As of May 23rd 2013, I haven’t seen a new post since April 2nd… what’s going on? Has the site gone dormant once again?

It’s Not the First Time WPCandy has Gone Dormant

Back in January of this year (2013), a similar post to this one on WPDaily exposed that the site has gone quiet. Although, a Tweet from the official WPCandy twitter account confirmed this was not fact:

After January, WPCandy experience a reinvigoration of posts with some really great content. A few months later, we’re back to wondering the future of WPCandy.

Editorial Burnout?

Posting content is hard. Posting good content is even harder. I can sympathize with the owners and authors of WPCandy here. It’s not easy to consistently post content all while running a business, developing a brand, building a website and more.

In it’s early days WPCandy experienced explosive growth. Did that growth slow and perhaps reduce the motivations of its owners? Have they moved on to greener pastures?

The last Twitter post @WPCandy was also on April 2nd, 2013 – the date of their last post

Issues with Advertising

It’s no secret that WPCandy has issues when rolling out their advertising network Pressed Ads. Alex Denning, on this post on WPDaily complains of issues with getting paid.

To sum it up, the ad network apparently had issues and flopped. It was pulled from the site and not much has been heard since. This minor setback must have left a bad taste to the candy that is WPCandy.

As well, a number of users were apparently burned by the WPCandy “Quarterly” subscription. Many only received one issue when they paid for a yearly subscription. Another bad taste.

It is important to note there was no malicious intent by WPCandy to screw over their users out of payment or services.

What’s Next for WPCandy?

Right now, the state of WPCandy is pretty bleak. The site looks broken as shit. Notice the ads are not displaying, the sidebar is blank and many pages just looked messed up. Many they need to update some plugins and fix some CSS?

It appears there is some work to be done to get the site back in shape. I believe the owner, Ryan Immel, should perhaps think about cutting his losses and sell the blog. I know, it’s a hard thing to let go of your baby… but, if you’re not taking care of it maybe someone else could?

What do You Think?

Did you read WPCandy? Think it should return to life? Let you voice be heard in the comments below!

The post What Happened to WPCandy… Again? appeared first on WordImpress.

Tip: Add the following functions to your theme’s functions.php file or your custom functionality plugin to use them.

Add a Custom Incremental Class

If you need a “counter class” – one that basically counts up the menu items like menu-item-1, menu-item-2, etc – here is how you can do that by using $item->menu_order to output a number attached to a class name.

/**
 * Increment wp_nav_menu li custom class numbering
 * @description: Tweaked code found at link below for inremental counting
 * @source: http://www.codefleet.net/add-the-first-and-last-css-class-to-the-top-level-navigation-menu-items/
 */

function custom_nav_class($classes, $item){
        $classes[] = "custom-class-".$item->menu_order;
        return $classes;
}
add_filter('nav_menu_css_class' , 'custom_nav_class' , 10 , 2);

Add a Custom Class to the Last Menu Item

A lot of times you will have a menu where the last menu item will need a specific class added. This can be used to remove a border or margin, etc. Props go to John the Developer’s post Adding a CSS Class to the the Last LI Generated by wp_nav_menu()

/* Add last_item class to last li in wp_nav_menu lists*/
function add_last_item_class($strHTML) {
	$intPos = strripos($strHTML,'menu-item');
	printf("%s last_item %s",
		substr($strHTML,0,$intPos),
		substr($strHTML,$intPos,strlen($strHTML))
	);
}
add_filter('wp_nav_menu','add_last_item_class');

Roots Users: If you are using the Roots Theme framework you will need to tweak it a little further to properly add the class. This is due to Roots’ modifying the menu classes.

