Blog•
on January 18th, 2012•
I recently worked on a website project where I tested out some of the WordPress Translation plugins. Here are my thoughts on the plugins:
This is by far my favorite automatic translator tool. It is fast and has an awesome design integration. The flags to determine the language site at the very top of your page. If you click a flag, it immediately translates the page without making a big fuss. Some of the other translation tools take longer and don’t have as seamless as a process.
The only problem I had with this plugin, and this happens with them all, is that I wasn’t able to use Cufon for the fonts. The only way this translation tool will work is to use Google Webfonts. This is quite easy with a Google Fonts plugin.
The other difference between this one and the others I list below is that Ajax Translator Revolution costs $15. But for interface and speed, it is worth the money.
Website that utilizes Ajax Translator Revolution – www.avantiministries.com
With qTranslate, you do the translations yourself. What’s great about this plugin is that all translations are editable on one WordPress admin page. You just choose between different tabs per language. This makes things so convenient when adding page/post content in the different languages. This one also allows you to place the flags on the page or to use a widget. The widget shows flags, country names, or has a drop-down option.
Again, this is not an automatic translator, but is a great one to use if you have the translations professionally done and ready to go.
Website using qTranslate – www.tonyanthony.co.uk
Global Translator is another automatic translation tool that has you place some code on the page where you would like the particular language’s flag shown. The user then clicks that flag for an automatic translation. You get some nice URL’s that just list a two-letter code at the end of the URL signifying the language. This one is pretty seamless and it is free.
My beef with this plugin is that there is no sidebar widget that has a drop-down menu choice of languages. I don’t want a huge widget listing every flag or country name. I want a simple drop-down menu that doesn’t take up a lot of space. Didn’t get that with this plugin.
Website that utilizes Global Translator – www.glennecooper.com
Transposh is a great combination of an automatic translation tool and one in which you make translations. It allows you to set up access so that anyone can go in and make updates to translations from the front end of the website. Once someone has made an update, the translation tool will use that word from that point forward.
I ended up not using this one because the option to fix translations was not working on everything on my site. I know some of that had to do with my use of Cufon fonts, but it seemed a bit cumbersome. But the idea is great and it made it easy to have non-computer literate people make updates to the translations from the front-end of the website. Also, I believe that a drop-down option was not available in the widget, which made my widget bigger than what I was hoping for the design of that particular website.
If you have used any other translation tools, please note those in the comments form below and describe your experience using that tool.
Blog•
on February 25th, 2011•
I do a lot of editing to individual PHP page templates within WordPress. Oftentimes, there is a great shortcode that I want to add within the page design. Here is the code to insert so you can do that. Add this php code within the page template.
<?php echo do_shortcode("[Shortcode]"); ?>
Replace ‘Shortcode’ with the specific shortcode you wish to use.
Blog•
on February 22nd, 2011•
If you are trying to implement Really Simple Sitemap on your WordPress blog, it does not work. You can use this plugin instead:
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/
This creates an actual sitemap on one of your website pages.
If you are looking for an XML Sitemap Generator for Google, here is my plugin of choice:
http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/sitemap-generator-plugin-for-wordpress/
Blog•
on February 9th, 2011•
I’m currently working on a project where the client asked me to hide some of the content for a few months. I’m using WordPress and am adding content to the pages through the WordPress HTML text editor. I’ve already included the content on the site and don’t want to delete it. I just want to hide it.
After searching around for a while, I found a way to do it.
First, download the Exec-PHP plugin. This will allow you to add PHP code to your HTML editor.
Second, add the following code around the content you wish to hide (the content text below):
<?php /*
content
*/?>
Now, whatever is in between the PHP tags will be hidden from the live website while remaining in your WordPress CMS editor.
Blog, Video•
on January 17th, 2011•
Here is a video I put together walking you through the process of setting up a WordPress website using GoDaddy.com.
This video takes you through the following steps:
- Searching for an unused domain name.
- Purchasing that domain name.
- Purchasing WordPress-specific hosting.
- Setting up the hosting plan and connecting it to the purchased domain name.
- Signing into the administration area of your new WordPress website or blog.
This is a small selection from a longer video. The full video takes you through the basic functions within WordPress. Learn how to edit a page or a post and learn how to create a new page.
If you would like to see the full video, please email me – erik@eprcreations.com. Or, you can subscribe to The Entrepreneur School and watch Lecture 6.6 where this entire video is posted.
Blog•
on October 20th, 2010•
I use cForms on a number of my websites as my go-to form application. I create everything from rental forms, registration forms, and contact forms.
