which text should be replaced in what file. It keeps track of this by file names and line numbers. When the ClassiPress code changes, it moves the line numbers so the .MO file can no longer find the original text to translate. To better understand what I’m talking about, open the .POT file with a text editor. You’ll see a bunch of readable lines that look like this:

#: 404.php:24
msgid “Whoops! Page Not Found.”
msgstr “Whoops! No se pudo encontrar la pagina.”

The first line tells the language processor what file (404.php) and line number (24) the text to be translated is located on. The “msgid” is the actual text that needs to be translated and the “msgstr” is the new translation (in this case, Spanish). Pretty easy once you understand how it works, huh?

Ok, so let’s talk about how to update your old ClassiPress.POT file.

1. First open your old existing translated .POT file (i.e. pr_PR.po) in POEdit. “File” => “Open”
2. Next you’ll need to compare it with the new .POT file. Do this by going to “Catalog” => “Update from POT file” and select your new .POT file.
3. Now PoEdit will show you what text is new and needs to be translated. It should also update any other changes that have been made.
4. After you have translated the new text, save the project and then it will create your new .MO file.
5. Overwrite your old .MO file in your /themes/classipress/ directory and look at your site.
6. Also make sure you’ve activated the latest version of the theme (the one that the new language file came with)

Now that should be it. Once you know how to work with existing .POT files, doing the updates can be really easy.

I must say, the bot engines out there today are pretty damn smart. They have figured out a way to automate and bypass both of these security measures so they can post spammy links to their products or just be a nuisance. Luckily the spammy forum posts haven’t been porn…at least not yet.

So today I finally got fed up with having to delete spam posts and ban users and installed a great phpBB3 mod. It’s called Anti-Bot Question and it does a great job beating the spam bots. As with any mod, it takes some time to set everything up (it took me about 1 hour total) but so far it’s blocked everything. Since the phpBB spam robot scripts know the exact order and number of fields on the registration page, this new field throws them off. They also don’t know how to answer the question so they are stopped dead in their tracks. Here’s the final result.

This mod basically adds a new field on registration where you can create any question/answer combo you want. In my case I used the basic “Is fire hot or cold?” question but you can use whatever you like. You set this question up on the “General” => “User Registration Setting” page at the bottom.

If you aren’t familiar with installing phpBB mods, then listen up. Most of them come with a .xml file which contain the instructions. Just open it up locally in your web browser and follow the steps. For this mod you will need database and ftp access. You will have to run a simple mySQL query that inserts new values into the config table and also edit 3-5 phpBB3 files.

After you make the updates, it usually won’t show up until you clear your cache. So on your “General” page, click the “run now” button for the “purge the cache” option.  Remember to make sure you backup your files before doing this mod and read the directions carefully!

It’s also worth noting that applying mods to your forum will probably get blown away when it comes time to upgrade phpBB. I recommend bookmarking the sites of any mods you make as well as adding comments to the code you update. That way when it comes time to upgrade phpBB, you’ll remember exactly what you changed the first time and can do it again with ease.

For those of you who wonder why I decided to use phpBB, check out this forum post I wrote explaining my reasoning. I also recommend checking out a great site called Forum Matrix which lets you compare dozens of different forum solutions side-by-side.

ClassiPress uses the standard WordPress function wp_list_categories which allows you to pass certain parameters into it and alter the results. All of the parameters have certain default values if you don’t pass anything into the function it just uses the defaults.

For example, in the index.php file do a search for wp_list_categories and you’ll find something like this:

wp_list_categories('show_count=0&title_li=&depth=1');

As you can see it is passing in three different parameters which basically says:

• show_count=0 – Don’t show the category count ( i.e. Shoes (3) )
• title_li= – Don’t show the default header (i.e. Categories) which is equal to nothing on purpose
• depth=1 – Only show the first level of categories. If you change this to 2 or 3, it will show you sub categories

These are only three out of 15+ parameters you can set to achive different settings. So, if you wanted to remove all empty categories from the list, you would add the following parameter to the string –> hide_empty=0. See the example below as to how you would add it to the existing function call.

wp_list_categories('show_count=0&title_li=&depth=1&hide_empty=0');

Pretty easy huh? You should play around with the other parameters and see how they affect your category listing. The WordPress codex (their tech docs) provides some great examples and is a good place to start learning how WordPress works under the covers.