In my search to create a fully functional shopping cart application I found the WP-eCommerce Plugin for WordPress. This plugin handles orders, works with most every payment service, handles shipping, inventory, etc!
The only thing people don’t like is that it isn’t easy to make a custom shopping cart with WP-eCommerce. So, in this tutorial I’ll show you how to make a Custom WordPress Shopping Cart.
I received many requests recently on how to display related posts on a WordPress site. The code I present in the video below will grab as many related posts as you want and display them in your WordPress post.
The code grabs related posts based off of them being in the same category. It will also work if you have a post in multiple categories.
I could have picked the related posts based off of tags, but I thought categories made more sense.
I continue fixing up the wp_nav_menu and the rest of my style.css code from my previous tutorial Creating a WordPress Theme.
I’ve received numerous requests to walk you all through the process of creating custom menus using WordPress 3.0’s wp_nav_menu. So, here I’ll describe everything you need to know. It is actually very easy to create a horizontal wp nav menu.
I’m going to ignore some of the options for the wp_nav_menu on purpose just so that you are not confused. If you want you can simply copy a paste the code below and everything will work in fact.
In my previous WordPress Theme Tutorial I showed you all the HTML that goes into a WordPress Theme.
In this part of the video tutorial I’ll show you all of the CSS code that you need to style the theme. If you don’t understand CSS check out this CSS Layout Tutorial. You can also learn more about the menu used here CSS Layouts and Menu Tutorial.
All of the code I use is also available either for download and it also follows the video below. Here is the code:
In this part of the WordPress Theme Tutorial I show you all of the HTML that is needed to create a WordPress Theme.
When you create a WordPress Theme you basically create a template made up from HTML, CSS and JavaScript and then pull in all of your content using PHP code. You also need a MySQL database of course.
If you don’t know anything about the above subjects you can click the link that applies to learn more about them.
I continue showing you how to create WordPress Themes. I’ll show you the numerous ways you can access the information stored in the WordPress database.
I’m not approaching this topic in the normal way. I’m presenting a bottom up complete coverage on exactly how WordPress Themes work and not a quick fix.
In part 2 of my WordPress Video Tutorial I continue to teach you all that you need to know to create custom WordPress themes. If you haven’t seen part one check it out WordPress Theme Tutorial Part 1.
Here I teach you how to grab very specific information from your WordPress database. You’ll then be able to better organize everything on your site to create featured content slide shows and numerous other tools.
Previously I covered many of the WordPress problems you were having in WordPress How To and WordPress How To Pt 2. In this video I’ll answer a recent request from Dan to help him better:
Terry S asked, “How do I post to WordPress when I’m on the road? I need an easy way to post to WordPress from my Blackberry when I’m on the road. Can you help?”
There are many ways to post to WordPress, but I found you the perfect WordPress plugin for posting through your Blackberry. WordPress has a built in tool for posting to your WordPress account, but it is unsecure. I’ll tell you how to use it and then introduce a secure way to post to WordPress.
WordPress Post Via E-Mail Tool
This is a great tool except that if someone figures out your email, they can post to your WordPress site as well. If you choose to use it, you would need to follow these steps:
Click on Settings in your left side bar in WordPress
Click on the Writing link in the left sidebar
Scroll down till you see the title Post via e-mail
Create a random email address as it states in the description Ex. 38ZMSwbI@newthinktank.com
Enter your Mail Server, Port, Login Name, Password and Default Category you wish to associate with these posts
Now every time you send an email to this address, it will post directly to your WordPress site. Again, if someone gets this address, they can post to your WordPress account as well.
Post to WordPress Securely
There is a plugin that will allow you to post to WordPress securely. It’s called Postie. Postie will only except posts that come from specific email addresses. This makes it much more secure. Here is how you’d install Postie:
Login to your WordPress account
Click on Plugins in your left sidebar
Click on Add New
Search for Postie
Click on the Install Now link that is displayed
Click on OK, when you see the popup labeled, Are you sure you want to install this plugin?
Click Activate Plugin, once Postie is installed
Click on the link labeled, enter your email settings for it to work
How to Set Up Postie
Set up an email account, that you’ll only use to post to WordPress
Enter your port number for your web server. It’s probably 110
Enter your mail server address. You can get this from your web hosting company
Enter your userid
Enter your password
Define how often your WordPress system will check for a new email
Let the option labeled, Delete email after posting, set to yes
Click the Save Changes button
Click the Test Config button
Scroll down the page that opens and check that you see the line, Connect to Mail Host Yes
If there is a Yes, then everything is set up
Securing Postie
Click on the User tab, in the Postie Plugin page
Make sure, Allow Anyone To Post Via Email, is marked as No
In the box next to the words, Authorized Addresses, type in the email address you will be using
Click save changes
Setting Up Postie Message Defaults
By clicking on the Message tab, you can define the default:
Categories
Tags
Title
Whether to allow HTML, in the message
Many other options
Inserting Images with Postie
You can also define how images are handled. Click on the Image tab to define:
Whether to automatically insert image gallery
Whether to post images at the end of your post. I set this to no
I use the WordPress default for the template
I leave every other setting here, set to the default
Inserting Video and Audio
You can also insert any video and audio, that is attached. I use the medium_widescreen option for displaying video. If you choose simple_link, only a link to the video would be displayed. These options are totally up to you.
Defining Attachments
You can also attach files such as:
Word
Powerpoint
Excel
Pdf’s
If you click the Attachments tab, you can define what the icon’s will look like that link to these files.
Further Help with Postie
If you click the Help tab, you’ll find step by step directions on other ways to post to WordPress, with Postie.
