Are you in need of some more commentators or want to allow commentators to receive points for commenting to get something?

With the CubePoints WordPress plugin you can, CubePoints allows you to choose a certain amount of points for each comment posted by a certain commentator. You can offer premium content, allow readers to purchase merchandise or maybe even an advertisement for your blog with a certain amount of points.

When they post a comment the points set in the administration panel is added to that person’s comment account and if their comment is deleted, it automatically removes the points. You, as the administrator can even alter the points quickly and easily from administration!

If you want to display how many points a commentator has accumulated in the sidebar, you can use this code:

<?php cp_displayPoints(); ?>

You can download and install this plugin from the WordPress Directory.  It was just added on December 26th.

Related posts:

1. Increase Comments with the Show Top Commentators WordPress Plugin
2. Eliminate Annoying Keywords in Comments with the Keyword Luv Plugin
3. Announce Your Comment Policy with Comment License WordPress Plugin
4. Improve Comment Recognition with the MyAvatars WordPress Plugin

For any bloggers that maintain an “Advertise” page on their WordPress blog, you might want to check a recent guest post by our friend Jean-Baptiste Jung over at Pro Blog Design.   In his guest post, Jean explains how to manually create an auto-statistics page for advertisers.  As with all of Jean’s posts, you’ll get the code you need and more.

Count me in the camp of people who prefer to manually code something into their theme; however, I think this would also be a great idea for a WordPress plugin.   I know a lot of plugin developers have asked for ideas in the past so there you go! 

Related posts:

1. How to: Create an Archive Page for your WordPress blog
2. Manage Your Advertisers With the OIO Publisher WordPress Plugin
3. Making Better Use of Your Error “404″ Page
4. How To: Adding a “Tweet This” Button to Your WordPress Theme

Breadcrumbs, as has been said before on WPHacks, are very useful, both for your SEO and reader’s navigation. In other words, there is no reason why you shouldn’t have them on your site.

There are a number of breadcrumb plugins you could use, but with a bit of Wordpress code, you can avoid this. If you use sub-categories, then this will only display the name of the sub category.

A typical breadcrumb is something like this:

Home >> [Category] >> [Post Title]

Wordpress can very easily do this - to get the name of the category the post is in, all you need is

<?php the_category(); ?>

Then, to display the post title, the code you need is

<?php the_title(); ?>

So our final code, with some arrows added in is:

<a href="/">Home</a> &raquo;  <?php the_category('   '); ?>   &raquo; <?php the_title(); ?>

So now that you’ve got your breadcrumb sorted, you can take this one step further and spice it up a bit. For the next part, we’re going to be using the code from a tutorial at Janko at Warp Speed, and with this code, we’re going to turn our breadcrumb into something that looks like the ones you see on Apple.com!

The Apple.com breadcrumb:

And what we’re making:

First, download the html version here, and open it in a your web editor (ie Notepad, Dreamweaver etc). Scroll down until you find <ul id=”breadcrumb”>. This is where we’re going to start editing. All you need to do is copy and paste the following code:

<ul id="breadcrumb">
<li><a href="/" title="Home"><img src="/images/home.png" alt="Home" class="home" /></a></li>
<li><?php the_category(', ') ?></li>
<li><?php the_title(); ?></li>
</ul>

This is basically the same code as we had above, just putting into a list. Make sure you upload the home.png file to /images/, and while you’re at it, upload the other images.

Next thing we need to do is the CSS. Go into your style.css and paste the following:

#breadcrumb {
font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
height:30px;
line-height:30px;
color:#9b9b9b;
border:solid 1px #cacaca;
width:100%;
overflow:hidden;
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
}
#breadcrumb li {
list-style-type:none;
float:left;
padding-left:10px;
}
#breadcrumb a {
height:30px;
display:block;
background-image:url('/images/bc_separator.png');
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-position:right;
padding-right: 15px;
text-decoration: none;
color:#000;
}
.home {
border:none;
margin: 8px 0px;
}
#breadcrumb a:hover {
color:#35acc5;
}

Once you’ve done that, then you’re done! If you copy the code from the source file (which you should), then make sure you change the url of the images.

I recently redesigned one of my sites, and integrated this, so you can see a working example here.

This was a guest post by Alex Denning, who is a Wordpress power user, web design freelancer and currently maintains two sites - Nometet.com and GreenGrassGames.com. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.

Related posts:

1. Improve Reader Navigation With The Breadcrumb Navigation Plugin
2. How To: Display the Recent Posts of Specific Categories
3. 6 WordPress Tips and Tricks
4. How to: Create an Archive Page for your WordPress blog

As 2008 closes out and we welcome 2009, I figured what better way to close out the year than with a quick ”year in review” post featuring our best work during 2008. 

