CatsWhoCode.com

10 life-saving PHP snippets

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:06:16 +0000

Highlight specific words in a phrase

Sometimes, for example, when displaying search results, it is a great idea to highlight specific words. This is exactly what the following function can do:

function highlight($sString, $aWords) {
	if (!is_array ($aWords) || empty ($aWords) || !is_string ($sString)) {
		return false;
	}

	$sWords = implode ('|', $aWords);
 	return preg_replace ('@\b('.$sWords.')\b@si', '$1', $sString);
}

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/highlights-words-in-a-phrase

Get your average Feedburner subscribers

Recently, Feedburner counts had lots of problems and it’s hard to say that the provided info is still relevant. This code will grab your subscriber count from the last 7 days and will return the average.

function get_average_readers($feed_id,$interval = 7){
	$today = date('Y-m-d', strtotime("now"));
	$ago = date('Y-m-d', strtotime("-".$interval." days"));
	$feed_url="https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=".$feed_id."&dates=".$ago.",".$today;
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $feed_url);
	$data = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);
	$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
	$fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];

	$nb = 0;
	foreach($xml->feed->children() as $circ){
		$nb += $circ['circulation'];
	}

	return round($nb/$interval);
}

Source: http://www.catswhoblog.com/how-to-get-a-more-relevant-feedburner-count

Automatic password creation

Although I personally prefer leaving users to choose their password themselves, a client recently asked me to generate passwords automatically when a new account is created.
The following function is flexible: You can choose the desired length and strength for the password.

function generatePassword($length=9, $strength=0) {
	$vowels = 'aeuy';
	$consonants = 'bdghjmnpqrstvz';
	if ($strength >= 1) {
		$consonants .= 'BDGHJLMNPQRSTVWXZ';
	}
	if ($strength >= 2) {
		$vowels .= "AEUY";
	}
	if ($strength >= 4) {
		$consonants .= '23456789';
	}
	if ($strength >= 8 ) {
		$vowels .= '@#$%';
	}

	$password = '';
	$alt = time() % 2;
	for ($i = 0; $i < $length; $i++) {
		if ($alt == 1) {
			$password .= $consonants[(rand() % strlen($consonants))];
			$alt = 0;
		} else {
			$password .= $vowels[(rand() % strlen($vowels))];
			$alt = 1;
		}
	}
	return $password;
}

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/generate-a-password-in-php

Compress multiple CSS files

If you’re using different CSS files on your site, they might take quite long to load. Using PHP, you can compress them into a single file with no unnecessary white spaces or comments.
This snippet has been previously discussed on my “3 ways to compress CSS files using PHP” article.

header('Content-type: text/css');
ob_start("compress");
function compress($buffer) {
  /* remove comments */
  $buffer = preg_replace('!/\*[^*]*\*+([^/][^*]*\*+)*/!', '', $buffer);
  /* remove tabs, spaces, newlines, etc. */
  $buffer = str_replace(array("\r\n", "\r", "\n", "\t", '  ', '    ', '    '), '', $buffer);
  return $buffer;
}

/* your css files */
include('master.css');
include('typography.css');
include('grid.css');
include('print.css');
include('handheld.css');

ob_end_flush();

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/compress-css-files-using-php

Get short urls for Twitter

Are you on Twitter? If yes, you probably use a url shortener such as bit.ly or TinyUrl to share your favorite blog posts and links on the network.
This snippet take a url as a parameter and will return a short url.

function getTinyUrl($url) {
    return file_get_contents("http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=".$url);
}

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/convert-url-to-tinyurl

Calculate age using date of birth

Pass a birth date to this function, and it will return the age of the person; very useful when building communities or social media sites.

function age($date){
	$year_diff = '';
	$time = strtotime($date);
	if(FALSE === $time){
		return '';
	}

	$date = date('Y-m-d', $time);
	list($year,$month,$day) = explode("-",$date);
	$year_diff = date("Y") – $year;
	$month_diff = date("m") – $month;
	$day_diff = date("d") – $day;
	if ($day_diff < 0 || $month_diff < 0) $year_diff–;

	return $year_diff;
}

Source: John Karry on http://www.phpsnippets.info/calculate-age-of-a-person-using-date-of-birth

Calculate execution time

For debugging purposes, it is a good thing to be able to calculate the execution time of a script. This is exactly what this piece of code can do.

//Create a variable for start time
$time_start = microtime(true);

// Place your PHP/HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Etc. Here

//Create a variable for end time
$time_end = microtime(true);
//Subtract the two times to get seconds
$time = $time_end - $time_start;

echo 'Script took '.$time.' seconds to execute';

Source: http://phpsnips.com/snippet.php?id=26

Maintenance mode with PHP

When updating your site, it is generally a good thing to temporarily redirect your users to a “Maintenance” page so they will not see any critical info such as error messages.
This is generally done using an .htaccess file, but it can be done easily with PHP:

function maintenance($mode = FALSE){
    if($mode){
        if(basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) != 'maintenance.php'){
            header("Location: http://example.com/maintenance.php");
            exit;
        }
    }else{
        if(basename($_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME']) == 'maintenance.php'){
            header("Location: http://example.com/");
            exit;
        }
    }
}

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/easy-maintenance-mode-with-php

Prevent js and css files from being cached

By default, external files such as javascript and css are cached by the browser. If you want to prevent this from caching, simply use this easy tip:

The result will look like this:
Source: http://davidwalsh.name/prevent-cache
Add (th, st, nd, rd, th) to the end of a number
Another useful snippet which will automatically add st, nd, rd or th after a number.
function make_ranked($rank) {
	$last = substr( $rank, -1 );
	$seclast = substr( $rank, -2, -1 );
	if( $last > 3 || $last == 0 ) $ext = 'th';
	else if( $last == 3 ) $ext = 'rd';
	else if( $last == 2 ) $ext = 'nd';
	else $ext = 'st'; 

	if( $last == 1 && $seclast == 1) $ext = 'th';
	if( $last == 2 && $seclast == 1) $ext = 'th';
	if( $last == 3 && $seclast == 1) $ext = 'th'; 

	return $rank.$ext;
}
Source: http://phpsnips.com/snippet.php?id=37
Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

10 life-saving PHP snippets
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How to create a built-in contact form for your WordPress theme

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:23:07 +0000

Getting Ready

You can see the working form on my site PHP Snippets. It is a site of mine, so don’t hesitate to grab the RSS feed and follow it on Twitter if you want.

Step 1: Creating the page template

The first step is to create a page template. To do so, copy the page.php code into a new file named page-contact.php.

We have to add a comment at the beginning of the contact.php file to make sure WordPress will treat the file as a page template. Here’s the code:

Your contact.php file should look like this:

Step 2: Building the form

Now, we have to create a simple contact form. Simply paste the following code within the entry-content div.


	
		
			Name:
			
		
		
			Email
			
		
		
			Message:

Nothing hard with this pretty self-explanatory html code for our form. Note the input type=”hidden” I added on line 19: It will be used later to check if the form has been submitted.

Step 3: data processing and error handling

Our form looks pretty good, but right it is very useless because it does not send any email. What we have to do is to verify if the form has been submitted then verify if fields have been filled correctly.

If fields are correctly filled, we’ll get the blog admin email and send them the email. Otherwise, no email will be sent and errors will be displayed to the user.

Paste the following code between the Page Template declaration and the get_header() function:

' . "\r\n" . 'Reply-To: ' . $email;

		mail($emailTo, $subject, $body, $headers);
		$emailSent = true;
	}

} ?>

What I’ve done here was simply to make sure that the form has been submitted and filled correctly. If an error, such as an empty field or incorrect email address occurred, a message is returned and the form isn’t submitted.

Now we have to display error messages below the related field, for example “Please enter your name”. Below you’ll find the complete form page template that you can use “as it”.



' . "\r\n" . 'Reply-To: ' . $email;

		mail($emailTo, $subject, $body, $headers);
		$emailSent = true;
	}

} ?>

	
		

			
			 id="post-">
				
					
						
							
								Thanks, your email was sent successfully.
							
						
							
							
								Sorry, an error occured.

							

						

							
							
								Name:
								
								
									
								
							

							
								Email
								
								
									
								
							

							Message:
								<?php if(isset($_POST['comments'])) { if(function_exists('stripslashes')) { echo stripslashes($_POST['comments']); } else { echo $_POST['comments']; } } ?>
								
									
								
							

							
								Send email

Step 4: Adding jQuery verification

Our form is now working perfectly. But we can enhance it by adding a client side verification. To do so, I’m going to use jQuery and the validate jQuery plugin. This plugin is great because it allows you to verify that a form has been filled correctly, quickly and easily.

The first thing to do is to download the validate plugin and upload it into your theme file (under a /js directory). Once done, paste the following into a new file:

$(document).ready(function(){
	$("#contactForm").validate();
});

Save it as verif.js in your /js directory.

Now we have to link the javascript files to our theme. Open your header.php file and paste the following within the and tags:

Once done, your form will be validated on the client side by the jQuery validate plugin. How does it work? It simply picks form element which have the css class required and verifies if they’re filled correctly. If not, a message is displayed.
The plugin is powerful and you can do lots of things with it, however this isn’t the purpose of this article. Hope you enjoy your new WordPress form!

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

How to create a built-in contact form for your WordPress theme

How to create a side blog with WordPress 3.0

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:11:42 +0000

Getting ready

So, what are custom post types? That’s simple, custom post types are like a blog post or page, but of a custom defined type.
As an example, I decided to list some promo codes on my other blog CatsWhoBlog. I could have used a good old static page, but updating it and adding new promo codes would have been a pain.

So I created a custom post type, named coupon and a page template to list all coupons. It’s as simple as that, and now managing coupons & promo codes is extremely easy:

Creating the post type

Ok, let’s code. The first thing to do is to create a custom post type. To do so, pick up your theme functions.php file, and add the following:

function create_my_post_types() {
    register_post_type('coupons',
        array(
            'label' => __('Coupons'),
            'singular_label' => __('Coupon'),
            'public' => true,
            'supports' => array(
                'title',
                'excerpt',
                'comments',
                'custom-fields'
	    ),
	    'rewrite' => array(
	        'slug' => 'coupons',
	        'with_front' => false
	    ),
        )
    );
}
add_action( 'init', 'create_my_post_types' );

Once you saved functions.php, you should notice that a new tab appeared in your WordPress dashboard, as shown in the picture below:

So what does this code do?
First, I have created a function which registers a new post type, named coupons. I gave the following parameters to the register_post_type() function:

label: Nicename of your post type.
singular_label: Pretty self explanatory, the singular label of your post type.
public: Allows post type to be seen publicly.
supports: Array of data of what the post type supports (editor, excerpt, comments, custom fields, etc…)
rewrite: Parameters for url rewriting and general post type display.

