WPFirstAid.com recently wrote a post covering the inclusion of this dynamic copyright function into most any theme. This added functionality will be included with the next update of each of our themes.

Using the get_post() function, bns_dynamic_copyright() essentially finds the blog’s first post; makes note of its date; then creates a copyright notice that takes into account the year in the date of the first (read: oldest) post to recognize the lifetime of the blog.

Here is the code to be placed in the functions.php file:

function bns_dynamic_copyright() {
  /* Get all posts */
  $all_posts = get_posts('post_status=publish&order=ASC');
  /* Get first post */
  $first_post = $all_posts[0];
  /* Get date of first post */
  $first_date = $first_post->post_date_gmt;

  /* Display common footer copyright notice */
  _e('Copyright © ');
  /* Display first post year and current year */
  if ( substr($first_date,0,4) == date(Y) ) {
  /* Only display current year if no posts in previous years */
    echo date(Y);
  } else {
    echo substr($first_date,0,4) . "-" . date(Y);
  }
  /* Display blog name from 'General Settings' page */
  echo ' <strong>' . get_bloginfo('name') . '</strong> ';
  _e('All rights reserved.');
}

… and here is the line of code to replace the old static copyright notice:

<?php bns_dynamic_copyright(); ?>

© 2010, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Shades 1.7
2. NoNa 1.4
3. Nona 1.3.1

One benefit of the new Description option is you can create a tag (or category, if you are using BNS Featured Category); make it the first one in your list; and, then use it to display introductory text for the plugin. Below is a screen snippet of the BNS Featured Tag with Tag Description checked to give you an idea.

Sample of using a tag with no posts.

PS: The color scheme and styling of the plugin are from an upcoming theme I am working on. The plugin itself gets almost all of its style from the active theme.

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. BNS Featured Tag 1.9
2. New WordPress Plugin: BNS Featured Tag
3. BNS Featured Tag 1.8.1

For the WordPress Atahualpa theme (version 3.4.4 as of this writing), follow these steps to add your custom CSS if there is no option to use in its place.

1. Go to the theme options page
2. Near the bottom click on “Add HTML/CSS inserts”
3. Go to the bottom of that option page for “CSS Inserts”
4. Add: css-element { property: value; }
5. Click on the HUGE Save Changes button

Just replace css-element { property: value; } with the styling you want to add.

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. CSS Tip: FireFox Z-Index Value
2. New WordPress Plugin: BNS Add Widget
3. BNS Theme Add-Ins v0.2

1. Go to “new” profile”
2. View page source
3. Search for gravatar
4. Follow line across until you see id=user-######-avatar
5. Append ###### to the end of http://wordpress.org/support/profile/

Bookmark it for future reference. Enjoy!

Signed,
http://wordpress.org/support/profile/914362
aka Cais

PS: You can of course just look at the link on “member” under your name in any post you have made, too … but that would be much too easy (*sheepish grin*)

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. New WordPress Plugin: BNS Support
2. BNS Support Ready for WordPress 3.0
3. BNS Support 1.1

The first thing I would strongly recommend is to make a back-up of the sidebar.php file as what I am suggesting would be considered a large or significant edit.

I will be using the code from the Shades theme as it is the simplest to work from, for this tip, and should be easily related to most themes. First, look for the code similar to this, near the top of the sidebar.php file and make note where it is:

<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : else : ?>

Next, follow the code to near the bottom of the file, and look for a statement very similar if not exactly like this:

<?php endif; ?>

The Shades theme actually has two (2) sidebar widget areas so the code to look for would look similar to this for multiple widget area themes:

<?php endif; ?>
<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar(2) ) : else : ?><?php endif; ?>

Make sure to note the code and area between the “dynamic sidebar” line and its matching “endif” line above, in the case of the Shades theme it would be the first instance of the “endif” statement as shown above.

Now, the BIG edit: cut and paste all the code between the two statements you noted above and place it either directly below the “endif” statement; or, directly above the “dynamic sidebar” statement, depending on how you want your sidebar default and widget content to display. If you use “copy” it will display the sidebar default twice until you activate a widget.

Take a look at your blog … if you had no widgets activated before the edit, then you should not notice anything different. Try activating a widget or two and you should see them appear either above, or below, the “default” sidebar content, again depending on where you moved the default sidebar code to.

Feel free to contact us if you need help making these edits to the theme you are using.

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

There are a few different methods that you can use to hide a menu page. I will show you three different methods in this post, two using simple CSS and the third using a parameter in the wp_list_pages(); or the wp_page_menu(); functions. This example will work best if you are viewing this blog using the Custom child theme of the Desk Mess Mirrored theme as its CSS has been modified specifically for this post. (Switch to the Custom child theme of Desk Mess Mirrored).

You may have noticed there is a gaping space between the “Design” (or “Contact Us”) page and the “Themes” page … why? you ask. Well, because I wanted that space there. The gaping space is actually the home of the “Hide Me” page, good reading as well, especially if you cannot see it.

OK, let’s get to this. You can easily “hide” a page by using the exclude parameter in the wp_list_pages(); or the wp_page_menu(); functions. The code would look very similar to this:

<?php wp_list_pages('exclude=220'); ?>

or

<?php wp_page_menu('exclude=220'); ?>

I’m using the number 220 as it is the actual page ID of the “Hide Me” page. If you are using this method, (after reading the Hide Me page for reminders) use the ID of the page you want to hide. The wp_page_menu() function is described well in the comments here at Digging into WordPress (if you want to read more comparing it to wp_list_pages). I consider this to be only one method as wp_page_menu(); calls wp_list_pages(); to generate its output.

