Got a problem with wordpress - Post it here and get it resolved

[Kevin]

We have a lot of wordpress users here. I'm sure many are not too familar with editing wordpress templates and stylesheets etc so I thought I would create a thread for us all to help each other.

So in short, if you have a wordpress problem (big or small), post it here and the rest of us will do our best to resolve it :)

[tanipo]

I am new to WP and the concept of Plugins as well. Minimum html knowledge.

I have the following problem - I want to put mailing list plugin on my blog but I have no idea how to do it. It seems that one of the files has to go to the root directory and the other to plugin directory but I have no idea which where. Also after uploading and activating - what next - I red all the tutorials but I have no idea how to make the subscription form appear on my website. Could someone please help me and guide me step by step :

Here is the plugin:

http://gerard.ly.free.fr/index.php?page=wordpress

[Kevin]

you simply upload all files to the root directory of your blog

for example

if your blog is at www.example.com you would upload the subscribe folder to www.example.com/subscribe/ and the ml-subscribe.php file to www.example.com/ml-subscribe.php

[tanipo]

But what is the content/plugin folder then for? Am I not supposed to upload the things there? In all the tutorials it says - upload plugin to plugin folder.

And then starts my real problem. I have no idea what to do next. The form does not appera on my site. Im I not supposed to edit something through the theme editor?

[Kevin]

just select both folders and that file to the root directory of your blog. There is already a wp-content folder so it will just overwrite it

Im not sure why the form is not showing. If you have uploaded the plugin and installed it correctly and are still having problems please email me your ftp details and an admin pass for your blog and ill sort it for you :)

[jijigren]

I've got these errors everytime I open my blog url


WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'home' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'hack_file' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'active_plugins' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'permalink_structure' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'category_base' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'template' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'stylesheet' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'widget_text' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'widget_rss' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'sidebars_widgets' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'use_smilies' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'cron' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'html_type' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'blog_charset' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'show_on_front' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'posts_per_page' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'gmt_offset' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 127 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'gzipcompression' LIMIT 1

WordPress database error: [Got error 134 from table handler]
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'blog_public' LIMIT 1


My blog url is : http://www.hisdir.com/college/

I hav a rough idea that this prob is cause by databse error but not really sure what exactly the problem....

I also cannot access menu in admin

[Kevin]

your blog seems to be fine now

what was the problem, how did you resolve it? :)

[shypys]

I got a similar message once(although not so expnasive)... turned out my server was down. :rolleyes:

[nycdavey]

Hi there. I'm trying to do a custom theme for Wordpress (using Wordpress more as a CMS than a blog) and have two things that I believe are possible, but I have no idea how to make them happen:

1) On single post pages, instead of showing the blog name and wp_title (the title of the post) in the browser's title bar, I'd like to show the blog name and the post's CATEGORY.

For example: on this page http://www.danielleary.net/wp/?p=8, I'd like the title bar to read "Daniel Leary - Upcoming Shows", since that's the category that this particular post is in.

Is it possible for the header.php file to pick up a post's category and use it in the Title?

This is the title line in my current header.php file:

<?php bloginfo('name'); ?> <?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> &raquo; Blog Archive <?php } ?> <?php wp_title(); ?>

I've tried several different variable names (the_category, single_cat_title) in here, but have had no luck.

2) The second thing I'd like to do is show a unique page image in the header for each page or category. I think something like this would work:

<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/<?php wp_title(); ?>.jpg"

EXCEPT when it comes to category pages. How could I use wp_title for pages but if it's category (archive) or single post page use the category name? I'm thinking the solution to item number 1 might help with the solution to item number 2. Although, how will spaces be treated in titles and category names? Would they be read as underlines? (for example, if the page title is "All About Me", would the above be translanted .../images/All_About_Me.jpg"?

Umm, I think I'm overposting. Any guidance on these things would be helpful.

Have a great day!

[nycdavey]

Hi again,

Since I posted two hours ago, I've changed the title line in my header.php file to:

<title><?php if ( is_single() ) { ?> Archive &raquo; <?php echo str_replace("-"," ",$post->post_name); } else { bloginfo('name'); wp_title(); }?></title>

This does not solve my issue - because I still want to show the bloginfo('name') and the CATEGORY on the single pages.

But as far as item #2 on my previous post, I found that the spaces in category titles are NOT replaced by underscores or dashes, so I'm wondering if using Category Slugs may be part of solution?

Note that on my test site, I did get the test header images to appear for the one-word named pages: http://www.danielleary.net/wp/

Thanks again for any help.

[Kevin]

sorry Davey, don't know how i missed your replies :)

Have you got this sorted now?

let me know if you need any help/advice :)

[gClaw]

Greetings-

I've been searching for an answer to this for awhile now with no luck. Hopefully I can get an answer here to my problem.