I’ve always felt reviewing was a good process as it allows us to both learn from our mistakes and appreciate the progress we’ve made through the past year.   This is a good way to stay motivated and loving what we do each day!

Here are the top WordPress Hacks posts, according to our internal analytics (based upon traffic/popularity):

1. How to Add an Author Page to Your WordPress Blog (January 2008)
2. How to Add Biography Info to Your WordPress Blog Posts (February 2008)
3. How to Tell WordPress to Function Like a CMS (March 2008)
4. How to Use WordPress as a Static Site (April 2008)
5. Best Free WordPress Themes Gallery (May 2008)
6. CSS Techniques: Using Sliding Doors with WordPress Navigation (June 2008)
7. Huge Compliation of WordPress Hacks (July 2008)
8. How to Add a Store to Your WordPress Blog (August 2008)
9. How to Create an AJAX-based Auto-Completing Search Field for Your WordPress Theme (September 2008)
10. How to Move WordPress Blog to a New Domain (October 2008)
11. WordPress Review Site: Premium Theme and Plugin (November 2008)
12. Free and Premium WordPress Themes Gallery (December 2008)

I’d also like to take a moment to thank those that helped contribute to the growth of WordPress Hacks in 2008.  Your guest posts, inbound links, and comments help make the site the WordPress resource it has become today. 

Happy New Year!

Related posts:

1. WordPress Review Site: Premium Theme and Plugin
2. WordPress Hacks News and a New Milestone
3. Compilation of WordPress Hacks
4. Great Collection of WordPress Hacks

This guest post was written by V Scott Ellis of Blackbox Technologies, a business that helps companies to maximize their web presence.  If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.

One of the more common issues with embedding a flash object on your home page (or any page for that matter) is that if it is near the navigation and you have CSS drop-down menus, then you may find your drop-down menu getting lost behind the flash object. If you haven’t dealt with this before it can feel like a nightmare, but fortunately it’s a pretty easy fix.

The Problem: You have a CSS based drop-down menu in your navigation and a flash element near it the menus may get “hidden” behind the flash object.

The Solution: Set the z-index of the div holding the flash to 1 and the z-index of the div holding the nav to 2.

In the flash element:

Look for the flash <object> tag and add the following code:

<param name="wmode" value="transparent">

You’ll want to insert this code right below the <param name=”quality” value=”high”> tag and include the code wmode=”transparent” in the flash <embed> tag .

Related posts:

1. Collection of WordPress Videos Found on YouTube
2. Nice Demo of WordPress 2.7
3. WordPress 2.6 Now Available
4. How To: Build a Categories and Archives Drop-down Box

I know a lot of you also check our WordPress Forums daily, but for those of you that don’t, I wanted to pass along the following alert from Nick Roy regarding the WP Marketer WordPress plugin.  

For those unfamiliar with this WordPress plugin, it allows you to select keywords on your posts and pages and automatically convert them into in text ads and affiliate marketing links.

Unfortunately, it looks like there is a problem with this plugin.   According to Nick:

A word of caution about the WP Marketer plugin. The WP-Marketer plugin was is causing the /feed URL and PHP to core dump. The system was segmentation faulting (segfault) when performing a regex for display of a particular portion of the page. For example, when I would click on my feed url, it would say page could not be displayed. Also, it would create a bunch of core dump files on my server causing the diskspace to fill up rather quickly. I deactivated and activated each plugin separately until I found that it was the WP Marketer plugin.

I have removed 50+ core files from my website account that had been generated through accesses of the /feed.

Hopefully the author will catch this and get a fix in place here shortly!

Related posts:

1. Improve Reader Navigation With The Breadcrumb Navigation Plugin
2. Group Your Posts With the In Series WordPress Plugin
3. WordPress Plugin: RSS Footer
4. Use the Feed Footer WordPress Plugin to Add Content To Your Feed

Are you a visual learner (a person who learn better through viewing rather than reading)?   One of the challenges when writing WordPress hacks is trying to take something you know how to do and explain it in a way that others will understand.  A well explained hack will allow just about anyone to successfully implement the hack on their own WordPress blogs.

For visual learners, this can sometimes be difficult.   For these people, a better solution is typically to watch one of the many WordPress video tutorials you can find scattered throughout the internet.   We’ve posted a few here before, but I wanted to draw your attention to a recent post over at Six Revisions where they’ve covered 30+ WordPress video tutorials. You’ll find a bunch of the better WordPress video tutorials from around the internet, all in one convenient location!