/* Add last_item class to last li in wp_nav_menu lists*/
function add_last_item_class($strHTML) {
	$intPos = strripos($strHTML,'menu-');
	printf("%s last_item %s",
		substr($strHTML,0,$intPos),
		substr($strHTML,$intPos,strlen($strHTML))
	);
}
add_filter('wp_nav_menu','add_last_item_class');

Add a Class to the First and Last Menu Items

Adding a class to first and last menu items

function add_first_and_last($output) {
  $output = preg_replace('/class="menu-item/', 'class="first-menu-item menu-item', $output, 1);
  $output = substr_replace($output, 'class="last-menu-item menu-item', strripos($output, 'class="menu-item'), strlen('class="menu-item'));
  return $output;
}
add_filter('wp_nav_menu', 'add_first_and_last');

Non-Programmically Adding Custom Classes

If you’re not comfortable touching code, you can always add a custom class using WordPress built in method. To to this you will first need to ensure you have all options visible in the Menus Screen:

1. Navigation to Appearances > Menus in your WP admin panel and click on Screen Option

2. Next, under Show Advanced Menu Properties ensure that CSS Classes is checked

Now you will be able to add custom classes to your menu items all you like when you expand each individual link.

Note: If you indend on using this option to add last or first menu classes and the order of the menu items is switched the classes will follow. This could potentially break your menu layout!

Have Anymore Menu Class Needs or Functions?

If you have a need to customize your menus that doesn’t appear above please use the comments below to tell us your requirements. Also, if you have any nifty functions to modify your WordPress menus please share that as well!

The post Adding Custom Classes to WordPress’ wp_nav_menu() appeared first on WordImpress.

Now, you could use your handy web inspector to check out the stylesheet and source urls to do your own detective work… Or, you could use this fast and easy-to-use website: What WordPress Theme is That?.

Introducing What WordPress Theme is That?

This site takes the legwork out of finding out which WordPress Theme as site is using… like the name implies.

Disclaimer: WordImpress has no affiliation with What WordPress Theme is That?… we just think it is really awesome!

How to use What WordPress Theme is That?

It’s very easy! You can use this website to check to see if a site is even using WordPress and if it is, the website will tell you the website’s WordPress theme information.

Google is not on WordPress

…but WordImpress is!

Above is an example of the theme information output that appears when a site is on WordPress. I assume the website parses your stylesheet to get the relevant information and then attempts to locate the theme’s screenshot.png file.

How About Plugins?

What WordPress Theme is That? will do it’s best job to find out which plugins the site is using. Here is a screenshot of the plugins it located in use on this site:

Other Cool Features

I thought it was neat how you could see the most popular plugins in use on all WordPress Plugins that have been detected by What WordPress Theme is That:

As well, you can also see the most popular themes discovered by the tool:

What Do You Think?

Tell us what you think about this tool. Do you have another solution? Share your comments below!

The post How to Easily Find Out Which Theme a WordPress Site is Using appeared first on WordImpress.

Yelp Widget Pro shortcode examples can be found on the Yelp Widget Pro Demo site. To get started, the most basic usage of the shortcode requires you choose an API option:

Yelp Search Method Basic Usage Example:

[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego" ]

Notice the required argument id.

Yelp Business Method Basic Example:

[yelp-widget-pro term="Bars" location="San Diego"]

Notice the required arguments of term and location.

For more information on which API method to use please visit: Yelp’s APIs Explained for use with Yelp Widget Pro

Output Options

You can use the shortcode within your page and post content as you would any normal shortcode… just make sure it’s outputted using the WordPress loop:

[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego"]

You can output the shortcode using PHP and the do_shortcode function for use within your theme files like so:

<?php echo do_shortcode('[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego"]'); ?>

Shortcode Options

The Yelp Widget Pro shortcode options vary depending on how you would like to use the widget. The following shortcode options are supported by Yelp Widget Pro:

Search Method

The Search Method allows you to display various business based on search term and location.

term

For use with Search Method Yelp widgets. Use this to display a business listings based on a search term. This method does not support display of Yelp reviews. Required: the location argument is required alongside the term arg.