Oftentimes, my clients want access to the information that users are entering into the online forms. I have found that the email function has not always been reliable. So, I have moved to saving everything to the database. So my clients want to be able to access this database to see who has signed up or contacted them.
Here is a way to set this up for your client:
- After installing cForms to your WordPress-based website, go to cForms ‘Global Settings’ within the menu area.
- You will see one option at the bottom for ‘Database Input Tracking.’ Expand that area.
- Check the box to enable database tracking. This will create an area in your database where all cForms user inputs will be stored.
- Also, check ‘enable global rss.’ This is a great feature that sets up an RSS feed for when someone fills out your form.
- You can provide this RSS feed to your client who can add that to any RSS reader they use. They will then see every time information is added.
- The next step is to add the ‘Capability Manager’ plugin to your WordPress website.
- Create a user profile for your client. If they will not be making content updates to the website, I recommend added them as a ‘Subscriber’ so that they don’t have access to areas where they could mistakenly delete website content.
- Now, under the Users menu, choose the ‘Capabilities’ option.
- Make sure you are making changes to the ‘Subscriber Level’ and check the box for ‘Track cForms.’
- Now, your client has access to view records in the database.
- My suggestion here is to provide your client with the RSS feed. When your client sees a new entry, they can click on the entry and it will lead them to the WordPress sign in page. They enter their username & password that you have set up and they have access to just the track cForms area. They can download all information into a .csv file or view individual records.
- Just make sure they know that they are able to delete fields when they track cForms and so to be careful.
Another suggestion is to use a Database Backup plugin (WordPress Database Backup is my favorite) that emails a DB backup every hour, day, or week to your attention. You will need to choose to have all cForms data included in that backup. This way, you will have a backup of anyone who has ever filled out a form on your website. And plus, you need to be backing up your database anyway.
If you have any questions about this process, send me a comment in the box below and be sure to check the box to be included on any subsequent comments.
Blog•
on September 3rd, 2010•
This is a blog about using WordPress in order to create a wiki area for team collaboration purposes.
First of all, what is a wiki area? If you are familiar with Wikipedia, a wiki is a website page that can be edited by any number of people. The changes made can then be reflected immediately or can join a line queue of approval before they proceed to the live website.
The way this could play out for you is to have a spot on your church website where church members can go in and add their name next to a date/time to bring food to someone in need. It could also be used as a collaborative team effort to write a paper or even edit website content through different concerned parties.
So, first things first, there is a plugin that deals directly with a Wikipedia-type function. This plugin is called WordPress Wiki. But, I am not going to write about using this. I am going to write about a different option. My experience with WP-Wiki was that it did not function well within WordPress 3.0+.
Here are instructions to set up your own wiki page that can only be edited by people to whom you provide a username & password:
- Add the following plugins to your WordPress admin area
- Create a new page that will become your Wiki area page.
- In your WordPress menu, go to Appearance > Widgets and click on Widgets.
- Add the Sidebar Login Widget to your sidebar area.
- Now, in your WordPress menu, go to Users > Add New.
- Create a new user with an Editor role. Be sure to note the username & password.
- Go to the menu item Restrictions > Pages. In this area, choose to ‘Restrict Selected Roles for selected pages.’ Put a check mark next to the Page Editor for the wiki page.
- Now go to the menu item Roles > Pages. Here you can assign your new user the ability to become a page editor for the new Wiki Page you have created. These past two steps will limit the pages that can be edited to just the new wiki page.
- Now test it out. Go to your new wiki page. Enter your username & password. After logging in, you should be able to double click on any text on that page to edit it.
- Now, send an email to those with an interest in editing this page. Give them the URL, the username & password, and instructions on how to double click to edit and to click save to populate the changes.
If you have any questions or additional information, please use the comment form below. Happy wiki!
I recently moved a blog from Blogger to WordPress and was quite impressed at how easy the process was. Here are the basic steps written out below:
- Set up a new WordPress blog. Full instructions here. Also, the hosting company GoDaddy makes a WordPress blog set up super easy.
- Once logged into the admin area of your blog, find Tools within the menu options.
- Click Import
- From here, you can choose a number of different Blog options in which to import from, including WordPress.com, Blogger, and LiveJournal.
- If you choose Blogger, just sign into your blogger account, choose the specific blog to import, and click the button to proceed. This will move over all posts and comments associated with your blog.
- Once everything has been transferred over to your WordPress blog, it’s a good idea to forward your Blogger blog URL to your new WordPress domain name.
If you have any questions about this process, let me know. The reasons to move to WordPress from Blogger are numerous. The main reasons I moved my music blog from Blogger to WordPress were the availability of thousands of templates to choose from, a number of Plugins to add incredible functionality to your blog, and the ease of use.
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