The complete parameter list can be found on WordPress Codex.

Then, I “hooked” this function to WordPress init() function using add_action().

Adding data

Now that the post type has been created, you can add data by clicking on the “Add Coupon” (Or whatever you named it) link in WordPress dashboard menu.

You should see the following:

Creating a page template to list custom post types

Now that we have created a custom post type and added some custom posts, we still have to display it. To do so, I have used a page template. You can easily reuse the following code, or adapt it to display in your blog sidebar, for example.
If you want to see a demo of the page template, just click here.




	
		
			
			

			have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

As you can see, the code I’ve used is definitely easy and self-explanatory. In order to fetch a specific post type, you have to specify the parameter post_type=coupons.

That’s all for today, hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

How to create a side blog with WordPress 3.0

10 PHP code snippets for working with strings

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:09:57 +0000

Automatically remove html tags from a string

On user-submitted forms, you may want to remove all unnecessary html tags. Doing so is easy using the strip_tags() function:

$text = strip_tags($input, "");

Source: http://phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore060210.php3?page=2

Get the text between $start and $end

This is the kind of function every web developer should have in their toolbox for future use: give it a string, a start, and an end, and it will return the text contained with $start and $end.

function GetBetween($content,$start,$end){
    $r = explode($start, $content);
    if (isset($r[1])){
        $r = explode($end, $r[1]);
        return $r[0];
    }
    return '';
}

Source: http://www.jonasjohn.de/snippets/php/get-between.htm

Transform URL to hyperlinks

If you leave a URL in the comment form of a WordPress blog, it will be automatically transformed into a hyperlink. If you want to implement the same functionality in your own website or web app, you can use the following code:

$url = "Jean-Baptiste Jung (http://www.webdevcat.com)";
$url = preg_replace("#http://([A-z0-9./-]+)#", '$0', $url);

Source: http://phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore060210.php3?page=2

Split text up into 140 char array for Twitter

As you probably know, Twitter only accepts messages of 140 characters or less. If you want to interact with the popular social messaging site, you’ll enjoy this function for sure, which will allow you to truncate your message to 140 characters.

function split_to_chunks($to,$text){
	$total_length = (140 - strlen($to));
	$text_arr = explode(" ",$text);
	$i=0;
	$message[0]="";
	foreach ($text_arr as $word){
		if ( strlen($message[$i] . $word . ' ') <= $total_length ){
			if ($text_arr[count($text_arr)-1] == $word){
				$message[$i] .= $word;
			} else {
				$message[$i] .= $word . ' ';
			}
		} else {
			$i++;
			if ($text_arr[count($text_arr)-1] == $word){
				$message[$i] = $word;
			} else {
				$message[$i] = $word . ' ';
			}
		}
	}
	return $message;
}

Source: http://www.phpsnippets.info/split-text-up-into-140-char-array-for-twitter

Remove URLs from string

When I see the amount of URLs people try to leave in my blog comments to get traffic and/or backlinks, I think I should definitely give a go to this snippet!

$string = preg_replace('/\b(https?|ftp|file):\/\/[-A-Z0-9+&@#\/%?=~_|$!:,.;]*[A-Z0-9+&@#\/%=~_|$]/i', '', $string);

Source: http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=15236

Convert strings to slugs

Need to generate slugs (permalinks) that are SEO friendly? The following function takes a string as a parameter and will return a SEO friendly slug. Simple and efficient!

function slug($str){
	$str = strtolower(trim($str));
	$str = preg_replace('/[^a-z0-9-]/', '-', $str);
	$str = preg_replace('/-+/', "-", $str);
	return $str;
}

Source: http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=2809

Parse CSV files

CSV (Coma separated values) files are an easy way to store data, and parsing them using PHP is dead simple. Don’t believe me? Just use the following snippet and see for yourself.

$fh = fopen("contacts.csv", "r");
while($line = fgetcsv($fh, 1000, ",")) {
    echo "Contact: {$line[1]}";
}

Source: http://phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore060210.php3?page=1

Search for a string in another string

If a string is contained in another string and you need to search for it, this is a very clever way to do it:

function contains($str, $content, $ignorecase=true){
    if ($ignorecase){
        $str = strtolower($str);
        $content = strtolower($content);
    }
    return strpos($content,$str) ? true : false;
}

Source: http://www.jonasjohn.de/snippets/php/contains.htm

Check if a string starts with a specific pattern

Some languages such as Java have a startWith method/function which allows you to check if a string starts with a specific pattern. Unfortunately, PHP does not have a similar built-in function.
Whatever- we just have to build our own, which is very simple:

function String_Begins_With($needle, $haystack {
    return (substr($haystack, 0, strlen($needle))==$needle);
}

Source: http://snipplr.com/view.php?codeview&id=2143

Extract emails from a string

Ever wondered how spammers can get your email address? That’s simple, they get web pages (such as forums) and simply parse the html to extract emails. This code takes a string as a parameter, and will print all emails contained within. Please don’t use this code for spam

function extract_emails($str){
    // This regular expression extracts all emails from a string:
    $regexp = '/([a-z0-9_\.\-])+\@(([a-z0-9\-])+\.)+([a-z0-9]{2,4})+/i';
    preg_match_all($regexp, $str, $m);

    return isset($m[0]) ? $m[0] : array();
}

$test_string = 'This is a test string...