I'm currently working on a 2 column WP site for a chiropractic client. On the left sidebar I have a "Meta" link underneath COLUMNS and ARCHIVES.

Beneath this META heading there is the following links listed: Site Admin-Logout-Entries (RSS)-Comments (RSS) - Free Themes/Templates - Web Host Refer.

See site www.IslandCityBackPain.com for visual

Anyhoo, my client would like this section erased from the site since it really has no use. I tend to agree (tho I'm not sure, I'm just guessing it has no real need to be there). I've tried erasing it in the code, not really knowing what I'm doing, and have to reload it again because I just mess up the entire site instead.

I've suggested to her to maybe picking a different theme but it seems almost every other theme she's chosen has the same thing, the META column in the sidebar.

Is this META column really necessary? How do I get rid of it if a client doesn't want it on there? I'm not a coder or a programmer so if it's possible it really needs to be spelled out in laymen's terms.

I've noticed on many sites this META column is nowhere on those sites. I'd rather not let her competition know I'm building her site on WP and that META column pretty much gives it away if someone clicks on it. I'd just as soon not give them that option.

Any suggestions would be appreciated and thank you in advance.

Glenn

[gClaw]

Also, I've noticed on her site underneath each article heading is an "edit" link that anyone can seem to click onto and really mess up the site if they choose to. WTF is up with that? How can I correct that so all my work doesn't go down the drain?

Thx
Glenn

[Kevin]

The meta section is easily removed and I agree, it's not worth keeping. You don't seem to have it on your blog though.

You need to look at the css stylesheet though as your main content area is forcing a horizontal scrollbar.

[Kevin]

Also, I've noticed on her site underneath each article heading is an "edit" link that anyone can seem to click onto and really mess up the site if they choose to. WTF is up with that? How can I correct that so all my work doesn't go down the drain?

Thx
Glenn

Only admin can see that link. Logout and the edit link will disappear.

[gClaw]

You need to look at the css stylesheet though as your main content area is forcing a horizontal scrollbar.

Thx for getting back to me Kevin-

What, or how, do I go about doing that? Is there a simple way to explain it to me so I can go in and wipe it out?

Regarding the edit, I changed the theme for the time being because I didn't want to set myself up to get sabotaged just in case some looney-tune read my public post and wanted to "poke the bear" so-to-speak and screw things up for me. So I changed it but the initial theme had the "edit" link in it next to the article title. So that's nothing to worry about and only shows on my computer then?

Thanks,
Glenn

[sarahG]

Yes, as Kevin said, the edit link only displays when you're logged in and have the user level to edit the article. Don't worry, I've had a client phone me up concerned over the exact same thing :D

Your meta also doesn't display to the general public, so either you've worked out how to remove it, or it was only displaying to logged in users.

Remember, when you're logged in you see things differently to when you're not logged in. Sometimes it's handy to open the site up in a different browser, where you're not naturally logged into the admin, just to get an idea of what the general public will see.

As for your display problems. The CSS used is, I'm sorry to say, awful. It's a complete mess for something so simple. To be honest it would be quicker to use the classic theme that comes with WordPress and integrate your design into that instead. I've just tried to fix the CSS on your site as it stands and give up!

[gClaw]

Hi Sarah and thx for responding. The current theme I have up is just a temporary one to simplify what I'm trying to do with the original one my client requested. I'll put that back up and you can then see what I'm referring to in my initial post and maybe offer a suggestion as to how to erase the META thingy (?) in the sidebar.

Thx,
Glenn

[sarahG]

You'll need to post up your sidebar php code here too else there's no way we can say what to remove as it'll most likely cause PHP errors if done wrong.

[gClaw]

Hmm, really? If I understand you correctly you want me to copy/paste the entire sidebar code on here? I've never done that. Won't that get to be a little long-winded post?

If that's what I believe I understand your saying (I'm by no means a techie so if it's something that's normally done and I sound clueless it's because I am). I don't want to go ahead and do something like that if I mis-understood you and go overboard with it being a clueless newb for the most part.

Thank you again for your time,
Glenn

[sarahG]

Yes. We need to see the code in use in sidebar.php. Just put it into the code tags (ie [ code ] [ /code ] without the spaces) and post that up. Then it's easier to say 'remove this section of code' without causing errors or problems to your site.

[gClaw]

Well, I wasn't quite sure about how to go about closing all the spaces up like you mentioned in your last post, sorry, but I copied/pasted the sidebar.php here below.
Also, would the code be the same for what I'm trying to do (erase the META sidebar) on all WP themes so once you explain to me how to delete it on this current WP theme (islandcitybackpain.com ) would it be so easy as to just look for that same code on other sidebar.php files on other themes so I could do the same thing on other WP sites I'm building as well? Or, is the code for this different on every theme?