Related posts:

1. Huge Collection of WordPress Video Tutorials
2. Top 5 WordPress Navigation Menu Tutorials
3. How To: Creating a YouTube Video Tabber
4. Last Call for Premium Video WordPress Themes

Have you been around since the early days of WordPress?   For those that have, I think you’ll really enjoy a recent post over at Planet Ozh which covers A Journey Through Five Years of WordPress.   For those that are new to WordPress, you may also enjoy Ozh’s post, as it shows just how far WordPress has come over the past 5 years!

Of course, back in 2003, blogging was still in its very early stages as well, so probably the thing I most enjoyed about this post is seeing how well WordPress has grown along with blogging.

Out of curiosity, I thought it might be fun today to see when everyone else started using WordPress.  My first WordPress installation was the start of the WordPress 2.0.x branch.   I used Blogger briefly, tried Typepad, but fell in love with WordPress quickly and the rest is history.

How about you?  What was the first version of WordPress you used?

Related posts:

1. The Prelude to WordPress
2. The Evolution of WordPress
3. Does WordPress Need Trackbacks Any More?
4. Popular Posts - November 2007

No “real” posts from me today as I’m off to celebrate the Christmas holiday with my family, but I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a Happy Holiday season (no matter which holiday you choose to celebrate!). 

I personally have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.  I have a beautiful wife that I love very much, two healthy sons, and the internet has been very good to me this year.   Part of that success has come from WPHacks and the community that surrounds it, so for that I thank each of our readers!  

Happy holidays!

Related posts:

1. Happy Thanksgiving to Our Readers!
2. Happy Independence Day!
3. WordPress Hacks Year in Review: 2008
4. WordPress Hacks News and a New Milestone

If your WordPress blog gets a lot of referral traffic, there is a WordPress plugin you may want to check out called Greet Box. This plugin actually looks at where referral traffic is coming from and displays an appropriate greeting message to your readers.

A popular example is Digg.  If visitors come from Digg.com, they will see a message reminding them to Digg the post!   If you have a Twitter account, you can also setup a custom message to show people visiting from Twitter reminding them to “Tweet” your post or to follow you on Twitter.  This plugin also works for visitors via Google search, etc.

For everyone else, you have the option of setting a default greeting message for new visitors (not matching any referrer URLs) suggesting them to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Greet Box Plugin Features:

• Compatible with various WordPress cache plugins so you do not have to sacrifice speed.
• Show a different greeting message to your visitor depending on the referrer URL. You can add/edit/delete/disable these greeting messages as you choose.
• Detect the visitor’s search keywords and use those keywords to display related posts.
• Show a default greeting message even if the visitor does not match any of your configured referrer URL.
• Show a default greeting message even if the visitor does not have JavaScript enabled.
• AJAX greeting message in the front-end makes it compatible with caching plugins and WPMU.
• AJAX administrative interface that uses nonce verification to discourage hackers.
• Ability to set a timeout to forget a visitor so we do not keep nagging them with greeting messages.
• Ability to setup regular expression rules to exclude some referrer URLs from seeing greeting messages.
• Ultra customizable greeting message box (with CSS) allowing you to prepend/append HTML around the greeting message box.
• Currently the following traffic referrers are in Greet Box by default (you can easily create your own if your favorite referrer is not on the list):
  1. Delicious
  2. Digg
  3. Google
  4. Yahoo
  5. StumbleUpon
  6. Technorati
  7. Twitter

You can download Greet Box here.   If you’d like to check out some of the other WordPress plugins we’ve featured in the past, you can check out our WordPress Plugins page.

Related posts:

1. Use the Feed Footer WordPress Plugin to Add Content To Your Feed
2. Survive Large Traffic Spikes With The WP Super Cache WordPress Plugin
3. Prevent Internal Pinging With The No Self Ping Plugin
4. Increase Comments with the Show Top Commentators WordPress Plugin

As WordPress continues to grow in popularity, more and more designers are realizing the potential of building WordPress themes.   In addition to the financial benefits, designers can also use WordPress themes to create additional inbound links, improve their reputation as a designer, and of course help generate freelance work.

Because of the huge size of the WordPress theme market, it has become increasingly difficult to find a good way to browse through the available WordPress themes.   Unfortunately I don’t have a solution, but I have spent several hours trying to sort through the available themes and create a gallery to display many of the top designs in both the free and premium WordPress theme markets.  Currently this page has over 150 WordPress themes, plus a few known theme clubs thrown in at the bottom for people that prefer that route.

Due to the size of this post, I have broken the themes contained within this post into 6 categories for easier navigation.  Simply click the link which applies to the type of WordPress theme you are looking for and you’ll be directed directly to that section!

