Have you ever felt a need to alter one of WordPress’s default page listings so that it doesn’t show up certain pages? I did when I was first starting out with WordPress, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out a satisfactory way of doing it (sure I could have hard-coded the links into my template, but that’s not what I consider a satisfactory solution).
In fact, at the time, I wasn’t even sure if I was supposed to be changing any of my theme’s template files at all, after hearing all those dire warnings not to hack the core. Now that I’m a bit more experienced, it’s obvious that most people use a theme as a starting point for their site, but then customize it to suit their particular needs and taste, and to give their site a unique look.
Continue reading ‘How to exclude pages from WordPress’s page listings’
I’ve recently outlined my strategy for including images in posts, namely:
- Find an image you’d like to use
- Resize it with GIMP
- Upload it to my web server via FilleZilla
- Include it in a post
Well, guess what? WordPress has a built-in mechanism to streamline this process via its Media Manager. It automatically resizes the image, uploads it to your site, and can even embed it within your post if you wish! As a matter of fact, it can also manage your audio, video and other media files for you too, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.
Continue reading ‘Managing images with the WordPress media manager’
As I mentioned previously, a few well-chosen images can really help to give your blog a visual lift. One problem that you may have come across though is that often image files can be quite substantial in terms of size. So today I want to show you how to resize them using GIMP, a popular open-source image editor.
Image courtesy of cpt.spock
Continue reading ‘How to resize images using GIMP’
Using images on your website or blog can really brighten it up and make it a more appealing place to hang around. I’m not sure if there are any scientific studies about this, but I truly believe that a well-chosen image near the top of a blog post draws readers in, particularly if your content is being consumed in a feed reader. But sourcing images can be a problem if you don’t know where to look and can’t afford to pay.
Image courtesy of joseboa
Continue reading ‘Bling your blog with free images’
The other day I mentioned in passing that I’d needed to transfer some files to my web server using FTP (File Transfer Protocol), so thought I’d elaborate on that a bit. Now, modern blogging platforms like WordPress have drastically reduced the need to use FTP for day-to-day tasks like posting articles and such, but if you run your own website or blog, you will find that you need to use it at some point for things like:
- Retrieving backups
- Installing plugins
- Redirecting URLs
Continue reading ‘How to use FTP to transfer files’
