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Plugin Killer Series for WordPress: The End

Binny V A — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:51:00 +0000

After eight posts, I am ending the plugin killer series. It has been a nice run. Hopefully, I have given you an idea of how easy it is to customize WordPress yourself – without having to resort to third party plugins. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its just that, its more satisfying when you do it yourself. The advantages and disadvantages of customizing a theme rather than installing a plugin is given in the introduction to the WordPress Plugin Killer Series.

The Posts

Avoid Duplicate Content – Use Canonical URL in WordPress

If you are on wordpress, the canonical tag can be integrated into your theme easily. There is a plugin to do the job for you – but you don’t need a plugin to do something as simple as this.

Show Popular Posts in WordPress – without a plugin

A list of the popular posts of the blog is a standard feature in many blogs. There are quite a few plugins that offer this feature. But it can also be implemented using a simple SQL query that counts the number of comments in a post.

Adding Social Bookmarking Button in WordPress – Without Plugins

Many blogs have links to add the current post to various social bookmarking site like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. This blog don’t have it – but my LinDesk blog does. This effect is achieved using wordpress plugins. But when you take a look at the code, its just simple HTML.

Show Related Post in WordPress Without a Plugin

Related posts is a very popular feature. My default wordpress installation often includes a plugin that has this functionality. There are quite a few plugins that lets you have this feature. This can be implemented by listing other posts with the same category/tags as the current post.

Highlight Author’s Comments in WordPress without using a WordPress Plugin

Many blogs highlight the author’s comment in the comments section. You can use plugins to get this effect(For eg., the Highlight Author Comments Plugin) – but you don’t have to. You can get the get the same effect by adding a small bit of CSS code to your theme stylesheet.

A Tweet This Button for Each Post in WordPress – Without a Plugin

TweetThis is a WordPress Plugin that ‘adds a Twitter link to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease.’ And in the tradition of my WordPress Plugin Killer Series, this post will show you how to do it without a plugin.

Creating a Paypal Donate Widget in Wordpress – Without a Plugin

Paypal donate plugins. This is extremely simple to implement – you don’t even have to edit the code to get this done. Just copy/paste the code provided by Paypal.

Create a Better 404 Page in WordPress – Without Plugins

Recently, one of my friends posted a list of plugins you can use to optimize your 404 page. In case you don’t know what a 404 page, its the page that shows up if the URL requested by the user don’t exist. He listed eight plugins to do this. And since I am working on the Plugin Killer series, it got me thinking – is it possible to do it without using any plugins?

Other People’s Posts

Many other people have written on this topic too. Here is a few posts I could find….

If you know of any such articles, post a comment.

Create a Better 404 Page in WordPress – Without Plugins

Binny V A — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:28:01 +0000

Turns out, its easy. As long as you know about the Google’s 404 Widget. It adds a search box for your site with appropriate search suggestions and tries(and unfortunately, often fails) to provide alternatives to incorrect URLs.

See it in action here – http://www.bin-co.com/perl/perl_tk_tutorials/. The correct URL is http://www.bin-co.com/perl/perl_tk_tutorial/ – which the user finds and shows.

Enable Google 404 Widget in your Site

First, create the code by following the steps given in the 404 Widget page.
Then open the 404.php file of your wordpress theme and paste the code you got into it. Save and upload – you’re done.

This is the last of my plugin killer series. Just to balance things out, I’m thinking of doing a Plugin week(yes, a second plugin week) next week. Let me know if any of you are interested.

Creating a Paypal Donate Widget in Wordpress – Without a Plugin

Binny V A — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:32:01 +0000

Paypal donate plugins. This is extremely simple to implement – you don’t even have to edit the code to get this done.

Widget Mode

Open the admin side of your blog and go to Appearance > Widgets. Now add a Text widget to the sidebar you want the widget in. Edit it and paste the HTML code from the Paypal site.

Make sure you use your own paypal ID in the business field.

Save the widget – and you’re done.

Theme Mode

Another method is to add the same code to the theme’s code directly. Usually in the sidebar.php file. I kind of prefer this method – but it involves code editing, FTP, etc. Not everyone is comfortable with this.

