One of the disappointing changes in WordPress 2.5 was the removal of category ID numbers.   I thought this was just a minor oversight, but since the 2.5.1 upgrade this problem still was not addressed.

If you are looking for a category number (this is most often needed for setting up the homepage of Magazine WordPress themes), here is a really easy way you can locate it until the WordPress team adds the category number display we all took for granted before:

1) Go to Manage > Categories.

2) Hover your mouse over the category that you need the ID of.

3) Look in the lower left corner of your web browser for the ID of that category.

Here is a screenshot example:

Hopefully WordPress will again display the category ID in one of the future updates, but thankfully this workaround is really easy.

There are times when you may wish to move your WordPress installation from one place on your server to another.   This often happens when there is a change in the URL of your WordPress install, such as with blog redesigns, moving to a directory, etc.

WordPress is actually very flexible, so it isn’t extremely difficult to do.  Here is the information you will need:

1. If moving to a new directory, create your new directory.
2. If moving to your root directory, make sure your root directory is ready for the new files (including the index.php file, the .htaccess file, etc.).
3. Once your new home is ready, login to your dashboard and go to the Settings tab (under General).
4. Update the WordPress Address field and Blog Address field to reflect the new location.
5. Click Update Options. (Don’t view or open your blog until all steps have been completed)
6. Move all WordPress core files to their new location.  This includes subdirectories!
7. Update your Permalink Structure to show the new location (add new directory or remove previous directory).

That should about cover it.   If attempted, you’ll want to allow some extra time for following all the steps carefully, as it is somewhat of a delicate process.   If you run into any problems, consult the WordPress Codex, which has some troubleshooting, etc.

Awhile ago I made a call out to the authors of Premium WordPress themes to start adding print stylesheets to all of their themes.   Some already do, but I believe in order to truly be premium quality, things like a print stylesheet and an author page should all be included.

While building a print stylesheet for a new blog I am setting up, I realized that I hadn’t written a post here explaining how to create a print stylesheet yet, so consider this to be that post.

What is a Print Stylesheet?

A print stylesheet is an alternate stylesheet that should only be used when someone attempts to print a page off of your blog.

How Does a Print Stylesheet Work?

A print stylesheet is a separate stylesheet that will override any designated style.css code when someone attempts to print a page off of your website.  If a print stylesheet is created correctly, people printing a webpage will not also print the unnecessary elements, such as the header, footer, and sidebars.

How do I Make a Print Stylesheet?

First thing you need to do create your print.css file. This can be done by taking a blank Notepad (or similar) file and naming it print.css.  You can also make a copy of your blog’s style.css file and rename it, then remove the code within the copy.

What Code Do I Put Into My Print Stylesheet?

Depending on your blogs theme, this step will either be pretty easy or incredibly difficult.  Basically, we don’t want things like your header or sidebars to appear in your print stylesheet, so you’ll want to setup your print stylesheet to remove these elements:

#header, #nav, #sidebar, #footer .noprint {display: none;}

Depending on your exact theme and how the div id’s are setup, what you put here will vary.  In other words, use the above as a guide, but customize it to match your theme.  You can also use this method to censor out images and other unwanted elements of your post pages (if applicable).  Also, if you have your contact information in your footer, you may want to leave the footer on your prints.

Next, you will want to expand your content section so that it looks decent when printed, instead of the content margins your standard style.css uses.  It will probably look something like the following:

#content {width: 100%; margin: 0; float: none;}

Now, to ensure that alternate colors are not picked up when printed, you’ll want to do something like the following to make sure it prints using black ink:

a:link, a:visited {color: #000000}

Because most people use white paper, this should make your printouts better looking.

How To Tell Your Theme to Use the Print Stylesheet

Once you’ve built and uploaded your print stylesheet, the next step is of course to tell your theme to use it when someone prints something!  This is probably the easiest step of all.  You’ll want to simply paste the following code into your themes header file (usually just below the standard style.css code):

<link type="text/css" media="print" rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/print.css" />

So, there you go!  Hopefully if you’ve followed these steps, and uploaded your new print.css file to your WordPress blog’s theme, anything printed from your website will look much better.