• Blog WordPress Themes
• News/Magazine WordPress Themes
• Small Business WordPress Themes
• Portfolio WordPress Themes
• Video WordPress Themes
• WordPress Theme Clubs

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Blog WordPress Themes

Typebased Theme

Source/Demo | Download

PassionDuo Theme (3 Colors)

Green: Demo | Download, Red: Demo | Download, Blue: Demo | Download

WP Freemium Theme

Source | Download

SimpleWP Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Evolution Theme

Source | Download | Demos: Blue, Green, Red

GlossyBlue Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Color Paper Theme

Source | Download | Demo

StudioPress Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blak Magik Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Several3 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Mag on Wood Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Simply Ornate Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Agregado Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Notepad Chaos Theme

Source | Download | (Unable to Locate a Demo)

WordPress Fun Theme

Source | Download | (Unable to Locate a Demo)

Daily Press Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Curious Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Rewire Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Pixeled Theme

Source | Download | (Unable to Locate a Demo)

Daily32 Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Digital Statement Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Curved Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Accord Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Webby Green Theme | Webby Blue Theme

Source | Download (Green) | Download (Blue) | Demo (Green) | Demo (Blue)

Maggo Theme

Source | Download | Demo

iPhone Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Firebug Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Padangan Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Free Revolution Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Black and White Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Xplosive Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Xplosive Reloaded

Source | Download | Demo

Blog oh Blog Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Langit Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blue Block Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Dark Zen Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Tomodachi Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Blue Dream Theme

Source/Demo | Download

BizFresh Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Simple Red Theme

Source | Download (Requires free registration) | Demo

True Blue Theme

Source | Download (Requires free registration) | Demo

Resurrection Theme

Source/Demo | Download

WP Premiere Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Silveray Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Rhea Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Aspire Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Velocity Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Techicon Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Biz Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Quadruple Blue Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Lightsource Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

Flexx Theme

• Over 1,000 Possible Layout Combinations!

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($249.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Gotham News Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Blog Theme

Single-Use ($40.00), Developer’s ($90.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Omni Social Networking Theme

Single-Use ($79.99), Developer’s ($199.99)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Over Easy Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Blubs Theme

Single-Use ($49.95), Multiple-Use ($99.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Killian 1.0 Theme

Personal ($49.00), Developer ($159.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Thesis Theme

Personal License ($87.00), Developer’s License ($164.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Magazine/News WordPress Themes

OpenBook Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Options Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Hamasaki Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Structure Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Massive News Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Visionary Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Mimbo Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Morning After Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Forte Theme

Source | Download | Demo

The Studio Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Arthemia Free Theme (Premium Version Also Available)

Source | Download | Demo | Premium Version of Arthemia

Guzel Magazine Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Newsweek Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Studio WordPress Theme (Available in Blue, Green, & Red)

Source | Download | Demo

Transparency Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Slick Press Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Cellar Heat Theme

Source | Download | Demo

MonarTech Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Premium News Theme

Source | Download | Demo

Small Magazine Theme

Source | Download | (Unable to Locate a Demo)

Revolution Church Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Lifestyle Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Office

Source/Demo | Download

One Theme (5 Color Choices Included)

Single-Use ($99.95), Three-Use ($199.99), Developer’s License ($299.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Thick Theme (20 Color Combinations)

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Open Air Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Gemini Theme

Single-Use ($60.00), Developer’s ($120.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Pass It On Theme

Single-Use ($85.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Fresh News Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

WP-Magazine Theme

Basic (Single License $99.00), Premium (Multiple Use $199.00), Developer ($299.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Papercut Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Live Wire 2.0 Theme (Available in Green, Red, and Blue!)

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

WP Vybe Theme

Basic (Single License $99.00), Premium (Multiple Use $199.00), Developer ($299.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Shiva Pro Theme

Single-Use ($89.00), Multiple-Use ($149.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Tauren Pro Theme

Single-Use ($69.00), Multiple-Use ($128.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Chimera Theme

Single-Use ($59.00), Multiple-Use ($109.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Flash News/Magazine Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Premium News: Gazette Edition

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Deep Blue Theme

Single-Use License ($50.00), Developer’s Pack License ($199.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Citrus Theme

Single-Use ($79.00), Multiple-Use ($99.00), Developer’s Pack ($149.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Arthemia Premium Theme

Single License ($70.00), Five Licenses ($140.00), Developer’s Pack ($240.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Traveler Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($179.95), Developer’s License ($279.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Celebrity Press Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($179.95), Developer’s Pack ($279.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Celebrity Gossip Theme

Single-Use ($35.00), Multiple-Use ($95.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

MagNews Theme

Single-Use License ($49.00), Developer’s Pack ($199.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Newspaper Theme

Single-Use ($59.00), Mutiple-Use ($159.00), Developer’s License ($259.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