Thank you Sarah, I appreciate you offering to help me with this clear from the other side of the world! :)

Glenn

Reference: http://www.IslandCityBackPain.com sidebar.php code below...


<div id="sidebar">
<ul>
<?php /* Widgetized sidebar, if you have the plugin installed. */
if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar() ) :
?>

<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=<h1>Pages</h1>'); ?>
<?php wp_list_categories('show_count=1&title_li=<h1>Categories</h1>'); ?>

<li>
<h1>Archives</h1>
<ul><?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?></ul>
</li>

<?php if ( is_archive() ) { ?>
<li><h1>Calendar</h1><ul><?php get_calendar(); ?></ul></li>
<?php } ?>

<?php if ( is_single()|| is_page() ) { ?>
<li><h1>Recent Posts</h1><ul><?php wp_get_archives('type=postbypost&limit=5')?></ul></li>
<?php } ?>

<?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar/tagcloud.php'); ?>

<?php if ( is_home() || is_page() ) { /* If this is the frontpage */
wp_list_bookmarks('orderby=rand&title_before=<h1>&title_after=</h1>&between=<br/>&show_description=1&limit=20');
?>

<?php } ?>
<li><h1>Meta</h1>
<ul>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>">Entries (RSS)</a></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>">Comments (RSS)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.templatelite.com/"><abbr title="Free blog themes and templates">Free Theme/Template</abbr></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hostrefer.com/"><abbr title="Cheap Web Hosting Review">Web Host Refer</abbr></a></li>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
</ul>
</li>
<?php endif; ?>
</ul>
</div>

[sarahG]

Right, you need to remove these lines of code

<li><h1>Meta</h1>
<ul>
<?php wp_register(); ?>
<li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>">Entries (RSS)</a></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>">Comments (RSS)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.templatelite.com/"><abbr title="Free blog themes and templates">Free Theme/Template</abbr></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.hostrefer.com/"><abbr title="Cheap Web Hosting Review">Web Host Refer</abbr></a></li>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
</ul>
</li>

Which will remove the meta content and not kill the file.

In answer to your question. No it won't necessarily be the same for every theme with meta content. It depends how it's laid out and what markup and PHP is used around it. However with a bit of trial and error and eventually understanding, you should be able to edit these themes easily.

Also, as a sidenote, in this side bar it's using h1s for the various section titles. That's not really a good idea from an SEO and accessibility point of view. h1 tags are deemed to contain some of the most important content on the page after the title, and by having them all over the page you risk either diluting the importance of content that should be in the h1 (the site title or page header) or you could be seen as over using header tags and considered spamming. Personally I tend to use h3's for my sidebar titles, h2 for my post/page headers and the h1 is the logo or site title, which is usually the same on every page.

It's just a suggestion but it's something I'd look at once you've got your other niggles sorted.

[gClaw]

Ok, thank you Sarah and I'll let you know how my META deletion goes. As far as the h1, h2 and h3 tags you mentioned, that's all foreign to me right now.
This is the 1st WP site I've ever built and my chiropractor just happened to like the seasonal header.
Once autumn has come and gone then maybe I'll be able to talk her into something else that has those tags you mentioned.
This is all greek to me so I really appreciate your help with this.
Until I stumbled upon this SEO forum I've gotten nowhere asking these questions so I really appreciate you helping me out.
I have about 101 other questions but won't jump into those until I get some of the other kinks ironed out first.

Thank you very much,
Glenn

[gClaw]

Ok, I deleted the sidebar.php code above but the META column is still on the sites sidebar. I refreshed the page, still there. I turned on my desktop computer and went to the site thinking maybe it's just on my laptop computer but it's still on there using my desktop.

I was pretty sure I fumbled my way around the sidebar.php coding before I even found this forum and am pretty sure I figured out to erase the same code you said and never had any results doing that so thought I obviously didn't know what I was doing and better ask for some help which led me here. For whatever reason after erasing all the code above I'm still dealing with the META column in the sidebar.

I've gone so far as earsed another couple of lines and it completely messed up the whole site and I had to re-upload it again in the FTP.

So I'm still banging my head against my keyboard and looking for some other suggestions to my dilema.

Thank you

[sarahG]

Yeah don't remove anything else, that's not the solution.

If you removed that code and it's still showing then I can only assume your sidebar is using widgets. Which means that you'll need to go into your WP Admin and into where the dynamic sidebar can be edited and remove the correct widget from there that adds the Meta info. It will most likely be the last widget in the sidebar list.