        test1@example.org

        Test different formats:
        test2@example.org;
        foobar
        

        strange formats:
        test5@example.org
        test6[at]example.org
        test7@example.net.org.com
        test8@ example.org
        test9@!foo!.org

        foobar
';

print_r(extract_emails($test_string));

Source: http://www.jonasjohn.de/snippets/php/extract-emails.htm

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

10 PHP code snippets for working with strings

Best practices for coding HTML emails

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:12:43 +0000

Keep it simple and lightweight

If you have to remember only one of all the tips I’m going to give you in this post, it should be this one. In fact, an html email is not a website, so you shouldn’t try to embed a website into an email.

Some years ago, I used to work for a French TV channel and I often had to slice some PSD’s into html emails. The PSD’s contained gradients, funky fonts, and even animated gifs. As a result, the work (despite all efforts I’ve put in it) looked different from one email client to another, the fonts had to be replaced by Arial, and the whole email was extremely heavy and highly relied on images.

On the other hand, a simple html email will loaded smoothly, and will be more pleasant to read.

(Yoast.com Newsletter)

Don’t abuse images

An image is worth a thousand words, but it may also take forever to load. I have received many emails that consisted of a few lines of text and nothing else but big images. As a result, the recipient had to wait until the image was loaded (Which can sometimes takes up to 5 seconds!) in order to read the information embedded in the email.

This is, in my opinion, a waste of time for the recipient, as well as a waste of money for the sender: Most people won’t wait 5 seconds in order to have the big image you send them loaded. They’ll trash the email. It’s as simple as that.

An html email should be beautiful and pleasurable to view, but don’t over do it. Like I’ve just said, keep it simple, you won’t regret it.

Work with tables

As many email clients handle CSS worst than IE6 (Yes, I’m not joking), you shouldn’t even try to make advanced layouts using CSS. Instead, you should do a jump 10 years ago and say hello to tables, tr’s and td’s again.

If you’re like me, you’re a CSS fan, and this might sound very frustrating. In fact, having to code the dirty way is never pleasant, but you don’t have much of a choice. Do not hesitate to test by yourself: Chances are that you’ll soon be using tables again.

Always use images from your server

Among html email worst practices I ever saw, embedding images directly in the email definitely arrived at good place. This is wrong in many points: First, it will make the email heavier (I’ve seen 300ko messages!), and secondly, there’s a strong risk that the recipient email client block those images.

What you should do is to create a hierarchy of directories on your server, for example Newsletters and then May_2010, and upload images for your html email in it. Once done, simply call them using absolute url paths:

Write your CSS inline and use html attributes

In email clients, the lack of CSS support is definitely something to keep in mind. Don’t try linking to an external CSS file, and try to avoid as many CSS declarations as possible in the section of your document.

It may be dirty, but the best way to make sure your CSS will be (quite) correctly interpreted by the recipient’s client is to code your CSS the inline way, as shown in the example below:

A new background and font color with inline CSS

Another “dirty but effective” option to consider is the use of html attributes, such as background or bgcolor:

Don’t forget the text format

It may seems a bit obsolete in 2010, but many people, including myself, prefers the good old “plain text” format than html emails. When creating an email list subscription form, try to allow the visitor to choose between the html and plain text format.

Make sure your emails display in various clients

When creating a website, any serious developer will test its render on various browsers. This should be the same with html emails: people use a wide variety of clients and in order to be professional you should try to support most of them.

In my opinion, the following clients should be supported: Gmail, Yahoo mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. below, you’ll find two great guides about CSS in html emails:

Guide to CSS support in email clients: A very interesting guide describing which CSS properties can be used depending on the user’s email client. PDF and Excel versions are downloadable.
CSS3 support in email clients : Enjoying CSS3? Here’s another great resource brought to you by Campaign Monitor, showing the few CSS3 properties you can already use in your html emails.

Use Google Analytics to track conversions

Sending a good html email is definitely a great thing, but your goal is to have people click on it and visit your site. There’s lots of way to track clicks on emails, but one of the easiest is to use Google Analytics, that you’re probably already using on your website.

I’ve never been a big email list sender so I never experimented with Google Analytics conversion tracking. Though, it looks like doing so is very easy: All you have to do is to add some GET parameters to your links, as shown in the example below:

Click here

However, if you want to know more about click tracking using Google Analytics, you should have a look at this article.

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

Best practices for coding HTML emails

Thematic WordPress Theme Toolbox: 10 extremely useful hooks

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:42:08 +0000

If you’re looking for a tutorial on how to create a Thematic child theme, you should read this post.