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" location="Seattle"]

location

For use with Search Method Yelp widgets. This method is required to search a specific area for your specific term. Required: location is a required argument. The default location, if none is specified, is “San Diego”.

reviews

Display 3 Yelp review snippets for each business. The default value is “false”

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" location="Seattle" reviews="true"]

avatar

Customize the size of the reviewer’s profile image (avatar). The default value is “small”

• small – default profile image size (40×40)
• medium – medium profile image (75×75)
• large – large profile image (100×100)

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" location="Seattle" avatar="large"]

Business Method

The Business Method allows you to display a specific business listing based on the Yelp Business ID. How to get a business on Yelp’s Business ID. Note, this is the only method that support displaying Yelp reviews.

id

For use with Business Method Yelp widgets. Use the “id” argument to display a singular business. The expected value is the Yelp business ID.

[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego"]

Global Options

The following options will work with Yelp Widget Pro regardless of API Method.

map

Display a Google map displaying one or many listings. The default value is “false”.

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" location="San Diego" map="true"]

address

Display the business address. The default value is “false”.

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" location="San Diego" address="true"]

target_blank

Specify whether links open in a new window or not. Currently non-functional.

[yelp-widget-pro term="coffee" target="0"]

align

Float the Yelp widget output right, left or no float value at all. The default value is “right”.

• left – align the widget output to the left
• right – align the widget output to the right; default value
• none – no float

[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego" align="none"]

width

Customize the widget’s width using this argument. If you wish to customize the width the widget’s default value. Be sure to use pixel or percentage values.

[yelp-widget-pro id="sushi-ota-san-diego" width="350px"]

The post Yelp Widget Pro Shortcodes appeared first on WordImpress.

Knowing which API to use depends on how you wish to use the plugin. If you are a business owner wanting to show their Yelp star rating and reviews then the Business method is the way to go. If you are a Real Estate agent and want to show daycare businesses nearby one of your listing then the Search method is what you want.

Yelp’s Business Method Explained

Yelp’s Business API allows business owners to display their Yelp reviews (up to 3), address, Google Map location, and more. To display your business you will need to first retrieve your Yelp Business ID. Don’t worry, this is as easy as going to your business page on Yelp and copying a bit of the URL. The bit of the url we are looking for is after the /biz/ part of the address. For instance, the Business ID of http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-bacon-bremerton is el-bacon-bremerton (without quotes).

Yelp’s Search Method Explained

Yelp’s Search API is useful to display business listings results of specific search terms such as “Bars” in San Diego or “Daycare” in Seattle. The API results accurately reflects search results on Yelp.com – for more information visit Yelp’s Search API

Note: The Yelp Widget Pro version used in the screencast is the open source version available on WordPress.org:

Get the Premium version of Yelp Widget Pro.

The post Yelp’s APIs Explained for use with Yelp Widget Pro appeared first on WordImpress.

The post How to Request a Yelp API Key appeared first on WordImpress.

Can I Install Anything Other Than WordPress on WPengine?

This was the question I had when I wanted to setup a support forum using Vanilla Forums. I’ve known WPengine to be a pretty strict host. For example, they have a list of blacklisted plugins that they routinely update: WPengine Disallowed Plugins. I figured they would be strict on WordPress-only for their hosting.

So I Asked WPengine Support

Here’s the question I asked:

Is it allowed to install Vanilla Forums and/or other PHP applications on my WPengine hosting? I couldn’t find any information about that on the website. I’d like to have a support forum and am not thrilled using bbPress as a solution.

Side note: I’ve been very happy with WPengine Support. Despite dealing with massive growth, they’ve maintained their responsiveness and are very knowledgeable.

WPengine Response

Tony from WPengine got back to me with the answer I wanted, but had not expected. I definitely searched Google for the answer, and also the WPengine support site but still could not find anything. Thanks Tony for clearing it up:

Thanks for reaching out to WPEngine.com. We do have clients that host PHP applications on our server. It’s not supported by us from a ticketing standpoint, but as long as you’re able to utilize a single database and add the related tables to the mySQL it will be good to go.

The Answer is Yes, but No Support

The good thing is that with WPengine you can benefit from the environment’s incredible speed and reliability without being married to WordPress.

