Wordpress Tips and Tricks


Author Message
Marc Smith

Posted: 10/9/2008
Quote message 

Here are some pointers I've found in using Artisteer and creating Wordpress themes.

Artisteer creates a THEME, not the whole Wordpress install. The blocks and menu navigation that you see are just examples of what the blog will look like with what you are creating.

The theme you create will 'pick-up' the pages, posts, widgets and everything else in your blog when you install it. So, your menu will have all the pages listed. The sidebards are widget ready, so you can add widgtets and they will show up and have the look and feel you create in Artisteer.

So far, I have been able to edit the files any way I've wanted and have it all work flawlessly.

You can remove the 'default' HOME button in the functions.php file. There are a couple of other posts here in the forums that describe how to do it.

You can also edit the CSS files to rename the template as well. Look in the CSS file for:


/*
Theme Name: your template name
Description: your description
Version: 1.0
Author: your author name
Author URI: your URL
Tags: your tags
*/


I've used Artisteer to take other templates and their graphical elements and create new ones that are laid out more to my liking, such as using headers or background images.

I'll post more stuff as I find it, but so far this program is pretty cool.
 
Arlin Audrain

Posted: 10/20/2008
Quote message 

I made a theme and exported it to my desk top as html .
I use First Page but it won't allow me to edit the blocks.
I tried NVU with same results.

Also...I'm dumb , but how do I import these themes into my wordpress site?
 
Carol Cody

Posted: 10/28/2008
Quote message 

Marc, you mention that "you can remove the 'default' HOME button in the functions.php file. There are a couple of other posts here in the forums that describe how to do it."

I haven't been able to find it...could you help me out?
 
Ben

Posted: 10/28/2008
Quote message 

@Marc, thanks for your comments and tips on the forum, they are brilliant!


@Carol Cody, hi!

Below is how i removed the 'default' HOME button (assuming you have already installed and activated your 'artisteer' WP theme) :

1) Login to your WP admin dashboard,

2) Go to 'Design' then 'Theme Editor'

3) Under theme files, go to 'functions.php'

4) Find 'function art_menu_items($hierarchy)'
(i think on line 130 counting from the top)

5) Delete the code on 'line 135' and 'line 136' i.e.

echo '<li><a' . (is_page() ? '' : ' class="active"') . ' href="' . $home . '"><span><span>Home</span></span></a></li>';

6) Click 'Update File' (i.e. functions.php)

Hopefully u should see no more of the HOME button when you visit your site again. You might need to try 'CTRL+F5' when you visit the site to see the changes!

Being clueless about PHP and code in general myself, i am not sure how much damage that does but at least the XHTML validates all fine (http://validator.w3.org).

N.B: It is a good idea to backup your stuff before 'messing' about.

Does that help?

Cheers


 
Marc Smith

Posted: 10/29/2008
Quote message 

Ben, thanks... I am just supporting this product cause it really is an amazing piece of work.

Carol, good to see Ben was able to help you out!
 
Marc Smith

Posted: 10/29/2008
Quote message 

Quote Arlin Audrain:

I made a theme and exported it to my desk top as html .
I use First Page but it won't allow me to edit the blocks.
I tried NVU with same results.

Also...I'm dumb , but how do I import these themes into my wordpress site?


Arlin,

You would need to export the page you've created using the Wordpress selection in Artisteer. Once you have all the files, you would need to upload it to your Wordpress Themes directory.

If you are unfamiliar with using themes in Wordpress, you should spend some time in the Wordpress forums to get familiar with how they work and how you manage them. Once you have that down, everything you do with Artisteer will be much much easier.
 
Richard

Posted: 11/2/2008
Quote message 

You can edit the wordpress template in
C:\Program Files\Artisteer\Library\Data\Templates
(back up the old one first) to make permanent changes
If your making a couple of sites that say you don't want No Comments to appear under a post you can change it in the Template, so every time you edit your theme in Artisteer the changes will automatically be a part of the theme when you export it.


 
Marc Smith

Posted: 11/4/2008
Quote message 

Richard, great piece of advice!
 
Marc Smith

Posted: 11/12/2008
Quote message 

You have to modify the code if you don't want the Artisteer credit lines to appear in the footer.
 
Debbie

Posted: 11/17/2008
Quote message 

I would really like to love this program because the design features are so easy and great, but I am becoming terribly frustrated in being able to export it to Wordpress. I create the theme, export it to a named file on my hard drive. Put it in a zip.file, go to my cpanel to upload it. Then uncompress it, and the whole thing falls apart. The files instead of staying in the neat little package, go into all separate files, so it doesn't show as a single file in my Wordpress themes when i am at the dashboard. I have done some templates and they worked, but I can't figure out how to do it right consistently.
Help would be greatly appreciated.
 
danielle

Posted: 12/1/2008
Quote message 

I have incorporated my blog into my main website page and would like the “home” button on my blog to link to my main website homepage. In other words when you click the home button on my blog I want to be able to go the homepage on my main website not the home page of my blog. Can anyone help?