Add a favicon

A favicon is a small image displayed by modern web browsers. It is a must have for all websites, because it allows your visitors to quickly visualize your site among others when they have lots of browser tabs open at the same time.
This handy code will add your favicon to your theme. Make sure a favicon.png file is in your child theme images directory, and then paste the code in your functions.php file:

function childtheme_favicon() { ?>
	
Source: 
Add an Internet Explorer specific stylesheet
Who doesn’t hate Internet Explorer? Unfortunately, most clients will require developers to make their site IE-compliant. And the best way to do so is to use some conditional comments and a dedicated stylesheet.
 Create a file named ie.css in your child theme directory, and then insert the following code in your functions.php file:
function childtheme_ie_style() { ?>
	
Modify Doctype
By default, Thematic outputs a XHTML 1.0 transitional doctype. If for some reason, you prefer using another kind of doctype, pasting the code below in your functions.php will do the trick.
function childtheme_create_doctype($content) {
 $content = '';
 $content .= "\n";
 $content .= 'Use Feedburner RSS feeds
Feedburner is very popular among bloggers. If you want to replace default rss feeds by feedburner feeds in Thematic, this code is for you.
function childtheme_rssfeeds($content) {
	$content = "\t";
	$content .= "";
	$content .= "\n";
	return $content;
}
add_filter('thematic_rss', 'childtheme_rssfeeds');
Add Google Analytics code to your Thematic child theme
Google Analytics is another free and very useful service. In order to allow GA to collect your visitor information and create your stats, you have to insert a small piece of Javascript on your footer.php file.
 Insert this code in your functions.php file, save it, and you’re done. Of course, don’t forget to replace the Google Analytics code with your own!
function ga(){ ?>
	
	
Modify Thematic footer credit
If you’re building a Thematic child theme for a client, you may want to insert your credit link in the footer text. The following code will do it. Don’t forget to give credit to Ian Stewart for his awesome work on the Thematic theme framework!
function my_footer($thm_footertext) {
	$thm_footertext = 'Copyright © 2010 Jean-Baptiste Jung. WebDevCat.com is obviously powered by WordPress & the Thematic Theme framework.';
	return $thm_footertext;
}
add_filter('thematic_footertext', 'my_footer');
Display Thematic menu above header
Want to have your navigation menu above your site header? That’s not a problem. This code will remove the menu from below the header and then put it above it.
function remove_thematic_actions() {
    remove_action('thematic_header','thematic_access',9);
    add_action('thematic_aboveheader','search_access',9);
}
add_action('wp','remove_thematic_actions');
Change “more” link text
Thematic “Read More” link displays Read More » by default. The following code allow you to change the “Read More” text.
function childtheme_more_text($content) {
	$content = 'Click to read the rest!';
	return $content;
}
add_filter('more_text', 'childtheme_more_text');
Change gravatar size in Thematic comments
By default, Thematic displays 35px*35px gravatars. If you want to change this size, no problem: Just paste this code in, as usual, your beloved functions.php file.
function childtheme_avatarsize() {
    return '56';
}
add_action( 'avatar_size', 'childtheme_avatarsize' );
Source: http://themeshaper.com/forums/topic/on-using-avatars-in-thematic
Remove Thematic menu on specific page template
If you want to make a squeeze page on your site or blog using Thematic, that’s quite easy: You only have to create a page template and remove the menu. To do so, just paste the code below in your functions.php file.
 Don’t forget to set your page template name on line 2.
function remove_access() {
    if (is_page_template('affiliate.php')) {
        remove_action('thematic_header','thematic_access',9);
    }

add_action('wp_head','remove_access');
}
Source: http://themeshaper.com/forums/topic/conditionally-removing-thematic_access
By the way, if you’re interested in Thematic Theme help, don’t hesitate to ask me. I just started freelancing and I’m ready to help you for a reasonable price.
Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

Thematic WordPress Theme Toolbox: 10 extremely useful hooks
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10 sites developers should have in their bookmarks

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:30:40 +0000

Mysql Format Date

MySQL Format Date helps you to format your dates using the MySQL DATE_FORMAT function. Just select a common date format and then change it to your suit your needs. The MySQL DATE_FORMAT code will be generated at the bottom of the page which you can then copy into your query.
Visit site: http://www.mysqlformatdate.com

Script Src

Are you tired of hunting the Internet in order to find the script tag for the latest version of the Javascript library of your choice? ScriptSrc.net has compiled all the latest versions of jQuery, Mootools, Prototype and more in a single page which lets you copy it in your browser clipboard with a single click.

Visit site: http://scriptsrc.net

Em Chart

I never been a fan of ems in CSS files, but sometimes you have to deal with it. In that case, Em chart will translate ems to pixels so you’ll save time and hassle.

Visit site: http://aloestudios.com/tools/emchart

Twitter API Explorer

If you’re using the Twitter API in the site you build, you’ll for sure enjoy this very handy website which allow you to search through the Twitter API. Even better, the website can generate ready-to-use code snippets. A real time gain for you and your clients!

Visit site: http://twitapi.com/explore

Browser Sandbox

Cross browser compatibility is definitely one of the biggest problems a web developer has to face in his daily job. The browser sandbox lets you run any Windows browser from the web. The only bad thing is that you must run a Windows machine: The app does not work on Macs and GNU/Linux.

Visit site: http://spoon.net/browsers

PHP Forms

Web forms are one of the most important part of a website, but creating them is also very time-consuming. So, what about using a website that can speed up your form development for free?
PHP forms allows you to create advanced forms that can fit the needs of most websites.

Visit site: http://www.phpform.org

.htaccess editor

A .htaccess file is a must have for any website. Don’t know how to write one? No problem, just visit this site to create your .htaccess file using a wizard. It doesn’t allow very advanced stuff, but the results are great for 95% of the websites you’ll make.

Visit site: http://www.htaccesseditor.com/en.shtml

Smush it!