WPengine – Not just WordPress Hosting

I’ll update this article as I explore running other applications than WordPress on WPengine. They have a lot of great features like baked-in CDN and daily backup snapshots that I’m curious to see how they integrate with say, Vanilla Forums.

Have you had experience working with anything other than WordPress on WPengine? Please post your comments below!

The post WPengine – Can You Install More than JUST WordPress? appeared first on WordImpress.

With WooCommerce and WordPress SEO both activated the columns in my Products listing page in the WordPress admin appear spaced incorrectly.

Here is an image of the issue:

Fix #1: Hide WordPress SEO Columns

The easiest fix is to hide the columns WordPress SEO includes on the products page:

1. In the WordPress admin panel, while on the WooCommerce Products page click on Screen Options (it’s in the top-right hand corner)

2. Uncheck all WordPress SEO related columns

You should now see your columns appear as normal. If you want the SEO columns…

Fix #2: Add a CSS fix to your Admin Head

Add the following CSS to your custom functionality plugin or theme’s functions.php file to override the conflicting styles causing extra padding:

//Fix WooCommerce Yoast Columns CSS issue
//http://wordimpress.com/woocommerce-2-0-and-yoast-seo-product-page-columns-issue-fix/
function woocommerce_yoast_fix_style() {

    echo '<style>
    .widefat * {
    word-wrap: normal !important;
    }
    </style> ';
}
add_action('admin_head', 'woocommerce_yoast_fix_style');

This isn’t the most elegant solution, but it works. If you have another recommendation please post in the comments below!

It appears this issue has happened for others using the same plugin combination: Yoast SEO Woocommerce 2.0.1 Products in Product Page Products Names Problem

These are two great plugins, hopefully in the near future this problem will be resolved without the use of either workaround mentioned above.

The post WooCommerce 2.0+ and Yoast SEO Product Page Columns Issue Fix appeared first on WordImpress.

To view these slides on SlideShare use the following link: Website Optimization Tools and Techniques on SlideShare

It requires 50% more concentration when using badly performing website. Make it easier for your users, not harder…

A faster website can help your website in many ways. The faster the website, the lower the bounce rate and the higher the conversions. This mean higher sales, ad revenue and ultimately money.

10 Ways to Improve Your Websites Speed

Here are 10 ways you can speed up your website:

1. Hosting Provider – Who is hosting your website and how are they hosting it?
2. Utilize Caching – Page Cache, Database Cache, Object Cache, Browser Cache, Reverse Proxy
3. Combine CSS and JS files – Load JS in the footer whenever possible
4. Use a CDN -A Content Delivery Network (CDN) will ‘put a rocket behind your static content’
5. Reduce and Optimize Images – Use CSS3 whenever and wherever possible, save images for web
6. Use Compression – Save bandwidth and speed up your website
7. Use Sprites – Load JS in the footer whenever possible
8. Monitor Your Website – CPU usage, Physical Memory, Average Load, Disk I/O utilization, Network I/O
9. Optimize your Database Regularly – Optimizing database tables regularly will help improve website performance
10. Mobile and Tablet Optimization – Use CSS3 Media Queries, JS and service-side technology to speed up devices

The post Need for Speed: Website Edition – Website Optimization Tools and Techniques Presentation appeared first on WordImpress.

Recently I had a website requiring a page template to display a post type’s categories and output the posts within that category on a WordPress website I was developing. This is an interesting request and the end result’s output should look like this:

• Category 1 Title
  • Title of Post 1 in Category 1
  • Title of Post 2 in Category 1
  • Title of Post 3 in Category 1
• Category 2 Title
  • Title of Post 1 in Category 2
  • Title of Post 2 in Category 2
  • Title of Post 3 in Category 2
• Category 3 Title
  • Title of Post 1 in Category 3
  • Title of Post 2 in Category 3
  • Title of Post 3 in Category 3

Make sense? Of course, you can also output more than just the post title. Post thumbnails and excerpts are just two more ways to make the display more visually appealing and provide additional information to your user. Check out this image of a recent client’s site using this type of layout:

Displaying and Separating Custom Posts by Taxonomy

Pop this code in a WordPress page template and specify the post type you wish to display:

Update 4/18/13: I have updated the code below to be clearer and more easily customized.