[gClaw]

Oh boy...that sounds like performing heart surgery and I'm definately not a doctor. Hopefully it's as simple as it sounds in your post so I'm going to attempt to find it and hopefully not mess things up and delete something I shouldn't.

I'll report back one way or another and let you know what happens.

Thx
Glenn

[gClaw]

Yeeeeeaaa! Maybe I should consider being a doctor. I fumbled my way around and found the widget section and followed your instructions and....wooola...it worked! That meta column has finally disappeared.

Thank you very much for the follow-ups and walking me thru this Sarah. I'm not sure what effect the deleting of the meta widget has on the site but by deleting it accomplished what I wanted to do from the get go.

That looks alot better now I think.

Now another question I have is this RSS feed thing. How do I utilize that on the site? On one of my other sites I have an RSS feed link and I can't seem to figure out how to make it work, or what it even does but I'm hearing more and more about it so it must be necessary.

Thank you again Sarah!

Glenn

[sarahG]

The meta is of no physical use to the site besides providing a link to the admin section and usually a link back to WordPress, neither of which are necessary.

As for RSS. With WordPress you're already utilising the RSS by making it available for other people to use. This site, for example, has an RSS feed, and when you subscribe to it in a feed reader (eg. Google Reader, Bloglines, Omea Pro) then you don't need to return to the site to see if a new post has been put up. Your feedreader will check for you and download the post into your reader.

For example I have about 50 feeds that I subscribe to in Google Reader. I open that up and can run through them, a bit like my own customised magazine. I have Flickr feeds of photos, personal blog feeds, feeds from WordPress, PHP blogs and other technicial feeds. If I spent every day checking all of these sites to see if a new post had been posted I'd lose a few hours!

If you use Firefox then you can tell if the feed is being 'presented' to visitors as the RSS icon (an orange square with some white curved lines on it) is in the address bar on the right. Alternatively, in IE7 there's an RSS icon on the toolbar and if you click it, it will open the feed in a 'pretty view' ie. it looks neat and tidy on the page. If you have an RSS feed but it's not displaying as available then you need to add in the code needed in the header to make it available, which you can see in the header of your WordPress site.

The easiest way to understand RSS is to try it out. If you've got a Google account then go to www.google.com/reader/ and add some feeds eg. your site, a news site, blogging tips etc. Then you'll see how it works and it'll be easier to get your head around.

[gClaw]

Thank you for the explanations Sarah. I somewhat understand the concept of the purpose of RSS feeds, just not sure how to turn them on and make the link useful for someone who wants to get the RSS feed off the site. And/or how to use it yet for marketing and the search engines.

Is there a WP tutorial you're aware of that explains RSS very simply and how to implement it without all the technical jargon?

Thank you again,
Glenn

[sarahG]

Well if you're running WordPress, it's already running. And most people who know about RSS will know how to access the feed. If you want to link to it actually on the site then you've got the URLs

http://islandcitybackpain.com/?feed=rss2
http://islandcitybackpain.com/?feed=atom

Or when you switch permalinks on (highly recommended - Options -> Permalinks) then these would become

http://islandcitybackpain.com/feed/
http://islandcitybackpain.com/feed/atom/

So you could add links to these directly, but they're still already available to modern browser users via the RSS link built into the browser.

As for utilising these, you probably wouldn't as the site owner. I mean the only thing I do with my feeds is use them to grab the latest posts off each of my sites and combine them to make up my front page. Otherwise I wouldn't do anything with them.

When a new post is written on a WordPress site a 'ping' is sent out to the various sites listed in your options - writing panel. By default this is usually pingomatic, but you can add more to the list. Pingomatic is meant to then ping to various services which then send out their bots to come and read/index your post. You can write a post and find yourself in Google Blogsearch within 30 minutes.

Also under options - privacy check that you've left the option ticked 'allow my blog to appear in search engines'.

However, from a site owner's point of view, the RSS is mainly there as a different way for your users to get info from the site. You could submit it to places like Technorati etc. however most of these will pick up on the site once it gets going anyway.

[gClaw]

Wow, that was pretty in-depth. I had to re-read that again alot slower just to try to understand what I was reading :-).

Thank you for pointing out those tips. I appreciate that. I'll make those changes you suggested on that site.

On my own WP site I have a RSS Feed graphic that visitors can click onto if they choose to. Not that most of my market I target would even know anything about RSS feeds in 99.9% them probably, I still want to utilize the RSS feed and take advantage of it otherwise there's no reason to even have it big and bold RSS FEED click here on the site if I can't make use of it.

Can you explain to me how would I go about "flipping the switch" so my RSS Feed banner or whatever it's called on my site works like it's supposed to and serves a purpose.