NewsPro Theme

Single-Use ($59.00), Mutiple-Use ($159.00), Developer’s License ($259.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Suvi Theme

Single-Use ($59.00), Mutiple-Use ($159.00), Developer’s License ($259.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

iTeam Theme

Single-Use ($59.95), Multiple-Use ($149.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

iNews Theme

Single-Use ($49.95), Multiple-Use ($79.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Springs Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

bSocial Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Ultimate Blogging Theme

Single License ($67.00), Unlimited License ($97.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Credit Crunch Theme

Single License ($70.00), Unlimited License ($249.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Small Business WordPress Themes Essence Theme (6 Colors to Choose From)

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($249.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Coldstone Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

WP-Remix Theme

Personal ($75.00), Multiple-Use ($275.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Titanium WordPress Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($149.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

WP Realtor Theme

Single-Use ($79.99), Multiple-Use ($149.99), Developer’s Pack ($349.99)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Colonial Real Estate WordPress Theme

Single-Use ($59.95), Multiple-Use ($149.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

iRealEstate WordPress Theme

Single-Use ($49.95),Multiple-Use ($59.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Deep Order Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($249.95)

Source/Demo | Purchase

eCommerce Theme

Single-Use ($49.00), Multiple-Use ($199.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Industrial Series Themes (Includes 6 Different Colors)

Single-Use ($49.95), Multiple-Use ($99.95)

Source/Purchase | Demo

Deep Stack Poker Theme

Single-Use ($79.95), Multiple-Use ($199.95)

Source/Purchase | Demo

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Portfolio WordPress Themes Viz | Biz Portfolio Theme

Single-Use License ($79.95), Multiple-Use License ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Download

WP Showcase Theme

Single-Use License ($59.00), Multiple-Use License ($99.00), Developer’s Pack ($159.00)

Source/Demo | Download

Simple Site Theme

Single-Use License ($49.00), Multiple-Use License ($149.00)

Source/Demo | Download

VibrantCMS Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Cassiopeia Theme

Single-Use ($80.00), Developer’s Pack ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Fresh Folio Theme

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

eGallery Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

eVid Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Video WordPress Themes

Revolution Album Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Elements Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Charred

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Chrome

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Black Canvas Theme

Source/Demo | Download

Revolution Video

Source/Demo | Download

——————————————————————————————————————————–

WordPress Theme Clubs

Theme Hybrid Club

All themes are free with limited support.  $25.00 for full support!

Source/Join | Download

Single Subscription (3 months = $150.00 or 6 months = $250.00), Developer Subscription (3 months = $225.00 or 6 months = $375.00)

Source | Purchase

iThemes Theme Club

EVERY iThemes release for only $399.95!

Source | Purchase

Elegant Premium Themes Club

EVERY premium WordPress theme for only $19.99!  Optional yearly renewal.

Source | Purchase

Related posts:

1. Blog Premium WordPress Theme Gallery
2. Best Free WordPress Themes Gallery
3. News and Magazine Premium WordPress Theme Gallery
4. Premium WordPress Themes Gallery

On the WP Recipes forum, a guy just asked me how I managed to insert thumbnails on the recent post widget located on the sidebar of my blog Cats Who Code. That’s a lot simpler than it seems.

If you’d like to see a live demo of this tutorial, just click here.

1) - Make sure you’re using a custom field in your posts, with the thumbnail url.

There’s a lot of tutorials available online to add a custom field to your pots. This one is good in my opinion, so you should read it if you don’t know how to define a custom field.

2) - Download the required plugins

In order to customize your recent posts widget, you have to download the Recent Posts plugin by Sebastian Schmieg.

You’ll also need to download and install the Post-Plugin Library, which contains all the php functions needed by the Recent Posts plugin.

3) - Upload and activate the plugins

Once you downloaded the plugin and the library, unzip the files and upload it to your wp-content/plugins directory. Then, login to your WordPress dashboard, Go to “Plugins” and activate both the library and the Recent Posts plugin.

4) - Configure the plugin

After having the plugin and the library uploaded and activated, you have to configure the options so you’ll be able to display the post thumbnail on your sidebar.

To do so, login to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to “Settings”, “Recent Posts”.
On “General”, you can tell the plugin how many posts to be displayed, if it should display posts and pages or only posts, and a lot more.

Once you configured the “General” options to fits your needs, go to the “Output” options. In order to display your custom field thumbnail on your sidebar, you have to enter a bit of html as well as the special parameter to embed the custom field.

Here’s the code that I entered:

<li><img src="{custom:Image}" width="48" height="48" alt="" />{link} <div class="clear"></div> </li>

The special parameter {custom:Image} tells the plugin to embed the Image custom field. Don’t forget to replace Image with the name of your custom field!