The other two methods are strictly CSS. I noted above the post ID for my “Hide Me” page is 220. Both wp_list_pages(); and wp_page_menu(); generate default class tags for each item in the menu. The class to style in this case is the page-item-<ID>, and specifically in this case I am styling the class page-item-220.

The first of the CSS methods behaves very similar to the exclude parameter used above. The CSS to add to your style.css sheet would be something along this line, and the page will behave as though it does not exist, or as in the functions, excluded from the menu:

.page-item-220 { display: none; }

The second method is the one I am using in the Custom child theme on this blog (the “Hide Me” page will show when using the other themes):

.page-item-220 { visibility: hidden; }

This simply makes the item invisible, but it still “holds” a place in the layout and gives me the effect I wanted … and maybe the effect you are looking for.
(NB: I specify the page “order” for each page; you may need to as well to create similar effects.)

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Hide a Category
2. Add Custom CSS to Atahualpa

This allowed me to make the decision to deprecate these files; and, remove them entirely at version 1.0.4 as now planned.  Unfortunately with the automatic update using the new WordPress dashboard functionality or with a download/upload of a fresh copy of the theme, the original home.php and header-home.php files will stay intact and functional!

This realization put into action a quick update to version 1.0.3 of the Shades theme with a simple overwrite of the home.php file with the contents of the index.php file; and, a similar overwrite of the header-home.php file with the contents of the new and improved header.php file.

As a further note, the significant differences in the header.php file are: better natural titles in the browser title bar; and, cleaner code to display the menu.  Simply put, the menu displayed is based on which page is being served: the home/front page of the blog; or, another page of the blog.

This upgrade is only minor maintenance, but still strongly recommended.

(NB: Due to an unforseen issue with extra new lines in the version 1.0.3.1 package, a new version 1.0.3.2 was made and uploaded.  It also went live Jul 15, 2009!)

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Shades 1.1
2. Shades 1.0.3
3. Desk Mess Mirrored 1.0.9

In the comments.php file the code will need to be (as of this writing) be manually edited.  The changes are relatively small and very easy to do. Starting around line 30 change this:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
  <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" >
  /* elseif ($comment->user_id == '2') echo 'jellybeen'; */ /* sample */
  /* add additional user_id following above example, echo the 'CSS element' you want to use for styling */
  else echo $oddcomment; ?> item" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" >

to this by simply removing the first “/*” and the first “*/”:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
  <div id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" >
  elseif ($comment->user_id == '2') echo 'jellybeen'; /* sample */
  /* add additional user_id following above example, echo the 'CSS element' you want to use for styling */
  else echo $oddcomment; ?> item" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" >

This adds the specific registered user comment styling.

The author.php file will also need to be edited to complete the full feature set of version 1.0.5, which is matching the style of the contributor comments to their individual page listing their specific posts.  Starting with this (around line 17):

<div id="author" class="<?php if ((get_userdata(intval($author))->ID) == '1') echo 'administrator';
  /* elseif ((get_userdata(intval($author))->ID) == '2') echo 'jellybeen'; */ /* sample */
  /* add additional user_id following above example, echo the 'CSS element' you want to use for styling */
  ?>">

Simply remove the first “/*” and the first “*/” to change to this:

<div id="author" class="<?php if ((get_userdata(intval($author))->ID) == '1') echo 'administrator';
  elseif ((get_userdata(intval($author))->ID) == '2') echo 'jellybeen'; /* sample */
  /* add additional user_id following above example, echo the 'CSS element' you want to use for styling */
  ?>">

The classes are already called out in the CSS so the rest is easily changed to suit the individual author.

If you need additional help feel free to contact us.

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Styling Comments by Author
2. Desk Mess Mirrored 1.0.5
3. Desk Mess Mirrored 1.0.6

Now, I also realized this is probably one of those classic new theme developer problems and I was a little reluctant to ask my “go to forum” WordPress gurus what I was doing wrong for the simple reason: it must be really obvious!.

Google! … when all else fails, Google is your friend. Five different search phrases later I found a reference to the problem.

When naming your theme folder, or re-naming for that matter, do not use hyphens ( – )  or spaces as separators; use underscores ( _ ). I opened up my FTP program, logged into my server and changed the folder name from desk-mess-mirrored to desk_mess_mirrored. Phew! That was easy. I opened up a new browser tab; surfed to this blog’s home page to write this post thinking that others may find this little tidbit of information useful; and, what do I see … nothing?! Yes, nothing!

Note to self: do not change active theme folder name. Change to a different theme first; change the former theme’s folder name; then, change back to the theme and your WordPress Dashboard theme preview will work.

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. New WordPress Theme: Pinup Meets Grunge
2. New WordPress Theme: Ground Floor
3. New WordPress Theme: NoNa

Here is a link to a well regarded standards page for the element z-index, http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_pos_z-index.asp, unfortunately it appears the developers of FireFox (version 3 as of this writing) are not exactly following the indicated example value.

How do I know this? You really have to wonder when Microsoft’s Internet Explorer works and the other three browsers do not.  Something has got to be wrong, and so my searches brought me to the conclusion of setting my z-index values to positive values where needed. Internet Explorer can accept and resolve correctly with negative values. It’s not often a Microsoft negative is a positive result.

Have you stumbled on, across, over or just simply ran into one of these CSS walls? What was it, and how did you fix it?

© 2009, BuyNowShop. All rights reserved.

Related posts:

1. Add Custom CSS to Atahualpa