When I click onto it right now on the home page it's just goes to a "page not available"

Thx alot,
Glenn

[sarahG]

The addresses above will work for all WP sites so try either of those ie

http://www.yourdomain.com/?feed=rss2
http://www.yourdomain.com/feed/

If you're using IE7 or Firefox then you should get the feed displaying in a semi pretty format. When you see that then the URL you've tried is the one you need and change the link of your RSS button to link to that.

Else you'll need to give us your URL.

[gClaw]

I tried both of those links in your last email and both came back as "IE cannot display the webpage".

I'd rather PM you my personal webpage since I have an itemized price list on there as it stands right now rather than post it on here for any local competition to possibly see. CMA is all.

I want to know how to put up a opt-in form on my WP site as well so I can start collecting email addresses to start a mailing list.

But one thing at a time and right now I have to figure out this RSS feed thing-a-ma-jig and how to get it to work and make it useful.

Thx Sarah!

[sarahG]

Sure, send me a PM of your site and I'll take a look and let you know which link to use :)

[gClaw]

Ok, it's on it's way...thank you for taking the time to check it out for me.

[gClaw]

I've recently uploaded a couple of WP plug-ins from my FTP into the wp-content and into plug-ins. The transfer seemed to go smoothly however when I logged into my WP admin panel and went into my plug-in to activate the plug-ins, there was nothing.

Neither of the plugins uploaded. I checked the other WP site I uploaded these plug-ins to as well and nothing there either. So I re-uploaded them again from the FTP and once again everything seemed to upload just fine.

But once again when I went into my admin panel for both WP sites there was nothing. I refreshed the page, nothing. One of the upload is Google Maps, a common upload.

What's going on? What am I doing wrong? And where did my plug-in uploads go if they didn't go into my WP admin plug-in section? :(:confused:

Thx

[sarahG]

Make sure the actual plugin file(s) are in /wp-content/plugins/files*.* or /wp-content/plugins/plugindir/files*.*

When you extract a plugin file and upload it you can sometimes end up with /wp-content/plugins/plugindir/plugdir/files*.* which will rarely work. So check that isn't the case.

[gClaw]

Nope, I checked and double-checked as to why I'm not able to get the plug-ins to go over to the admin area of my WP. I checked the format and it is wp-content/plugins/files so it has to be somewhere else.
Funny how both WP sites I've tried to upload these plug-ins to don't show up in the WP admin but they show up in my FTP as being on my hard drive and having been transfered over to the wp-content plug in. What else could it be?

[sarahG]

link to one of the plugins you've got and I'll download it and try it for myself.

[gClaw]

As far as I can tell and manage to do, I think this is the link. I'm not a techie so as far as I can tell this is what you mean? >>WPgoogle-sitemap-Plugin.3.1.0.1

maxblogpress-ping-optimizer is another plug-in that never made the trip across into the WP admin. I have it on a folder on my desktop and couldn't figure out how to get you a link. Yeah, I know, I'm pretty clueless with this computer stuff but it's the only way I could think of to get you a link somehow being it's in a folder on my desktop. Otherwise you'll have to clue me in as to how to go about getting you the link.

[sarahG]

Each plugin should have a readme.txt file and in there is usually a link to the plugin's homepage or at least the author's homepage.

However, for a Google Sitemap I use http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/ which works fine.

To be honest I still think it sounds like your paths are wrong. To put it simply, in the top of a plugin file there is a comment (ie. it's not picked up as code), and in this comment gives the plugin name and description details. When you put the plugin file into either the root of the plugins folder, or into its own folder within the plugins folder, WordPress looks through this folder and reads all of the headers. If it finds one then it gets listed in the plugins page.

So if WP can't read these files and read the headers, it can't make them available to you.

[gClaw]

Ok, I located the text file in the folder. Actually one looked like it was written in Italian or something but here's some copy/paste of the Google SiteMaps...

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.

== Installation ==

1. Upload the full directory into your wp-content/plugins directory
2. Use your favorite FTP program to create two files in your WordPress directory (that's where the wp-config.php is) named sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz and make them writable via CHMOD 666. More information about CHMOD and how to make files writable is available at the [WordPress Codex](http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions) and on [stadtaus.com](http://www.stadtaus.com/en/tutorials/chmod-ftp-file-permissions.php). Making your whole blog directory writable is NOT recommended anymore due to security reasons.
4. Activate the plugin at the plugin administration page
5. Open the plugin configuration page, which is located under Options -> XML-Sitemap and build the sitemap the first time. If you get a permission error, check the file permissions of the newly created files.
6. The plugin will automatically update your sitemap of you publish a post, so theres nothing more to do :)

I don't know if anything here will help you out at all. It's not just this plug-in, it's 3 others as well from recommended sites like Wordpress.com. I'm showing they're on my hardrive in the left column of my FTP under the public html-wp-content-website-plugin file. I am so :confused:

Thanks Sarah

[gClaw]

Here's a link I found after I submitted my previous post that might be helpful. Or not.

