I mentioned before that I am not a fan of the MyBlogLog reader community widget. As you can see, although my community continues to grow, I still haven’t taken a shining to using the widget. The reason for this is simple, people don’t actually have to read your blog to get their profile linked. I’ve even auto-joined communities just by passing over the same link more than once without even being aware of it. This means that my picture, and therefore my profile and therefore my website, has been linked on websites I’ve never so much as skimmed. Is that fair? No, not really. But if the website’s owner wants to give it away like that, who am I to stop him?
I am still a fan and avid user of MyBlogLog and chose to implement the community on my website in a different manner. MyAvatars is a plugin that displays the commenter’s Gravatar or their MBL avatar next to their comment. I found this was more of an everybody wins approach to using display pictures because they still get their profile linked and I, in return, get a comment.
After all, wasn’t that the original intention of having a blog as opposed to just a collection of articles? Getting comments? Many of us choose to reward our commenters with a top commentators list (much like the one I have). Well would it make sense if all somebody had to do was load my page to get onto the top comments list? Ofcoarse it wouldn’t. So, to me, it just makes good sense for someone to have to comment in order to get their picture on this website.
Are you looking for a way to integrate your outer site with Worpress? Getting the theme to match your other pages is hard enough, integrating with Wordpress permalinks is a whole other battle. By default, Wordpress does not allow you to publish any php code in the custom page editor. There are a few simple ways around this. Theres the easy way, and the way that I used to think was pretty easy.
In the beginning I would actually get down and code my own pages to include the Wordpress theme tags. I would then upload the file into my main directory and manually code the link to the page into the navigation. Then I later realized that Wordpress has a feature to do this in a much simpler manner, and your new page will fit the permalinks. So lets open up our favorite text editor and get going.
Define the Template
To get things rolling, define your page as a template. To do this, use the format below using whatever template name you want
< ? php /*
Template Name: Most Popular
*/
?>
Then add the wordpress template tags to include your theme. < ? php /*
Template Name: Most Popular
*/
?>
< ? php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”content”></div>
< ? php get_footer(); ?>
Code, code, code away
From here it is all about your creativity. You can code anything you want in here. Php and template tags are also available to you now. In the case of one of the pages I’ve made so far, I just used the template tags for the Popularity Contest plugin. You can use any code you want, this doesn’t just go for plugins. Have fun with it.
<ul><?php akpc_most_popular(); ?></ul>These tags went within the main div. Don’t forget, the main div id is usually called “Content”. Be sure to check before you publish this page.
Time to integrate
Once you’ve got your custom page coded up, its’ time to put the template to work. Save the file you’ve been coding. In my case its saved as ‘Most-Popular.php’ and upload it to the directory of your theme. www.example.com/wp-content/themes/mytheme/
Go into WP’s admin area. Create a new page. Write the post title and stop.
Now you go to the sidebar of the ‘write page’ screen and find the menu called ‘Page Template’.
Select your new template and publish the page. Now its’ time to check out your new page. It will be integrated into your navigation automatically.
There you have it. You’ve made yourself a wordpress template.
Choosing a tattoo is a serious decision. It is going to be there for life. Do you really want to choose it in the store on a spur of the moment decision? Tattoo parlors can be really fun places to hang out, but you might feel pressured to be quick about your choice to accommodate the artist who is waiting on you. Wouldn’t you rather have made up your mind before you go in? More…
In light of the lack of any badges of graphics made available to us loyal MBL users, I popped open Google Image Search and typed in MyBlogLog. The first thing that caught my eye was a little familiar in a weird way.
It was a shiny, sleek little MyBlogLog ‘Join My Community’ badge. It was exactly what I was looking for, but I couldn’t figure out why it seemed so familiar.
When I clicked the graphic it took me to a place that I knew I had been before. I was on Nate Whitehill’s blog. Surprise. It seems he is the only one who was clever enough to do up some free MyBlogLog badges so far.
Nate’s only terms are that you join his community and write a post to let your users know where you got the graphic. That seems fair to me. But it got me in the mood to zap up my own little graphic for my MBL reader community. I wanted one that fit to my theme a little better.
My result was not unlike Nate’s but it was something I could call my own. Since there is nothing like this available through MyBlogLog, I feel inclined to allow my readers to use my graphic as well if they wish.
I don’t need every single person who uses my MyBlogLog graphic to link back to me, but joining my community would be nice. If my graphic doesn’t suit your needs, do up your own or ask Nate to get you a custom sized version of his graphic.