5) - Add the widget to your sidebar

Simply go to “Design”, “Widgets” and add the Recent Posts + widget to your sidebar. Visit your blog, your thumbs are showing in the sidebar along with your recent posts!

Related posts:

1. How To: Display the Recent Posts of Specific Categories
2. Code: Adding Recent Comments To Your WordPress Theme
3. How To: Creating Sidebar Tabs In Your WordPress Theme
4. How To: Display The Most Recent Comment First

About a year ago when I restructured my online interests into a business (Apricot Media), one of the first things I set out to do was to take my existing websites/blogs and attempt to build them into mini networks or clusters of websites that could refer relevant traffic internally and then develop a brand between them.

Although WordPress Hacks is not my primary website, I have built a mini-network of websites within the WordPress niche and used branding to create user recognition.   If you look here at WP Hacks, WordPress eBook, WordPress Forums, and our WordPress Directory, you’ll see they all use blue and all use a very similar logo.   Over time people will associate a logo with your websites and eventually with you individually, which is the ultimate goal.  This will also drastically lower costs if you hire a designer, or save you time if you design things yourself.

If you’d like to see some very strong examples of internet blog brands built, check out this post over at Got Chance.   You’ll see Apricot Media featured there among some pretty elite company!

So, how does this all tie to WordPress?  I believe most, if not all of the sites mentioned, are built using WordPress.  Once you’ve built a completely custom theme you are happy with, you can easily install that theme on any number of other WordPress blogs and make the proper customizations (change the colors, adjust the logos, etc.) to grow and expand your brand.

When you build websites, how much time do you spend focusing on branding?

Related posts:

1. How To: Building a Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE) into Your WordPress Blog
2. First Premium WordPress Theme Brand Sold
3. Would You Be Interested in a WordPress eBook?
4. Integrating Forums Into a WordPress Blog

Do you want your Blog Readers to recommend or invite Friends to view your blog?  The Plugin, WP-Email created by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan allows you to allow your readers to invite people to view your blog.

The plugin is very customizable, it lets you customize the email that gets send to the person the blog is being recommended to, along with being able to limit the number of words that gets sent from an article that is being recommended and more. You can find the other functions on the WP-Email documentation.

All emails that are sent, are logged into the WP-Admin interface and you view details right in the Dashboard area. It shows From, To, Date/Time Sent, IP/Host, Post Title (where the invite was sent from) and the Status of the Email.

If you are interested in downloading and installing this plugin, you can find it on the Wordpress Plugins Repository and on Lester Chan’s Website.

Related posts:

1. How To: Adding an Email This Button to Your Blog
2. Make Yourself Available to Readers with a Contact Form
3. Manage Your Group Writing Project with WP-Submission
4. Building a Multi-Author Blog with WordPress

A couple of weeks ago I received a “request for a future post” from Emma (didn’t provide a website with her request for me to credit) asking for a new WordPress theme gallery.   This time, her request was for a portfolio theme gallery.

Although I can’t always fulfill every request I get, this gallery is one that I think will benefit a large number of people, so I’ve decided to throw one together!   The top half will be free portfolio themes and the second half will be premium portfolio themes which are available to purchase.  I’ve also included a feature list whenever one was available.

Over time, I intend to update this post as both types of portfolio themes become available.   If you know of one that you think should be included on this list, please let us know!

Free Portfolio WordPress Themes Portfolio Theme

Source | Demo | Download

Portfolio Press Theme

Source | Demo | Download

Modularity Theme

Source | Demo | Download

Snapshot Theme

Source | Demo | Download

Premium Portfolio Themes Viz | Biz Portfolio Theme

Single-Use License ($79.95), Multiple-Use License ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Download

WP Showcase Theme

Single-Use License ($59.00), Multiple-Use License ($99.00), Developer’s Pack ($159.00)

Source/Demo | Download

Simple Site Theme

Single-Use License ($49.00), Multiple-Use License ($149.00)

Source/Demo | Download

VibrantCMS Theme

• Easy-to-use featured scroller to broadcast your business’ most important information;
• A separate company blog that is tucked away from the homepage; and
• 20 amazing color schemes that will definitely fit with your corporate branding.
• Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, color scheme etc. for the theme;
• Built-in video panel, which you can use to publish any web-based Flash videos;
• Automatic Image Resizer, which is used to dynamically create the thumbnails and featured images;
• Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery;
• Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments;
• Integrated Banner Management script to display randomized banner ads of your choice site-wide;
• Pretty drop-down navigation everywhere; and
• Widgetized Sidebars.

