My Computer Back in Service

 I have been using the Andreas04 2.0 WordPress Theme on my Working at Home on the Internet Blog for well over a year. I made so many tweaks on it in that time frame to make it a bit more functional, I decided to go a little further and remake the look as well.

Introducing…

Andreas04 3.1-the dark side

Some things I changed/added include:

• “More”… the split post never worked in the old theme, it does now
• RSS feed subscription links at the top of the page
• More room for the Tag line in the header
• Dynamic Footer (not just the bottom of the page anymore)
• Drop down menu for Categories
• Added Titles to the previous/next posts
• Shrunk the container (actual space used) to 900px
• Added a Search feature to help navigation for visitors

Oh, and I made it Darker.

You can take a look at The Darkside Theme live on the Joe’s Freeware Finds Blog or download Andreas04 3.1 now.

How many times have you read an article on one of your favorite Blogs and said to yourself… “I wish I could print this so I can keep it around for future reference“? I know I have, especially when there is some information that needs to be exact when I need to use it.

Well, I found a WordPress Plugin that fits the bill. As far as I can tell this is the third incarnation of this plugin, but it does what it says it will. Your readers can print an article or page including images in a very readable format.

Go to WP-Print 2.20 and download the zip file and unzip it

Upload everything in the Print folder to wp-content/plugins on your host

Activate the plugin

In your index/page/single post php 

Look for <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Add <?php if(function_exists(‘wp_print’)) { print_link(); } ?> where you want the print option to show

 Go to WP-Admin -> Options -> Print to set your preferences

This is really important

Go to WP-Admin -> Options -> Permalinks -> Update Permalink Structure to re-generate the Permalink, DON’T change anything, just Update the Permalink. (I overlooked this step and nothing worked until I did the update)

So far I can see only 2 minor glitches

The images will only print in Black & White, it would be nice to have some color options

There is no way to get back to the Blog unless you hit the <– Back Arrow

Overall I think this is a very nice clean way to offer your readers a way to print any article or page on your WordPress Blog.

If you have been here before, you may notice a little change in the Sidebar. In the top section for Newest Blog Posts there has been links to recent posts, but it was just the Titles. Nothing to let readers know what the posts were about other than a few words.

I have tried various ways to enhance the description but have always fallen short of what I wanted to give readers as a preview. Using a combination of 2 different plugins, I still could only come up with one excerpt for the newest post, but had to rely on the old fashioned Title for the rest of the current posts.

I finally found a plugin, SimplePie Plugin for WordPress, through the recommendation of a friend and thought I may as well try it because no combination of plugins would give me what I wanted.

It works really well, but they make it a little more complicated to get the download(s) than is necessary. When you get to the landing page, you download their .zip file, but it is only one of 2 that you need to run the php. You have to go to the “download” in the top navigation bar and download another .zip file separately in order for the plugin to work.

After unzipping both files (separately and in different folders) the one for the actual php file (simplepie_wordpress.php) is easy enough to find and upload from the 1.2.1 folder. The other file you need is the library of information to allow the whole thing to function. The file (simplepie.inc) in the 1.0.1 folder is a little more difficult to find because it is mixed in with a lot of files you don’t need for anything (unless you like to read). Once you find the .INC file, it is also easy to upload.

Then you have to create an empty folder, cache, to use as a holding place for the current information (new posts).

If they put everything you need in one download, it would be a lot simpler to install.

Once you get through the ordeal of this process, the rest is easy.

After you upload the 2 files and create the cache folder in your wp/plugin folder, activate the plugin on your WordPress Blog.

Go to the section you would like the excerpts to show and place the following code:

<?php echo SimplePieWP(‘http://example.com/feed.xml’, ‘items: 5, shortdesc: 200, showdate: j M Y’); ?>

You can adjust the “items”, “shortdesc” if you would like you can even remove the date.

The output will default to an Ordered List (numbered). If your want to change it to an unordered list, you need to be comfortable with changing the Plugin php. Don’t attempt it if you don’t know what you are doing, you might break it.