Update: 10/22/07 - I have added a new badge as you may have noticed.
Loading...
I mentioned before that I am not a fan of the MyBlogLog reader community widget. As you can see, although my community continues to grow, I still haven’t taken a shining to using the widget. The reason for this is simple, people don’t actually have to read your blog to get their profile linked. I’ve even auto-joined communities just by passing over the same link more than once without even being aware of it. This means that my picture, and therefore my profile and therefore my website, has been linked on websites I’ve never so much as skimmed. Is that fair? No, not really. But if the website’s owner wants to give it away like that, who am I to stop him?
I am still a fan and avid user of MyBlogLog and chose to implement the community on my website in a different manner. MyAvatars is a plugin that displays the commenter’s Gravatar or their MBL avatar next to their comment. I found this was more of an everybody wins approach to using display pictures because they still get their profile linked and I, in return, get a comment.
After all, wasn’t that the original intention of having a blog as opposed to just a collection of articles? Getting comments? Many of us choose to reward our commenters with a top commentators list (much like the one I have). Well would it make sense if all somebody had to do was load my page to get onto the top comments list? Ofcoarse it wouldn’t. So, to me, it just makes good sense for someone to have to comment in order to get their picture on this website.
Are you looking for a way to integrate your outer site with Worpress? Getting the theme to match your other pages is hard enough, integrating with Wordpress permalinks is a whole other battle. By default, Wordpress does not allow you to publish any php code in the custom page editor. There are a few simple ways around this. Theres the easy way, and the way that I used to think was pretty easy.
In the beginning I would actually get down and code my own pages to include the Wordpress theme tags. I would then upload the file into my main directory and manually code the link to the page into the navigation. Then I later realized that Wordpress has a feature to do this in a much simpler manner, and your new page will fit the permalinks. So lets open up our favorite text editor and get going.
Define the Template
To get things rolling, define your page as a template. To do this, use the format below using whatever template name you want
< ? php /*Template Name: Most Popular
*/
?>
Then add the wordpress template tags to include your theme.
< ? php /*Template Name: Most Popular
*/
?>
< ? php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”content”></div>
< ? php get_footer(); ?>
Code, code, code away
From here it is all about your creativity. You can code anything you want in here. Php and template tags are also available to you now. In the case of one of the pages I’ve made so far, I just used the template tags for the Popularity Contest plugin. You can use any code you want, this doesn’t just go for plugins. Have fun with it.
<ul><?php akpc_most_popular(); ?></ul>These tags went within the main div. Don’t forget, the main div id is usually called “Content”. Be sure to check before you publish this page.
Time to integrate
Once you’ve got your custom page coded up, its’ time to put the template to work. Save the file you’ve been coding. In my case its saved as ‘Most-Popular.php’ and upload it to the directory of your theme. www.example.com/wp-content/themes/mytheme/
Go into WP’s admin area. Create a new page. Write the post title and stop.
Now you go to the sidebar of the ‘write page’ screen and find the menu called ‘Page Template’.
Select your new template and publish the page. Now its’ time to check out your new page. It will be integrated into your navigation automatically.
There you have it. You’ve made yourself a wordpress template.
Choosing a tattoo is a serious decision. It is going to be there for life. Do you really want to choose it in the store on a spur of the moment decision? Tattoo parlors can be really fun places to hang out, but you might feel pressured to be quick about your choice to accommodate the artist who is waiting on you. Wouldn’t you rather have made up your mind before you go in? More…
In light of the lack of any badges of graphics made available to us loyal MBL users, I popped open Google Image Search and typed in MyBlogLog. The first thing that caught my eye was a little familiar in a weird way.
It was a shiny, sleek little MyBlogLog ‘Join My Community’ badge. It was exactly what I was looking for, but I couldn’t figure out why it seemed so familiar.
When I clicked the graphic it took me to a place that I knew I had been before. I was on Nate Whitehill’s blog. Surprise. It seems he is the only one who was clever enough to do up some free MyBlogLog badges so far.
Nate’s only terms are that you join his community and write a post to let your users know where you got the graphic. That seems fair to me. But it got me in the mood to zap up my own little graphic for my MBL reader community. I wanted one that fit to my theme a little better.
I don’t need every single person who uses my MyBlogLog graphic to link back to me, but joining my community would be nice. If my graphic doesn’t suit your needs, do up your own or ask Nate to get you a custom sized version of his graphic.
Update: 10/22/07 - I have added a new badge as you may have noticed.