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Cassiopeia Theme

Single-Use ($80.00), Developer’s Pack ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

Fresh Folio Theme

• Theme designed to be a portfolio.
• The template will automatically (visually) separate your blog & portfolio content, making this an amazing theme for aspiring designers, developers, artists, photographers etc.
• Unique page templates for the portfolio, blog, blog archives, tags & search results.
• 7 diverse theme styles to choose from.
• Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc. for the theme;
• Optional Automatic Image Resizer, which is used to dynamically create the thumbnails and featured images;
• Widgetized Sidebars.

Single-Use ($70.00), Developer’s ($150.00)

Source/Demo | Purchase

eGallery Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

eVid Theme

Comes with $20.00 subscription to Elegant Themes Club!

Source/Demo | Download

Related posts:

1. 140+ Free & Premium WordPress Themes Gallery
2. Small Business Premium WordPress Themes Gallery
3. Blog Premium WordPress Theme Gallery
4. Display Your Domain Portfolio With The Domain Portfolio WordPress Plugin

It was with great excitement that Wordpress 2.7 was released late last week, but what does it mean for you? Well, the admin section has been given a makeover, and now looks a lot slicker. Alongside this, there has been an emphasis on doing everything with a single click. You can see the new interface for yourself:

So, how do you get 2.7? If you installed Wordpress using Fantastico then you upgrade by logging into your Fantastico control panel and selecting “upgrade to 2.7″. Its advisable to backup your database first, but don’t let this put you off upgrading - I’ve just upgraded two sites from 2.5.2 and 2.6.2 to 2.7 via Fantastico with no problems at all. Otherwise, head over to WordPress and download the software.

But why should you upgrade in the first place? 2.7’s visual overhaul makes it so much easier to use; you can rearrange your dashboard and have literally everything at your fingertips. You can reply and moderate comments from the dash (even by keyboard shortcuts!), as well as write new posts directly from the dashboard.

Plugins can be installed by installed by searching the Wordpress.org plugins database with a single click without leaving your site. How cool is that! You can upload plugins from your computer without unzipping them and Wordpress will install them. You can also upgrade your plugins with a single click. Speaking of single click upgrading, your upgrade to 2.7 could well be your last manual upgrade as 2.7 includes a feature that lets you upgrade your Wordpress install with a single click.

With Wordpress increasingly being used for everything, a useful new feature, Sticky Posts, allows you to keep a post at the top of your blog, even if you have more recent posts. In practice, this means if you’re running a competition or something like that, then you can keep attention directed at your big post.

The shiny new interface extends beyond the dashboad, and the focus is very much on moving everything around to suit you. The screen below shows how you can rearrange your post-writing page.

And for those wondering why 2.7 isn’t 3.0 with all of these great additions, according to Weblog Tools Collection, Matt doesn’t want to skip version numbers anymore.

For the complete lowdown, visit the codex.

Finally, this video from the Wordpress team briefly looks through some of the new features

This was a guest post by Alex Denning, who is a Wordpress power user, web design freelancer and currently maintains two sites - Nometet.com and GreenGrassGames.com. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.

Related posts:

1. Upgrading WordPress with Fantastico
2. The Importance of Upgrading Your WordPress Installation
3. WordPress Continues to Show Incredible Growth
4. WordPress 2.6 Now Available

Have you ever wanted to add an external RSS feed to your WordPress blog?  This is a great way to promote one of your other blogs (if it is in a similar niche) on a more popular site you run.

Most of you will probably remember that about a month ago we finally got around to launching our WordPress Forums, which has an RSS feed associated with it.   In order to cross-promote our forums on this site, I wanted to display our most recent forum posts in the sidebar here at WordPress Hacks.

In order to accomplish this, I grabbed the following code from Jean’s post over at Smashing Magazine:

<?php include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php');
wp_rss('http://wpforums.com/external.php?type=RSS2', 5); ?>

It takes the rss.php file that is built into WordPress (used for widgets).  In this code it is set to display the most recent 5 posts from the RSS feed “http://wpforums.com/external.php?type=RSS2.”

Here is how it looks:

I have gone ahead and added this to our WordPress Code page for easy reference.

Related posts:

1. Promote Your Blog Archives By Adding Related Posts To Your Feed
2. Huge Compilation of WordPress Code
3. Use the Feed Footer WordPress Plugin to Add Content To Your Feed
4. How To: Adding An Author Page To Your WordPress Blog

Over the past year, the premium WordPress themes market has really grown and all sorts of different themes have been released.  Probably the most popular market right now seems to be the magazine WordPress themes, making for a highly competitive niche.

One of the more recent entries into the market is Natty WP, who until now seems to have been pretty focused on building custom blogging themes.   Their newest theme, however, intends to compete in that magazine WordPress theme market and so far it looks pretty good!