Images may be worth a thousand words, they’re also well known to use a lot of bandwidth. Images can be optimized for the web using programs like Photoshop; but if you don’t own a copy of this software or simply don’t have a clue how to do it, smush.it is what you need.
Brought to you by Yahoo developers network, Smush.it is an online tool that will reduce your image size without reducing their quality. For WordPress users, a very handy plugin for your favorite blogging engine is available here.

Visit site: http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/smushit/

CSS Compressor

Especially on site with many different page layouts, CSS files can become huge and use a lot of server bandwidth. This tool, named CSS Compressor, can consequently reduce the size of any CSS file by removing comments, indentation and more.
Even better, compression level can be configured to fit your needs.

Visit site: http://www.csscompressor.com

Test everything

This site is a definitive must-have for your bookmarks: As the name says, Test everything allows you to test lot of things such as XHTML and CSS markup, PageRank, back-links, and a lot more.

Visit site: http://tester.jonasjohn.de

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

10 sites developers should have in their bookmarks

Top WordPress hacks of early 2010

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:27:39 +0000

Display an incrementing number on each post

I always loved how A List Apart numbers its posts. The following hack will let you do the same with your own blog, using a custom field.

Implementing this hack is quite simple. First, paste the following function into your functions.php file:

function updateNumbers() {
  global $wpdb;
  $querystr = "SELECT $wpdb->posts.* FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE $wpdb->posts.post_status = 'publish' AND $wpdb->posts.post_type = 'post' ";
$pageposts = $wpdb->get_results($querystr, OBJECT);
  $counts = 0 ;
  if ($pageposts):
    foreach ($pageposts as $post):
      setup_postdata($post);
      $counts++;
      add_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts, true);
      update_post_meta($post->ID, 'incr_number', $counts);
    endforeach;
  endif;
}  

add_action ( 'publish_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'deleted_post', 'updateNumbers' );
add_action ( 'edit_post', 'updateNumbers' );

Once done, you can display the post number with the following code. Note that it have to be used within the loop.

ID,'incr_number',true); ?>

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/how-to-display-an-incrementing-number-next-to-each-published-post

Allow your contributors to upload files

If you’re like me, you have guest contributing articles on your blog and you might be annoyed that the contributor role doesn’t allow file uploads. Most blog posts need images to stand out of the crowd so
this hack is extremely handy: Just paste it on your function.php file and your contributors will be allowed to upload files in the WordPress dashboard. How cool is that?

if ( current_user_can('contributor') && !current_user_can('upload_files') )
    add_action('admin_init', 'allow_contributor_uploads');

function allow_contributor_uploads() {
    $contributor = get_role('contributor');
    $contributor->add_cap('upload_files');
}

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-tip-allow-contributors-to-upload-files

Display “time ago” dates

Twitter has a very cool function which displays the elapsed time since a tweet has been published. What about doing the same with WordPress? Of course it’s possible!
This code just needs to be pasted in your functions.php file. Once you saved the file, posts that were published less than 24 hours ago will display “Published XX ago” instead of regular dates.

add_filter('the_time', 'timeago');

function timeago() {
    global $post;
    $date = $post->post_date;
    $time = get_post_time('G', true, $post);
    $time_diff = time() - $time;
    if ( $time_diff > 0 && $time_diff < 24*60*60 )
        $display = sprintf( __('%s ago'), human_time_diff( $time ) );
    else
        $display = date(get_option('date_format'), strtotime($date) );

    return $display;
}

By the way, if you’re on Twitter do not hesitate to follow me!
Source: http://aext.net/2010/04/display-timeago-for-wordpress-if-less-than-24-hours/

WordPress navigation outside the loop

WordPress provides some functions which allow you to link to the next and previous posts. However, those functions have to be used within the loop. Jeff Starr, who wrote the Digging into WordPress book, has the solution to this problem.
Simply paste the code below on your single.php file, where you’d like to link to the next and previous posts. Or even better, put the code in a php file and then include it in your theme file.

Source: http://digwp.com/2010/04/post-navigation-outside-loop/

Disallow theme switching

If you’re like me, you’ve created WordPress themes for your clients and already face a problem: The client “explored” the WordPress dashboard and “accidentally” switched the theme.
Using WordPress actions, we can easily remove the “themes” menu and consequently prevent the risk of having a client switching the theme. The code below just has to be pasted in your functions.php. The “themes” menu will be removed once the file is saved.

add_action('admin_init', 'remove_theme_menus');
function remove_theme_menus() {
	global $submenu;	

	unset($submenu['themes.php'][5]);
	unset($submenu['themes.php'][15]);
}

Source: http://soulsizzle.com/quick-tips/stopping-clients-from-switching-their-wordpress-theme/

Get rid of unused shortcodes in your posts

WordPress shortcodes are extremely useful, but they have a weak point: If you use a shortcode in your posts and then stop to use it for some reason, the shortcode code (Like [shortcode] for example) will stay in your posts.

To get rid of unused shortcodes, you just have to execute this line of SQL code. This can be done using PhpMyAdmin or the SQL command line interpreter. Don’t forget to replace [tweet] by the unused shortcode you’d like to delete from your posts.