Good news, this plugin is free for everyone! Since it's released under the GPL, you can use it free of charge on your personal or commercial blog. But if you enjoy this plugin, you can thank me and leave a [small donation](http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-paypal "Donate with PayPal") for the time I've spent writing and supporting this plugin. And I really don't want to know how many hours of my life this plugin has already eaten ;)

[sarahG]

The sitemaps plugin is the one I linked to, so it works fine. It's down to where you're placing them. You mentioned

I'm showing they're on my hardrive in the left column of my FTP under the public html-wp-content-website-plugin file.

To me that reads as /public_html/wp-content/website/plugin ? However if you reread my post earlier I said /wp-content/plugins which is the same as /public_html/wp-content/plugins

You need to get your paths correct. Step by step

1. go to the directory where WordPress is installed (so you see wp-config.php for example).
2. Double click on wp-content
3. Double click on plugins
4. This is the folder where you plugins should go.

It's best to keep your plugins in their own folder within plugins, and that will still work. So under plugins you could have a folder called google-sitemap then in that folder should be all the files.

Once you get the plugins in the right location then you'll see them in your Admin plugins page.

[gClaw]

Hmm...I could swear I did it that way previously. Obviously I didn't do something right. I'll try to follow your steps once and see if I can't confuse myself and stumble around in the FTP and see if I can't manage to put the square peg into the round hole without doing something catastrophic.

Thanks Sarah, I'll report back here with the latest on whether I was able to connect the dots or not.

[gClaw]

Ok, I'm confused even more. When I went to public_html/ then wp-content/then plugin I notice the 3 WP plugin downloads already in the file there.

So unless I don't quite understand what your telling me, I went into the FTP and both the directory where WP is installed (on my own topvolume site) and in the directory of my clients chiropractic site and followed the steps and in both cases I see the plugins already installed in there.

Grrrr....

I'm not getting it Sarah. What am I doing wrong and why do they show up in the directory but not in my admin plugin area of my WP theme?

[sarahG]

Okay, i've checked your directories and my first thought was correct.

Your Sitemap plugin is currently in
/wp-content/plugins/WPgoogle-sitemap-Plugin.3.1.0.1/google-sitemap-generator/

This needs to be at

http://islandcitybackpain.com/wp-content/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

See? There's only one directory from the plugins directory, not two. Same goes for your socialbook plugin currently

/wp-content/plugins/WPsocibookPlugin/i-love-social-bookmarking/

needs to be

/wp-content/plugins/i-love-social-bookmarking/

Note: the final directory isn't overly important but it's best to use the directory created by the plugin as sometimes the plugin may assume this is the directory in use.

So you need to FTP in, and copy the entire directory within what you think is each plugin directory, and copy it into the plugins directory.

[gClaw]

Hi Sarah-

How can you tell what my directories are and what is where without accessing them from the admin panel? I don't even know where to look. I don't even know where to start.

You said: "See? There's only one directory from the plugins directory, not two. Same goes for your socialbook plugin currently

/wp-content/plugins/WPsocibookPlugin/i-love-social-bookmarking/

needs to be
/wp-content/plugins/i-love-social-bookmarking/"

Huh? I don't even know where to start or how to make that happen. I thought it'd be simple to add plugins to my WP sites. Apparently both of them are set up the wrong way like you described. Why can't it ever be easy for someone whose not a techie to figure this out? I did a few WP themes the same way as I described earlier and had no problem so I thought doing plugins into the plugin directories for both sites would be a cinch as well. How clueless of me to think it could be that easy.

Can you please walk me through the process so I can make this right? Would it be the same for every WP site I bring online then, or was this just a fluke the way how the directories ended up for both my sites this time?

Grrrrrr.....I don't want to lose any more hair over this technical maze of confusion. I'm wondering how I can get more WP clients when I can't even get my own sites operating smoothly.

[sarahG]

Hi Sarah-

How can you tell what my directories are and what is where without accessing them from the admin panel? I don't even know where to look. I don't even know where to start.

By going to your client's site which you linked to previously, and then tagging /wp-content/plugins/ on the end of it :)

You said: "See? There's only one directory from the plugins directory, not two. Same goes for your socialbook plugin currently

/wp-content/plugins/WPsocibookPlugin/i-love-social-bookmarking/

needs to be
/wp-content/plugins/i-love-social-bookmarking/"

Huh? I don't even know where to start or how to make that happen.