 
Marc Smith

Posted: 12/1/2008
Quote message 

You could modify this line in functions.php :

echo '<li><a' . (is_page() ? '' : ' class="active"') . ' href="' . $home . '"><span><span>Home</span></span></a></li>';


to be

echo '<li><a' . (is_page() ? '' : ' class="active"') . ' href="'http://www.yoursite.com'"><span><span>Home</span></span></a></li>';


I did not test this! This is an educated guess, but it should work, you just have to make sure that there is not also a 'Home' page in your blog. You could rename 'Home' to be 'Top' or 'Main Page' ie

echo '<li><a' . (is_page() ? '' : ' class="active"') . ' href="' . $home . '"><span><span>Main Page</span></span></a></li>';

 
askmepc

Posted: 12/29/2008
Quote message 

I have a suggestion for Debbie or anyone with her problem.
Before you unzip your files, you need to create a folder in your hosting install of word press in the theme section.
Then upload your zipped filed into the folder you created in the theme section and unzip it. I finally figured this out after much frustration.
Good luck.
 
smartwomenstupidcomputers

Posted: 1/15/2009
Quote message 

If you need to link your homepage to your website, there is a plugin I use that is wonderful for this, called "page links to" you just fill it in and it redirects your page to wherever you want.
:-)
 
Mike

Posted: 2/8/2009
Quote message 

Marc you mantioned:
"I've used Artisteer to take other templates and their graphical elements and create new ones that are laid out more to my liking, such as using headers or background images. "

I have a theme that I want to change can you help, please?

 
Larry

Posted: 3/9/2009
Quote message 

For Debbie:

There really isn't a need to zip the file if you are using a FTP program to upload your folders/files. When you create your Theme, store it using a folder name that is descriptive of what the theme is. Open your ftp program and log into your site. Go to wp-content > themes.

Now just copy the folder you made and it's contents into the themes folder. (So you will now have wp-content>themes>yourfolder (>all the files).

When you go back into WP and look at your Themes area you will see the theme listed. Simply select it and make it active.

I prefer doing things this way because I can add more than one theme while there or go to my plugins folder and upload all of the plugins I want to use (wp-content>plugins). One time in then out and everything is done.

Now I just have to go to the wp-admin area and select the theme and plugins I want along with making pages.

Speaking about making pages, if you go to the pages area and create a new "Home" page, you can go to the Settings>Reading section and set the new Home to Static (if you don't want posts on it) and Wordpress will ignore the Home page that is created by the program. Now your home page is the only one that will show.
 
Rick

Posted: 3/15/2009
Quote message 

Marc:

Is there any way to change "Categories" that we commonly see in a WP blog to another name such as Recommended...Where in the Html coding would you make such changes
 
Pat

Posted: 3/18/2009
Quote message 

Hi everyone!

I bought Artisteer a while ago and so far I love it! It's sped up the time I can design wordpress themes at least 100 times.

Only problem I'm having is that I can't figure out how to list categories and posts as menu items on the horizontal navigation bar.

I want to make a link to go straight to a category page but can't figure out how to manipulate the header.php or functions file to do this... I just want to be able to navigate to a category page... can someone please help?
 
Marc Smith

Posted: 3/18/2009
Quote message 

You want to use a plug in like this:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/page2cat/

Categories, traditionally, are not pages, just a subset of posts.
 
Marc Smith

Posted: 4/10/2009
Quote message 

Not from within Artisteer, that would have to be custom code.
 
S Dawloms

Posted: 4/13/2009
Quote message 

Quote stuart:

Hi great product,

I want to put a search bar and a rss button in my header to help save space is there a way to do this?


Just copy the footer code and put it in the header, make some div/css :)
I was able to do it here

http://www.atemplatefree.com/wp/view/Grunge_107.html

 
jean

Posted: 5/13/2009
Quote message 

Quote danielle:

I have incorporated my blog into my main website page and would like the “home” button on my blog to link to my main website homepage. In other words when you click the home button on my blog I want to be able to go the homepage on my main website not the home page of my blog. Can anyone help?

There is a page link to plug in that will do this for you.
Do a plug in search. You can install the plug in automatically from your admin page and then configure any page to link to a page that you specify.

 
Robert

Posted: 5/17/2009
Quote message 

I would like to create a static home page. I am able to make a new page that is static but not the front page. Is there a way to do this?
 
Garry

Posted: 5/18/2009
Quote message 

Create a page and go to settings->reading and make that page your home page
 
Maria

Posted: 1/28/2010
Quote message 

I used Artisteer to create my wp website. It was great. That was a year ago. I now need to change the wording in the header/footer of my page (company name change).
As I had a compy crash several months ago, I do not have the original files for the Artisteer template I made backed up.
I use BlueHost as my server, but can't seem to edit anything from there like I do for the other websites I have worked on. I know this is a wp thing.
Do I have to completely recreate my website to change the header/footer wording? Or, is there a simpler way?

Thank you.
 
Garry

Posted: 1/28/2010
Quote message 

You can change the website title and slogan going setting-> general and footer links going appearance -> footer from your Wordpress admin.
 
Agustin

Posted: 9/27/2011
Quote message 

Nice software.
I would like to set in wordpress a custom template that shows posts of a especific category.
how can i do that using aristeer?