UPDATE wp_post SET post_content = replace(post_content, '[tweet]', '' );

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-tip-get-rid-of-unused-shortcodes

Switch WordPress theme programmatically

Recently, I worked on an interesting project where I had to switch the blog theme automatically. As the current WordPress theme name is saved in the wp_options table of your WordPress database, we can easily change it.
The cleanest way to do it is definitely to use the update_option() function, as shown in the function below. Paste it in your functions.php file.

function updateTheme($theme){
    update_option('template', $theme);
    update_option('stylesheet', $theme);
    update_option('current_theme', $theme);
}

Once you’ve added the function to your functions.php file, you can call it wherever you need it:

Modify WordPress dashboard footer text

Another good tip for those who create WordPress themes for clients is to modify the WordPress dashboard footer text, and add (for example) a link to your support forum. The only thing you have to do is to copy this code and paste it in functions.php:

function remove_footer_admin () {
    echo "Your own text";
} 

add_filter('admin_footer_text', 'remove_footer_admin');

Source: http://www.wprecipes.com/wordpress-tip-how-to-change-the-dashboard-footer-text

Programmatically Creating Posts in WordPress

If for some reason you need to programmatically insert posts in WordPress database, you’ll be amazed to see how easy is it. The wp_insert_post() takes an array of data as a parameter, and then return the post ID.

global $user_ID;
$new_post = array(
'post_title' => 'My New Post',
'post_content' => 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...',
'post_status' => 'publish',
'post_date' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s'),
'post_author' => $user_ID,
'post_type' => 'post',
'post_category' => array(0)
);
$post_id = wp_insert_post($new_post);

Source: http://www.webmaster-source.com/2010/02/09/programmatically-creating-posts-in-wordpress

WordPress 3.0: Query custom post types

WordPress 3.0 should be released soon. And I don’t know about you, but personally, I can’t wait. Lots of exiting features are scheduled. One of them is particularly interesting in my opinion: the custom post types, which allow you to define a custom type for a post.
In order to be able to retrieve posts of a specific type from a WordPress database, you can use the following loop, which will get the albums post type:


have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

Source: http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/8-useful-code-snippets-to-get-started-with-wordpress-3-0

Please note that I’m currently accepting freelance work; so if you need any kind of WordPress help, I’ll be happy to help you. Simply send me an email and I’ll get back to you.

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

Top WordPress hacks of early 2010

Manipulating the DOM with jQuery: 10+ useful code snippets

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:58:16 +0000

Add a CSS class to a specific element

A very clean way to change an element look and feel is to add a css class, instead of adding inline styles. Using jQuery, this is pretty easy to do:

$('#myelement').addClass('myclass');

Removing a CSS class from a specific element

It’s great to be able to add some CSS classes, but we also need to know how to remove unwanted classes. The following line of code will do that:

$('#myelement').removeClass('myclass');

Check if a specific element has a CSS class

If your application or site is frequently adding and removing classes to a particular element, it can be very useful to be able to check out if an element has a certain CSS class.

$(id).hasClass(class)

Switch CSS using jQuery

As we saw with the previous examples, adding or removing css styles to an element is very simple using jQuery. But what if you want to completely remove the document css file and attach a new stylesheet? Good news, it is extremely simple as well, as shown in the following example:

$('link[media='screen']').attr('href', 'Alternative.css');

Source: http://addyosmani.com/blog/50-jquery-snippets-for-developers/

Append HTML to an element

When you need to append some html to an element, the append() method is a life saver:

$('#lal').append('sometext');

Check if an element exists

When working with Javascript, we often need to check if an element exists or not. Using jQuery and the length property, it is very simple to do: If length == 0, no elements are used on the page. Otherwise, some are used.

if ($('img').length) {
    log('We found img elements on the page using "img"');
} else {
    log('No img elements found');
}

Source: http://jqueryfordesigners.com/element-exists/

Get the parent element of an element

When working with the DOM, you may need to know which element is the direct parent of another element. The closest() method will let you know:

var id = $("button").closest("div").attr("id");

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/545978/finding-the-id-of-a-parent-div-using-jquery

Get element siblings

The siblings() method is a very handy tool to get siblings of an element. As shown below, using this method is extremely simple:

$("div").siblings()

Remove an option from a select list

When working with select lists, you may want to update the content according to the user actions. To remove an option from a select list, the following code will do the trick:

$("#selectList option[value='2']").remove();

Source: http://calisza.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/6-jquery-snippets-you-can-use-to-manipulate-select-inputs/

Get the selected option as text

Extremely useful when you need to quickly check out what a visitor selected from your select list.

$('#selectList :selected').text();

Apply a “zebra” effect on tables

When using tables, it is a good idea, for better readability, to give a different style to one line out of two. Using jQuery, this can be done easily, without any additional html markup.

$("tr:odd").addClass("odd");

Source: http://web.enavu.com/tutorials/top-10-jquery-snippets-including-jquery-1-4/

Count children of an element

If you’d like to count how many div elements are children of #foo, the following line will let you know. Simple and efficient!

$("#foo > div").length

Source: http://tympanus.net/codrops/2010/01/05/some-useful-javascript-jquery-snippets/

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

Manipulating the DOM with jQuery: 10+ useful code snippets

8 useful code snippets to get started with WordPress 3.0

Jean-Baptiste Jung — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 07:14:38 +0000

How to create a custom post type

Custom post type are an incredible step forward for WordPress, because it will allow developers to create post types according to their needs.
For now, we have posts, and pages. With WordPress 3.0, we’ll be able to create a new post type called products, where a client can sell his products only, while regular post for his blog.