Also you can copy articles from one site to yours using a tool called Press This. It can be found under tools, in your WordPress left side bar. Here is an article on Press This, Posting Articles with Press This.
That’s All Folks
I hope you enjoy this plugin. It provides a secure way to post to WordPress. If you have any questions or comments leave them below. If you want your specific question answered in a future article leave it below as well!
Markus wrote in and said, “I’m having trouble finding nice looking Free WordPress Themes. What are the Best WordPress Themes? Can you also give me an easy way to install these themes?”
Here are the best Free WordPress Themes. These themes are free for use in anyway, as long as you don’t edit the footer area. If you don’t know what that means don’t worry about it.
Based off of the best statistics, I’ve found, there are over 187 million blogs. People obviously love reading and writing blogs. There is little doubt then, that a business that doesn’t speak to its customers through blogging, is definitely alienating its customers.
In this day in age, it is very easy for any business owner, no matter how small, to create a website. These websites must build customer relationships, while pulling in business from all over the world. In the past, business owners needed to rely on extremely expensive web design companies to build them a site. Those days are now in the past, thanks to a fabulous program called WordPress.
WordPress, is a free blogging tool kit, that brings the power of internet blogging to the people. WordPress is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. The goal of this series of articles is to help people get started with WordPress. It really is quite easy.
There are two versions of WordPress. There is the blogging software you can use with WordPress, at wordpress.com. This operates in a way similar to most social networking systems like Myspace, Facebook, etc. There is another version, that you host on a hosting company, such as GoDaddy. This version can be downloaded from wordpress.org. If this is a bit confusing don’t worry. The video tutorials will show you exactly how to set up both of these versions of WordPress.
WordPress is so easy to use, because it takes care of all the technical stuff. This allows you, to spend all of your time writing. Whats better, is that WordPress allows you to easily create amazing tools and new web designs, with ease. We’ll get to them later.
A Few more Reasons why WordPress is Amazing
It installs easily! Normally, it will take you no more than 5 minutes.
It helps you organize all of your articles in a logical manor.
Search engines absolutely love WordPress websites.
If you follow this tutorial, your Google Page Ranking will probably be higher, than if you hired a web design firm.
WordPress is not just used for blog websites. You can use it to create a traditional site as well.
There are many pre-made web designs for you to pick from. If you want a new design for your entire site, you can have it in a few seconds, with no design or technical knowledge.
Your customers want to interact with your website. WordPress provides you with easy to use enhancements that allow you to add bulletin boards, calendars, RSS feeds, video, audio, shopping carts, etc.
It will block unwanted spam from your site.
The Difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org Websites
As I mentioned before, a WordPress.com site is similar to a social networking site. It is hosted on WordPress computers. It is free, for the most part, and extremely easy to set up. Almost every technical activity is taken care of for you such as: saving your content, blocking spam, security, upgrading, and promotion.
Let’s go back to that free sort of comment. First, in my opinion, WordPress deserves every dollar they make. I just want to make that clear. Either way, if you want to gain special benefits at WordPress.com you must pay for the following (prices on December 2nd, 2009):
The Custom CSS Upgrade allows you to use your own CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) to customize the appearance of your blog. CSS allows you to change fonts, colors, borders, backgrounds, and even the layout of the blog. The cost is $14.97 per year.
If you want to use a custom domain name that doesn’t end with wordpress.com you can either pay WordPress $14.97 to both register and host your domain for a year. Or if you already own a domain name, they charge $9.97 for you to host that domain name on their servers.
WordPress gives you 3 gigabytes of space to use for free on their computer. If you want more, you get 5 GB for $19.97 / year, 15 GB for $49.97 / year, or 25 GB for $89.97.
If you don’t want WordPress to put ads on your site, you have to pay them $29.97 / year.
There is a limit to the number of private users you can have on your site. If you wish to buy the unlimited users, instead of staying at the standard 35, that will cost you $29.97 / year.
Now if you want to host your own site and control everything, the version of WordPress found on wordpress.org, is the way to go. You will gain access to a larger number of web site designs, called themes. You will only be limited in size by your chosen hosting company. You will also gain access to a larger number of tools, called plug-ins. Plug-ins, give you access to tools such as: e-commerce systems, a wide assortment of media tools, and basically anything else you can imagine.
The negatives of hosting your own site include: you must pay a hosting site to host your site (avg. cost: $7 to $15 / month), it is more complicated to set up (many hosting companies will set upWordpress for you), you are responsible for upgrading your software, and your sites up time will only be as good as the hosting company. I personally, use GoDaddy for hosting, but there are a large number of other great hosting companies.
The minimum requirements a hosting company must meet include having, PHP version 4.3 or greater and MySQL version 4.0 or greater installed. It’s also probably in your best interest to install on a Linux rather than a Windows server. The best hosting companies include: Blue Host,DreamHost, MediaTemple, and GoDaddy.
In the next article, I will go into detail on how to create a WordPress.com account. You should do this even if you plan to host on your own site to gain access to Akismet, a great anti-spam tool. An additional benefit to starting with a WordPress.com account is that it gives you the opportunity to see if WordPress is right for you. Whether you chose to host on WordPress or from your own hosting company, the interface of WordPress is nearly identical. So, if you learn how to operate a blog on WordPress.com, you’ll know how to run WordPress on a separate hosting plan as well.
I hope this clears up any questions about using WordPress. Next, I’ll dispel any beliefs that WordPress is complicated to set up. If I missed anything, please tell me how I might improve the post.
In my search to create a fully functional shopping cart application I found the WP-eCommerce Plugin for WordPress. This plugin handles orders, works with most every payment service, handles shipping, inventory, etc!