Post Mode

Last but not the least, you can embed the code directly into a post. This is perhaps the simplest of all. Below is a working sample of the code…

A Tweet This Button for Each Post in WordPress – Without a Plugin

Binny V A — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:20:44 +0000

TweetThis is a WordPress Plugin that ‘adds a Twitter link to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease.’ And in the tradition of my WordPress Plugin Killer Series, this post will show you how to do it without a plugin.

The Code

You can add twitter button to your post by editing the single.php file in your theme. Go to the place in the file where you want the button to show up – then add this code at that location…

Tweet This

This is a super simple way of doing it – with a little more code, you can use a URL shortner to ’shortify’ your permalink. Otherwise it might overflow the 140 char limit.

Twitter

By the way, if you are on twitter, add me – I’m @binnyva

Highlight Author’s Comments in WordPress without using a WordPress Plugin

Binny V A — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:44:58 +0000

Many blogs highlight the author’s comment in the comments section. You can use many plugins to get this effect(For eg., the Highlight Author Comments Plugin) – but you don’t have to. You can get the get the same effect by adding a small bit of code to your theme.

The Changes

Just open up the style.css file in your active and add this at line at the end…

.bypostauthor { background-color:#aaa !important; }

Change the #aaa to the color you want as the author comment’s background. That’s it – you’re all done.

Note: This will only work on 2.7+ version of WordPress – if you are using an older version, please read the instructions in this post.

Show Related Post in WordPress Without a Plugin

Binny V A — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:29 +0000

Related posts is a very popular feature. My default wordpress installation often includes a plugin that has this functionality. There are quite a few plugins that lets you have this feature…

The Code

WordPress has been supporting tags in its new released – so the related posts feature can be implemented without the help of any plugins. All we have to do is find the other posts with some same tags as the current post. Just open the single.php file in your theme and add this bit of code where you want the related posts to show up…

ID);
if ($tags) {
	$tag_ids = array();
	foreach($tags as $individual_tag) $tag_ids[] = $individual_tag->term_id;

	$args=array(
		'tag__in' => $tag_ids,
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
		'showposts'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
		'caller_get_posts'=>1
	);
	$my_query = new wp_query($args);
	if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
		echo 'Related Posts';
		while ($my_query->have_posts()) {
			$my_query->the_post();
		?>
			
		';
	}
}
?>

This code finds the other post with any one of the tag that the current post has. If you want to show the posts with any one of the categories that the current post has, use this code instead…

ID);
if ($categories) {
	$category_ids = array();
	foreach($categories as $individual_category) $category_ids[] = $individual_category->term_id;

	$args=array(
		'category__in' => $category_ids,
		'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
		'showposts'=>5, // Number of related posts that will be shown.
		'caller_get_posts'=>1
	);
	// Rest is the same as the previous code

WordPress Plugin Killer Series

For those who came in late, this post is part of the WordPress Plugin Killer Series. This series will show you how to duplicate the functionality of the a few wordpress plugins without having to install it using custom code in the wordpress theme. The previous posts in this series are…

More Resources

Adding Social Bookmarking Button in WordPress – Without Plugins

Binny V A — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 17:48:19 +0000

Many blogs have links to add the current post to various social bookmarking site like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc. This blog don’t have it – but my LinDesk blog does. This effect is achieved using wordpress plugins like…

For those who are new, this is part three of the Plugin Killer series. This series will show you how to duplicate the functionality of the a few wordpress plugins without having to install it using custom code in the wordpress theme. The earlier posts in this series are…

The Code

You can add social bookmarking button to your post by editing the single.php file in your theme. Go to the place in the file where you want the buttons to show up – then add this code at that location…

del.icio.us
 | Digg it
 | reddit
 | StumbleUpon

Of course, you don’t have to do it like that – a better way of doing it is by putting the links in a li/ul list and then styling it. The point is, you don’t need a plugin to do this.

Different Implementations

Another thing I would recommend is get the images – in the above code, I just used text links. If you get the favicons of the sites you’re linking to, it will look a lot nicer. Example (go to the end of the post). You can use bigger images as well – example. Or use some kind of effect – example(here the icons are a bit transparent by default – but when you hover over them, it shows up clearly – its completely opaque).