Creating a custom post type is easy: All you have to do is to open your theme functions.php file and paste the following:

$args = array(
        'label' => __('Products'),
        'singular_label' => __('Product'),
        'public' => true,
        'show_ui' => true,
        'capability_type' => 'page',
        'hierarchical' => false,
        'rewrite' => true,
        'query_var' => 'products',
        'supports' => array('title', 'thumbnail')
);
register_post_type( 'product' , $args );

Once you saved the file, login to your WordPress dashboard and have a look at the navigation on the left: A new post type, named Products, has been added.
Source: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_post_type

Custom post types with custom taxonomies

In the previous example, I’ve shown you how to create a custom post type, which is pretty useful to use WordPress as a real CMS and not a simple blog publishing platform.

Now, let’s see something a little bit more complex, but extremely interesting: Creating a custom post type associated with custom taxonomies. For those who don’t know, a taxonomy is a term (such as category, tag or anything else) related to posts. For more information about taxonomies, you should have a look at WordPress Codex.

In this example, we’ll create a custom post type named Albums, which belong to “Genres” (the custom categories) and have “Performer” as tags. This snippet has to be pasted in your functions.php file. With those 27 lines of codes, you can create a fully functional music albums archive. Ain’t that powerful?

function post_type_albums() {
	register_post_type(
                     'albums',
                     array('label' => __('Albums'),
                             'public' => true,
                             'show_ui' => true,
                             'supports' => array(
                                        'post-thumbnails',
                                        'excerpts',
                                        'trackbacks',
                                        'comments')
                                )
                      );
// Adding the Custom Taxonomy for Genres. Here we can create categories specific for this post type.
	register_taxonomy( 'genres', 'albums', array( 'hierarchical' => true, 'label' => __('Genres') ) );

// Adding the Custom Taxonomy for Performer. Here we can add tags specific for this post type.
        register_taxonomy( 'performer', 'albums',
		array(
                         'hierarchical' => false,
			 'label' => __('Performer'),
			 'query_var' => 'performer',
			 'rewrite' => array('slug' => 'performer' )
		)
	);
}
add_action('init', 'post_type_albums');

Source: http://wpspecial.net/2010/03/how-to-add-custom-post-types-in-wordpress/

Query custom post types

Now that you’ve learned how to create custom post types, the next step is to learn how to retrieve them from the WordPress database and display it on your blog.

Good news for developers, there’s nothing hard or new in the process. Custom post types can be retrieved easily, using the WP_Query object.
The following example will create a custom loop which will get only the albums custom post type.



have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

Enable multisite feature

One of the most exiting new feature of WordPress 3.0 is definitely multisite management. In brief, with a single installation of WordPress you’ll be able to run a network of WordPress blog. How cool is that?

To take advantage of this feature, simply paste the following line of code in your wp-config.php file. This file is located at the root of your WordPress install.

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

As andrea_r pointed out, once you added the code above, you have to visit Tools -> Network and set up the network.
Source: http://wptheming.com/2010/03/wordpress-3-0-enable-network/

Custom author profiles

Most of the top blogs of the industry do not have a single author but a team of different contributors. WordPress allows you to create author pages, but WordPress 3.0 is introducing a new function which will allow you to use different templates for different authors, like we can currently do with categories.

All you have to do is to create an author page named author-XX.php where XX is either the author ID or nicename. For example, if your user nicename is “john”, you’ll have to call the file author-john.php.

Source: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_author_template

Add custom backgrounds

WordPress 3.0 is introducing a new feature that will for sure be loved by non tech-friendly users: Custom background. The feature allows the user to upload a background in his WordPress dashboard, specify its position, and automatically have it added to his blog.

Of course, the theme used by the blogger has to support this feature, otherwise the uploaded background will not be visible. To do so, simply open your functions.php file and paste the following line:

add_custom_background();

Style WordPress editor using CSS

WordPress features a WYSIWYG editor, which allow you to see text in bold, italic, and so on. But some people want more, such as being able to visualize their blog post in the blog font and colors.

This new feature allows you to create a css file (named editor-style.css in the example below) and link it to the editor for a better WYSIWYG rendering. Simply paste this code snippet to your functions.php file.

add_filter('mce_css', 'my_editor_style');
function my_editor_style($url) {
  if ( !empty($url) )
    $url .= ',';
  // Change the path here if using sub-directory
  $url .= trailingslashit( get_stylesheet_directory_uri() ) . 'editor-style.css';

  return $url;
}

Source: http://azaozz.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/can-themes-style-the-visual-editor/

Make your theme compatible with WordPress 3.0 menus

WordPress 3.0 is going to feature a totally new menu system, which will allow users to add only the desired pages, add categories, and more. Good news for theme developers; adding WP 3.0 menu support to your themes is extremely easy.

To do so, open functions.php and add the following line:

add_theme_support( 'nav-menus' );

Once added, you can use the brand new wp_nav_menu() function in your theme files:

wp_nav_menu('sort_column=menu_order&container_class=navigation');

As you can see, it accepts the same kind of parameters than the good ol’ wp_list_categories() function.
Source: http://wpspecial.net/2010/04/menu-support-for-wordpress-3-0-themes/

Like CatsWhoCode? If yes, don't hesitate to check my other blog CatsWhoBlog: It's all about blogging!

8 useful code snippets to get started with WordPress 3.0