Category: BrandonMoeller.com

Editing core WordPress files to Quick Edit post formats again

This article will explain how I edited some files in WordPress to allow for the ability to change post formats while using the Quick Edit feature.

This technique will allow admins and editors to quickly change a post’s format without having to click through to the edit post page, saving a lot of time and frustration for those interested in going back through their archives and assigning post formats to hundreds of previous posts, like I did.

Since this technique requires editing core WordPress files that are part of the open source software one must install on their server, it is likely that this technique will need to be repeated when the next updated version of WordPress is released.

What we want:

post-format-quick-edit
Highlighted is the post format edit dropdown menu in the Quick Post options on the “All Posts” screen. This change now allows me to edit post formats of posts without visiting the post edit page for each post.

Why we want it:

The frustrating aspect of all of this is that this previously was the functionality of the Quick Edit feature – but it was removed in WordPress 3.6 as a result of this ticket.

At the bottom of the ticket, one lone voice of dissent can still be heard.

I think this was a mistake.
Better to improve and to add something than just remove…
In the Quick Edit box we could add some inputs appearing and disappearing like the edit post page…

—Alexandru Vornicescu (alexvorn2)

But Alexandru not only said something. He also did something: he opened a WordPress ticket of his own. And then, the WordPress open source community started hacking away at a solution, to be included in an upcoming release. But I couldn’t wait.

So I examined what the previous version included that allowed for the functionality and added it back into these files:

wp-admin/includes/class-wp-posts-list-table.php
wp-admin/includes/post.php

It worked like a charm and I am now able to revise WordPress post formats from the quick edit options again.

Update: Oct. 12, 2013

It looks like Helen Hou-Sandi has come to the rescue, and though she doesn’t agree this functionality should be added back into the Quick Post options, she said she “would be okay with restoring in bulk-edit,” which now that I think about it, makes a lot more sense and I can’t wait until the next version of WordPress is released so I can ditch my changes and continue using an unaltered core of WordPress.

Three weeks ago, Helen fixed it and closed the ticket, and to date is among 404 closed tickets for the upcoming WordPress 3.7 milestone.

Of course, if you disagree and want to find a way to add post formats back to the Quick Edit post, follow the links above and edit your WordPress core files. At your own risk.

Twenty Thirteen test drive

A screenshot taken today of my blog after activating the Twenty Thirteen default theme for WordPress 3.6.
A screenshot taken today of my blog after activating the Twenty Thirteen default theme for WordPress 3.6. This photo is set to “alignment left.”

I’ve activated the new Twenty Thirteen theme that was released with the WordPress 3.6 launch back on Aug. 1.

Things look a little different here, and for the most part I like it.

I will be modifying it by creating a child theme very soon, but for now, I thought it would be nice to use the stock Twenty Thirteen theme and kick the tires a bit. Today, WordPress released 3.6.1, which I promptly upgraded to, and they are scheduled to release WordPress 3.7 in October (we’ll see – 3.6 was four months late by my watch).

First observation of interest: Photos when they are aligned left. They jut out into the margin. I’m not convinced, at first glance, that I like this. The photo displayed above is an example of this.

When not aligned left, here’s what a photo does:

Here is a screenshot of the homepage in the previous theme, Twenty Twelve. This photo is set to "alignment none."
Here is a screenshot of the homepage in the previous theme, Twenty Twelve. This photo is set to “alignment none.”

I added a thin black border to each of the screen shots above to better demonstrate the alignment style.

The really interesting thing about this new theme that I can’t wait to test out and modify via a child theme is its different styles for the ten post formats that are now a prominent part of WordPress 3.6.

These ten post formats are:

I have changed a few of my recent posts’ post formats to these types to see what happens.

Update: The Next Day

Heh. Back in April, I commented on the Twenty Thirteen designer Joen Asmussen’s blog post about the theme. It should be noted that Mr. Asmussen, like me, was also born in November of 1979.  I forgot about making that comment on his blog until doing some research on the theme, thinking about how I want to make a child theme of it.

Then I saw his blue child theme for Twenty Thirteen, downloaded it, and activated it. You know, to see what happens.

My blog, in the Twenty Thirteen Blue theme, by Joen Asmussen
My blog, in the Twenty Thirteen Blue theme, by Joen Asmussen

Getting WordPress for Android to work with 1and1

I’ve been stumped the last few days, trying to figure out why I was unable to update my self-hosted WordPress blog hosted on a medium-tier shared hosting space at 1and1 … it was just not working with the Android app.

It used to work. Back when I had a smartphone, I used the Android app a few times to post to WordPress … but it’s been awhile since I wanted to do it and now that I have the new Nexus 7.2 tablet, I thought I’d give the always-improving Android WordPress app another shot. But I’ve read that with WordPress 3.5, there was a change in the xml-rpc mechanism that WordPress uses (for instance, admins can no longer toggle it on or off from the control panel) and now that WordPress version 3.6 is out, who knows – but, the point is, it no longer worked for me.

After trying everything else it seemed — messing with the .htaccess and php.ini files, re-installing WordPress, reinstalling the Android app, etc etc — finally, I tried something that worked.

I renamed my xmlrpc.php file and uploaded this plugin, modified it, then activated it.

Rename XMLRPC (Jorge, daniloercoli and Automattic) y’all are my hero. According to the official WordPress Android app’s help page, excerpted below, this is likely my host’s fault.

My Host Blocks XML-RPC Access! How do I fix that?

Needing someone or something to blame when things go wrong, I’m blaming you, 1and1 – and it’s just about the final straw and I know I’ve said that before. But this, on top of another problem I’ve been experiencing on this WordPress installation that prevents me from uploading an image bigger than 1MB (yes, I know! What year is it?) makes me wonder if maybe it’s just not time to start over, somewhere else.