Here only the four big ones are given. You can find code for more social bookmarking sites elsewhere.

Show Popular Posts in WordPress – without a plugin

Binny V A — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:27:20 +0000

A list of the popular posts of the blog is a standard feature in many blogs. There are quite a few plugins that offer this feature…

Now, lets see how to do it without using a plugin. In case you are new to this blog, I am currently working on the Plugin Killer Series – a series of post in which I explain how to duplicate the functionality provided by some wordpress plugins – without having to install the plugin.

These plugins work by adding a view counter for each post – whenever a user visits a page, it will increment the count for that page by one. Unfortunately, WordPress does not provide this feature. But there is another indicator for the popularity of a post – its comment count.

The Code

Getting Comment Count – SQL

So the first step is to get the list of post with the most comments. To get that, we can use the following SQL statement…

SELECT id,post_title FROM wp_posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0,10

Listing The Data – PHP/SQL

This query will return just 10 posts. If you want more(or less) post, just change the number after LIMIT accordingly. The PHP code for executing the query and getting its result is…

$popular_posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT id,post_title FROM {$wpdb->prefix}posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0,10");
foreach($popular_posts as $post) {
	// Do something with the $post variable
}

Final Output as Links in a List – HTML/PHP/SQL

Next step is to get the URL of each post. The recommended way of doing this is by using the ‘get_permalink‘ function. Another thing we have to do is to map the result as an HTML list…

Popular Posts

get_results("SELECT id,post_title FROM {$wpdb->prefix}posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0,10");
foreach($popular_posts as $post) {
	print "".$post->post_title."\n";
}
?>

Note: The HTML part of the code may need to be changed – depending on your theme.

Add this code to the sidebar.php file in your theme – and you are done!

WordPress Plugin Killer: The Series

Binny V A — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:15:35 +0000

My last post about using a bit of custom PHP code in the wordpress template instead of installing a plugin inspired a new way of thinking for me. How many of the wordpress plugins currently in use are actually necessary? Couldn’t we avoid a few plugins by using a bit of custom code?

So I decided to do a series on how to duplicate the functionality of some plugins using PHP code within the WordPress theme/template itself. That way, you can eliminate the plugin – and still get the features offered by the plugin.

The Advantages

The advantages of avoiding unnecessary plugins…

Less overhead/More Optimized Method: If you have installed a plugin, the plugin files must be read and loaded into the memory on every page load. This overhead can be avoided by using putting the code into the template file which is already in the include list.
Don’t have to worry about plugin updates: Granted, current WordPress version make it very easy to update plugins. But still, if you embed the code, then there is no need to update the code every month or so.
Much more customizable than the plugin: You can write the code to get the exact functionality you want. You cannot get that with a plugin.
You learn more about WordPress: This is perhaps the most important effect – you learn more about wordpress template tags, about PHP, about wordpress internals and lot more.

The Disadvantages

Not as easy as using a plugin: For those who work with WordPress and PHP code all the time, like myself, editing the code may be easier than finding, installing and configuring a new plugin. But for most normal people, using the plugin is a much easier option.
Have to be familiar with coding, PHP, FTP, etc.: To do custom coding, you have to be familiar with technologies like PHP, HTML, FTP uploading etc. If you are not familiar with these, you will have to put in a bit of time to learn it.
Changing the theme involves a lot of work.: You will have to port all the changes you made in your old theme to the new theme whenever you decide to move to the a theme. The more you customize a theme, the more time you have to spent when moving to a new theme.

Plugin Killer Series

With this in mind, I have decided to create a series that shows how to ‘kill’ some unnecessary wordpress plugins. You will be able to get the same functionality by using the custom code in your template files.

The first post in this series is already done – it is the ‘Avoid Duplicate Content – Use Canonical URL in WordPress‘ where I showed how to create the same functionality as the Canonical plugin.

More to follow. If you are interested in these posts, make sure you have subscribed to Bin-Blog Feed – if you have not done so already.