FTP to the site. Go to wp-content -> plugins. Click on the WPsocibookPlugin and delete it. Do the same for the other plugin directory. Then on your computer go to where you put the plugin. Open the WPsocibookPlugin and inside there you should see the directory 'i-love-social-bookmarking'. Click on that directory and upload that directory into your plugins directory. Do the same for the other plugin.

I thought it'd be simple to add plugins to my WP sites. Apparently both of them are set up the wrong way like you described. Why can't it ever be easy for someone whose not a techie to figure this out? I did a few WP themes the same way as I described earlier and had no problem so I thought doing plugins into the plugin directories for both sites would be a cinch as well. How clueless of me to think it could be that easy.

Themes work slightly different to plugins and you've possibly done the themes right and not realised. To be fair, adding plugins is not that hard if you understand how a basic directory works on your computer. When you've extracted your plugin you've put the extracted files, which are already in a directory into a second directory. So the files are not in the top level directory but a sub directory. However for plugins to function correctly they need to either be going as plain files into the plugins directory or at most, a sub directory of the plugins directory. At present you've got the files 2 directories deep which is what the problem is.

Can you please walk me through the process so I can make this right? Would it be the same for every WP site I bring online then, or was this just a fluke the way how the directories ended up for both my sites this time?

Done as above. It would be the same for every WP site ie. a plugin file must either be in the plugins directory or in a sub directory of the plugins directory. ie. you need to take care what you're uploading. Whenever you want to add a new plugin, you download the zip, extract the files into a directory, but you then need to check that the files are within the top level directory and not a directory within the directory. That's where the problems happen.

Grrrrrr.....I don't want to lose any more hair over this technical maze of confusion. I'm wondering how I can get more WP clients when I can't even get my own sites operating smoothly.

It's honestly not that hard. if you can use a computer it should be simple to understand. Don't think of a the files and directories of a site as anything different to how you'd see your own computer system. All your hosting space is, is a directory on a computer somewhere else in the world, and you add more directories and files into it.

[gClaw]

Wonderful Sarah, thx for taking the time to explain this to me. I'll reread what you wrote down reeeeal slow so I can try to follow along while I try to implement it. I'm not sure if it's something I can still manage to figure out or not but I'll give it a whirl and hopefully won't come back here begging you to explain it to me like your trying to explain it to a 5th grader :-).

[gClaw]

Well...I don't have good news. I went into the FTP and deleted all the plugins there that I managed to download. So far so good. I then went to where I have the plugins which is on my desktop. I opened it up and didn't see anything close to i-love-social-bookmarking in there. I guess I don't understand why that would even be in the Google Maps directory in the first place. What I seen was: image, documentation, read me, screenshot, sitemap.php, sitemap-ui.php, lang, sitemap, & sitemap-core.php. That's it.

I even checked the other 2 plugins I downloaded that were parked on my desktop that I deleted and neither of them had any i-love-social-bookmarking either. So I don't even know where that came from and what that has to do with the couple of plugins I've been trying to download. To my knowledge neither one of them were social bookmarking related plugins.

One was WP favicons, another was Google Maps and the other was WP ping optimizer.
No social bookmarking stuff. So I'm baffled and have no idea where to even look for what you're describing.

Should I call 911? I just lost some more hair too.

I appreciate all your help Sarah but maybe I'm beyond help with this technical jungle that I can't even seem to follow your directions without coming up empty handed. Why am I not finding what your telling me? Is there another name for it maybe?

[sarahG]

The 'i-love-social-bookmarking' was a plugin on your client's site that you posted up about a week or so ago. It was just an example. If you don't know what it is then you need to check this site as it has it there.

The following is an example for one plugin. You need to adapt the information for all your different plugins.

For the Google Sitemaps plugin. Go to the directory on your computer where the plugin is stored. Open up the directories until you see 'sitemap.php' file (you mentioned this so I assume you can find that again). That's the plugin file (the other files are called by the plugins, but that file is the one that defines the plugin to WordPress). The directory that this file is in, is the directory you want to upload. So ideally this file should be in a directory called google-sitemaps (which I'll assume for now). So in your FTP program you want to upload the directory google-sitemaps to your plugins directory.

Now when you go to the plugins page in your WP admin you should see the Google Sitemaps plugin displayed as waiting to be activated. Click Activate and then configure it under Settings.

You'll need to update this information for your other plugins. ie. go into the plugin directory and keep opening up the directory until you find the main files (usually has the readme.txt in, but not always). The directory that is containing these files is the directory you need to upload to the plugins directory.

[gClaw]

I followed your suggestion and went to the directory where Google Sitemaps is stored on my desktop. I clicked on the "sitemaps.php" file which is in the GoogleMaps directory folder which I've attempted to upload before.