Related Printing Posts:

• How To: Creating a Print Button for Your WordPress Theme

Sometimes we get so caught up in covering the complex WordPress hacks and offering tips, that we forget to cover many of the things that are often taken for granted.

Today I decided to write a quick post and cover how to reset your password within the WordPress dashboard (for WordPress 2.0+):

1. Go to the Users tab.
2. Click on the Your Profile link.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter your desired password in the New Password field.
4. Click the Update Profile button.

That’s it!  If you are using an older version of WordPress, you’ll want to consult the WordPress Codex.

If you can’t get into your dashboard, you can also reset your password from PHPMyAdmin (only recommended for comfortable advanced users):

1. Select the WordPress database of the blog you want to reset the password on.
2. Click on wp_users.
3. Click the “browse” icon (or “structure”).
4. Click browse in the user_login field.
5. Locate the ID number associated with your login and commit it to memory.
6. Click browse in the user_pass field and find your login.
7. Click edit.
8. Delete the numbers and letters next to the ID number.
9. Enter your desired password (case sensitive).
10. Select MD5 in the drop-down menu.
11. Click Go.
12. Verify your new password works!

If you are not the administrator, you can always contact the administrator to reset your password as well.  Good luck!

The problem(s): With some upgrades of the WordPress 2.5 branch, the Popularity Contest WordPress plugin is not working properly. Also, people trying to activate the Popularity Contest plugin on a brand new WordPress install are getting a fatal error or a “doesn’t exist” message when attempting to activate the plugin.

The solution(s): I actually ran into this problem on a fresh install of WordPress. After several attempts, I was unable to figure out the problem myself. Thankfully, a quick Google search showed a post over at WPGuy which gave details on fixing both problems!

Here is what you need to know if you have this problem:

Fix problems with the upgrade to WordPress 2.5

Open your Popularity Contest plugin (edit it) and search for this code:

require('../../wp-blog-header.php');

And replace it with this:

require('../wp-blog-header.php');

Fix problems with a new install of WordPress 2.5

In addition to doing the above, you need to search for the following code:

if (isset($_GET['activate']) && $_GET['activate'] == ‘true’) {

And replace it with this:

if (isset($_GET['action']) && $_GET['action'] == ‘activate’) {

I went through both of these steps on my fresh WordPress install and it fixed the problem perfectly!

In the past we’ve talked about how to add a print button to your WordPress theme. Today I wanted to give you the javascript code you need to create an Email This button on your WordPress blog.

Before getting to the code, I wanted to first say that this code is designed to allow readers to click on the button and have it open up their default email software and create a subject and link that point to the post the reader is currently visiting. This code is not designed to allow readers to contact the blog author.

If you are wanting your readers to be able to contact you, I recommend you use one of the many great contact form WordPress plugins available. You should never embed your email address into some HTML code because it will be picked up by spam bots. Contact forms prevent spammers from finding your email address. The other thing you can do is offer “EmailAddress AT EmailCompany DOT com” (which your email address information filled in) to avoid spammers.

Okay, so back to the Email button code. Here is the javascript you will need:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- Begin
function isPPC() {
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("PPC") != -1) return true;
else return false;
}
if(isPPC()) {
document.write('<a class="contact" HREF=\"mailto:\?subject\=Take a look at this page I found, ‘ + document.title + ‘?body=You can see this page at: ‘ + window.location + ‘\” onMouSEOver=”window.status=\’Send your friends e-mail about this page\’; return true” TITLE=”Send your friends e-mail about this page”>Email to a Friend<\/a>’);
}
else { document.write(’<a class=”contact” HREF=\”mailto:\?body\=Take a look at this page I found titled ‘ + document.title + ‘. You can see this page at: ‘ + window.location + ‘\” onMouSEOver=”window.status=\’Send your friends e-mail about this page\’; return true” TITLE=”Send your friends e-mail about this page” rel=”nofollow”>Email This!<\/a>’);
}
// End –>
</script>

This will create an email where the reader can enter in someone’s email address and send them a link to your post/page.