Pack up the database, migrate it all over and move the domain registrar and everything. I’ve been with 1and1 for almost ten years now, but maybe it’s time to move on up and leave the Wal-Mart of webhosts.

I remember the last time I had to rebuild my WordPress database, when I created this MultiSite version. I’m pretty sure it took all weekend, but that was years ago and I didn’t know then what I know now. Knowing more now means it will likely take twice as long.

Anyway, I wanted to put this out there in case anyone else with 1and1 is suddenly finding they have trouble publishing to their blog via the great apps that now exist to make the WordPress platform better than ever.

Post Twenty Twelve

I’ve been hacking on the new Twenty Twelve default theme for WordPress since before it was released.

The great thing about WordPress is that as soon as the open source community begins working together to tackle a problem – they begin releasing the code publicly for beta review and to allow people to begin testing or forking it. I started looking at it in June because I was intriqued by its new simplistic approach to a responsive menu.

On Sept. 27, 2012 – the new Twenty Twelve theme was officially released. As soon as it was, I knew I would want to base my BrandonMoeller.com redesign on it, as I previously did with the Twenty Eleven theme.

Here’s some screenshots of my website with the Twenty Twelve child theme I designed:

ikea-post
The standard post page
The photos page.
The photos page.
The contact page.
The contact page.

Here are some details about the new Twenty Twelve child theme.

Fonts

I’m still using the Franklin Gothic FS family of fonts that I bought from FontSpring.com two and a half years ago.

Franklin Gothic FS Medium Condensed continues to be the web font for the Site Title “Brandon Moeller” up top in the header, while I’ve chosen the Google Web Font Oswald. Right now, I’m using it for my post titles.

Here’s an article that explains the method I used to alter my functions.php file in the child theme to add Google Fonts to my website.

The new Hire page

I completely re-thought the Hire Me section of the website.

I renamed the page “Portfolio.”

I moved it to its own WordPress site within my Multi-Site installation.

It stayed at the same URL: https://brandonmoeller.com/hire/

It mirrors the look of BrandonMoeller.com except it has a unique menu and the title of the WordPress website is “Brandon” (not “Brandon Moeller”). It shares the same theme — but with one difference.

In the BrandonMoeller.com website, I have to edit the CSS via JetPack (thanks, version 1.7 ) to hide the .site-title-secondary class I created to display “Moeller” on the Hire site. (( .site-title-secondary { display: none; } ))

The Hire site’s portfolio page is a new design that incorporated the Toggle function of the Jquery library as well as shortcodes and styles I added to the child theme and the visual editor via
TinyMCE.

All that being said …

I won’t go into what I did to customize my child theme to personalize Twenty Twelve in this post. Honestly, I never found the time to finish and I’m looking forward to WordPress 3.6 and the new Twenty Thirteen theme which is expected to improve the post format UI.

Even though I am releasing this child theme to download; I’m not completely satisfied. It does look nice the way it is now and I won’t be making any more changes to it.

I think I’m looking forward to the new version of WordPress, expected in April, which will contain the new Twenty Thirteen theme.

Life is keeping me pretty busy right now. Which is a very good thing.

The new commenting system

On Friday, in a whirl-wind week of WordPress updates and announcements, a new commenting system was released as part of the WordPress.com Jetpack plugin update.

The new commenting system, which I have enabled on this site, continues to allow users of this website to leave a comment by simply adding their name, their e-mail address (which stays confidential) and an optional web address to a simple form at the bottom of the page.

As it always has been, if you have a Gravatar and sign in to leave a comment this way, the photo you uploaded to Gravatar will display.

For example, see this comment here: https://brandonmoeller.com/blog/2012/06/09/recent-pickings/#comment-885

The new commenting system also allows you to comment on the posts by signing in with your Facebook, Twitter or WordPress.com accounts. If you’re like me, you’re likely already signed into one of these accounts, so clicking the icons for the service you wish to sign in as is somewhat seamless, once you agree to install the new wordpress.com facebook app on your profile.

As of this writing, two of my friends apparently have already done this for other wordpress.com sites.

Lemme know what you think about the new commenting system below in, you guessed it, the comments section. Especially if you can’t tell much of a difference.

Facebook + WordPress

Facebook has announced the launch of a new WordPress plugin that it has developed to integrate its most-popular social network with the most-used, self-hosted publishing platform.

This sounds really cool. For years, we’ve relied on workarounds coded by the community.

It’s good to hear that the Facebook developers have finally stepped up and done it themselves. More stability, I hope! And with luck, this plugin will progress as Facebook does.

This solution will likely replace a few others that I currently use, including some of the functionality of Otto42’s Simple Facebook Connect plugin. However, Otto’s work is still vital to this website – as I likely will keep the integration of his Connect to Facebook feature to allow visitors to comment here using their Facebook profile.

One annoyance observed right-off-the-bat: When you save a draft; your “Facebook status on your timeline” and “Mention Facebook friends” data is lost. Luckily, Firefox remembers my form data.

UPDATE: 3:45 p.m. – The Simple Facebook Connect plugin conflicts with the new Facebook plugin. Duh. Deactivating it ended a three-hour-long headache of trying to get the new plugin’s “Facebook Social Publisher” and “Facebook Author Message” function to work. Which is very cool, by the way.

UPDATE: 11:37 p.m. – I found this post where Simple Facebook Connect plugin author Otto42 reports that he’ll likely eventually drop support for his awesome and years-ahead-of-its-time plugin, in favor of supporting the official Facebook plugin. Otto42 is a frequent contributor to WordPress and I’m interested to see what this new plugin will do in terms of freeing up his time to focus on other matters.