But when I clicked on the "sitemaps.php" file inside the GoogleMaps folder I got this: "Windows cannot open this file. To open this file Windows needs to know what program created it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or I can manually select from a list of programs on my computer."

When I selected "use the web service to find the selected program, another page pops up which is a Microsoft application which says: Description: This file can be either a Microsoft Picture It! Document or PHP HTML Scripting Language file. PHP HTML files can be opened in Notepad or other applications that open text files.

This is just getting way to deep for my limited technical knowledge. I had no idea it was this difficult to do WP plugins. I read where everyone was raving about the simplicity of WP but I'm not finding it that simple at all on my end. I just don't speak the language so I'm finding it isn't as easy as I've read to build and run an efficient WP site.

I might just be better off scrapping these sites and just finding a free html template and building a site from that foundation rather than keep banging my head against the wall and going nowhere with these WP plugins and whatever else is necessary in the WP world to build a nice site.

By the way, I checked out your Flickr site and you have taken some really nice photos. Your really good at panning your sports shots, something I haven't quite mastered myself, especially with a digital camera. You have a very good eye for photography Sarah.

Thank you again and I am going to sign off now and go bang my head against the wall for awhile and contemplate my online future.

[sarahG]

But when I clicked on the "sitemaps.php" file

I didn't say to double click on it ;). Don't double click on the file. If you really want to open the file you can open it in Notepad or any web editor, but that's beside the point, I basically said:

open up the directories until you find the files such as sitemap.php. This is the plugin file. So you want to upload (in your FTP program) the directory that contains these files.

eg. if you've got a directory within My Documents called WordPress then in there there's a directory called plugins. Then in there is the extract directory WPGoogleSitemaps, then in there is the directory google-sitemap and in that is the sitemap.php file. -- This is just an example to try and explain what you need to be looking at.

You need to upload the google-sitemap directory and all of its contents, to the plugins directory on your server.

Honestly, WordPress is simple. But to be honest, if you want to get into web development and selling your services to set up business websites then I'd highly recommend you doing an ECDL course (European Computer Driving License, or an equivalent course on how to use a computer) and grasp the basics of how to use a computer first.

Cheers for your comment on my photos though :)

[gClaw]

Well, thanks for your patience Sarah. Although I'm familiar with how to use a computer, I'm not very knowledgeable with the processes of how to do this or that. I've built 3 or 4websites prior to stumbling into WP so my learning curve isn't really that steep. I'm just getting to know about WP in the last 3 or 4 weeks is all.

I seem to comprehend "how-to" do something better if I'm visually shown how to do it versus being explained to me. It's the terminology that I usually get lost when following along in text.

I think what I'll do is attempt to follow your directions once more and if I run into a roadblock again I might try to do a YouTube search and see if someone has put together a simple 4 minute video on how to upload a WP plugin that I can visually watch, and pause, to follow along with the process.

That's how I learned to upload (or is it download?) WP themes I now have in my admin area of both the WP sites I'm working on. Stranger things have happened!

Thank you again for your awesome patience. I'll pass though on your suggestion I take an ECDL course. I'll get this WP thing figured out eventually, it just takes me awhile being a non-techie. It's like being in another country and not speaking the language.

[Rarst]

I am looking for plugin or code snippet that can do following task - “list of X posts with most comments in last Y days”.

Anyone seen something like that? :)

[sarahG]

Here's a modified version of WP Most Commented, which will do what you want - http://www.stuffbysarah.net/plugins/most-commented.zip

Put that in your plugins directory.

To call this use the following code

<ul>
<?php get_mostcommented(X, Y); ?>
</ul>

Where X is the number of posts you want to show and Y is the number of days.

I've just modified the original plugin to accept a number of days and check for comments only made within that period. Only quickly tested but appears to work for me.

[Rarst]

@sarahG

I get 404 on your link. It shows some directory with some zips if I remove last part - is that it?

By the way I had just found plugin (seems like it is very new one) that does exactly that:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/most-comments/

Off to test. :)

[sarahG]

Sorry, it was a zip file not PHP, I've fixed the link.

The plugin you linked to doesn't do the same as what you asked for from what I can tell by reading it. The plugin on WordPress says you can get it to check on the number of comments for posts written in the last X days, whereas I interpreted (but maybe wrongly!) you were asking for a way to display the most commented posts with comments made in the last X days.

With my plugin you could have a post written last year, but if it's had a comment in the last week it could be in the list, whereas with the WP plugin you linked to, the post would have had to be written in the last week too (if 7 days was your day limit).

Anyhow, you've got both options now so you can select which one you're after :)

[Rarst]

I was actually interested in recent posts not posts with recent comments. :) Sorry if I worded it ambiguously. Idea is to show fresh posts that have most of comment activity.