<?php
/*
 * Loop through Categories and Display Posts within
 */
$post_type = 'features';

// Get all the taxonomies for this post type
$taxonomies = get_object_taxonomies( array( 'post_type' => $post_type ) );

foreach( $taxonomies as $taxonomy ) :

    // Gets every "category" (term) in this taxonomy to get the respective posts
    $terms = get_terms( $taxonomy );

    foreach( $terms as $term ) : ?>

        <section class="category-section">

        <div class="row">
        <div class="span12">
            <h2 class="mid-heading"><?php echo $term->name; ?></h2>
        </div>

        <?php
        $args = array(
                'post_type' => $post_type,
                'posts_per_page' => -1,  //show all posts
                'tax_query' => array(
                    array(
                        'taxonomy' => $taxonomy,
                        'field' => 'slug',
                        'terms' => $term->slug,
                    )
                )

            );
        $posts = new WP_Query($args);

        if( $posts->have_posts() ): while( $posts->have_posts() ) : $posts->the_post(); ?>

            <div class="span4">

                <article class="inner-post clearfix">

                    <div class="inner-img whitebox">
                    <?php if(has_post_thumbnail()) { ?>
                            <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
                    <?php }
                    /* no post image so show default */
                    else { ?>
                           <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/assets/img/default-img.png" alt="<?php echo get_the_title(); ?>" title="<?php echo get_the_title(); ?>" width="110" height="110" />
                    <?php } ?>
                    </div>

                    <div class="inner-content">

                    <h3 class="heading-size-14 font-weight-600"><a href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" title="Read more about <?php echo get_the_title(); ?>"><?php  echo get_the_title(); ?></a></h3>

                        <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
                    </div>
                </article><!-- about-box -->


            </div>

        <?php endwhile; endif; ?>
        </div>
        <hr>
        </section>

    <?php endforeach;

endforeach; ?>

So… what’s going on here? First, we are using get_object_taxonomies() to return all of the taxonomy names of a defined object type. Next we use two foreach loops to output the posts per category.

Here is the code without any HTML tags for developing your own layout:

<?php
/*
 * Loop through Categories and Display Posts within
 */
$post_type = 'features';

// Get all the taxonomies for this post type
$taxonomies = get_object_taxonomies( array( 'post_type' => $post_type ) );

foreach( $taxonomies as $taxonomy ) :

    // Gets every "category" (term) in this taxonomy to get the respective posts
    $terms = get_terms( $taxonomy );

    foreach( $terms as $term ) : ?>

      <?php echo $term->name; ?>

        <?php
        $args = array(
                'post_type' => $post_type,
                'posts_per_page' => -1,  //show all posts
                'tax_query' => array(
                    array(
                        'taxonomy' => $taxonomy,
                        'field' => 'slug',
                        'terms' => $term->slug,
                    )
                )

            );
        $posts = new WP_Query($args);

        if( $posts->have_posts() ): while( $posts->have_posts() ) : $posts->the_post(); ?>

                    <?php if(has_post_thumbnail()) { ?>
                            <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
                    <?php }
                    /* no post image so show a default img */
                    else { ?>
                           <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/assets/img/default-img.png" alt="<?php echo get_the_title(); ?>" title="<?php echo get_the_title(); ?>" width="110" height="110" />
                    <?php } ?>

                   <?php  echo get_the_title(); ?>

                        <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
                   

        <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

    <?php endforeach;

endforeach; ?>

You can find this solution on several posts if you have been Googling. Here’s the post on WordPress.org Forums where I found the solution: Displaying and Separating Custom Posts by Taxonomy.

Have a variation to this? Let’s hear it! Please post any updates or comments below:

The post Loop through Categories and Display Posts Within appeared first on WordImpress.