Here is the list of features the author includes with the Tribune theme:

• Theme Admin Panel - Admin panel allows you to fully customize the theme, including adding banners, AdSense, change the logo and favicon, set the color of links and customize the category.
• 7 Advanced Color Schemes - Here you can find a huge variety of different color schemes for any taste. Just choose the one which suites you better!
• Infinite variations and looks - A special feature for those who want more! Using the template with a fully transparent body you can easily create an infinite number of different variations and looks by changing the background image.
• AJAX Modules - Specially designed modules make template rather elegant and functional.
• Easy Logo switching - Want to change the logo? You can easily do this through the admin panel selecting the right image. The theme includes Psd file with the logo, where you can change the title and add your logo image.
• Advanced news module - Block of additional news allows the user to select the necessary number of news to be displayed. Choosing 1, 3 or 5 stories for each block, we save these settings for it. Signing in next time the user sees as many news as they have chosen before.
• Color picker - Thanks to the built-in Color Picker, you can easily change the color of the links in your theme! Be creative, customize your site and make it unique.
• XHTML Valid - Tribune meets all standards and has been fully tested for errors, as it is very important for us to create a clear and semantic code.
• Cross-Browser Compatible - Fully compliant with W3C standards, Tribune theme together with WordPress offers perfect performance with the most popular browsers such as Firefox, IE, Safari.
• Easy AdSense setup - To display AdSense blocks you just need to enable the menu to display banners or AdSense.
• Optimized for WordPress 2.6 + version
• W3C XHTML 1.0 Transitional. W3C CSS Valid
  
• Fully compatible IE7, IE6, Safari 2+, Firefox 2+, Opera 9+
  
• CSS Based Design
  
• 24/7 support

Probably my feature is the AJAX the theme uses for the module.  Rather than the traditional dom tabs, you can “slide” between the tabs content.  It also uses AJAX to “drop down” individual categories (selected by each user), which is something I don’t remember seeing on any other themes.

As for the appearance, the Tribune theme has some additional unique qualities for a magazine WordPress theme which help it to stand out from the competition.  It actually comes with a completely transparent background which allows you to easily insert a background image of your choice, making your theme instantly unique.

Here is a breakdown of the Tribune theme’s homepage (with the transparent layout):

And here is a screen shot of the post page:

You can check out the live demo of the theme here to actually view how these impressive new features work.

Another great thing about the Tribune theme is the price!  Currently the Tribune theme is available with two licenses.  The Single-Use License is only $45.00, or you can get the Developer’s Pack for $150.00.

Related posts:

1. Arthemia: A True Premium Magazine WordPress Theme
2. News and Magazine Premium WordPress Theme Gallery
3. Platformate: The Personal Magazine Premium WordPress Theme
4. Premium WordPress Theme Responsibilities

This is a quick heads up to WordPress Hacks readers.  Just saw this posted over at our WordPress Forums, so I checked it out and sure enough, it looks like WordPress 2.7 is now showing on the official download page!

So far there hasn’t been an official announcement by the WordPress team, but I would expect to see one within the hour since it is showing on their official download page.

~[Go Download WordPress 2.7]~

Edit: The official announcement was just posted and can be seen here.

Related posts:

1. The Unofficial WordPress Forums Have Finally Arrived!
2. Would You Be Interested in a WordPress eBook?
3. WordPress 2.7 Coming to WordPress.com Thursday Afternoon
4. WordPress 2.7. What Does It Mean For You?

This guest post was written by Josh Budde of josh.buddes.net, where he writes about his life, technology and blogging. If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.

Its been a controversy in the blogosphere for awhile now about who owns comments, although I am not getting into this in big detail, but I wanted to point out that there is a plugin that lets you let people know that your comment maybe used by the owner of the blog with attribution to you (your name and link). A blog post, posted by Jeff Chandler on Weblog Tools Collection really got a conversation going about this.

I currently am using a plugin on my blog called Comment License which will let you tell your commentators that you have a policy for posting comments. Some have made it say that no spamming is allowed, no foul language and/or that the comment maybe used in attribution by the owner. You just have to download it, upload it to the plugin directory inside WordPress, activate it and find the Comment License page; you’ll have it up and running on your blog in no time!

I’ve been using this plugin for awhile now and it still displays my comment policy right above the Submit button. If you think this plugin would be useful for your blog, go out and get it either from the Wordpress Plugin Repository or Alex King’s site.

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1. Improve Comment Recognition with the MyAvatars WordPress Plugin
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3. Improve Comment Follow-Up With The Subscribe to Comments WordPress Plugin
4. WordPress Plugin: Display Your Comment Count to Your Readers