When I first started looking for an Open Source CMS solution, I looked at Joomla, WordPress and some other systems. I quickly settled on WordPress for the following reasons:

• The content management scheme made sense to me. Pages, posts, categories. Posts could go in more than one category. It was clean and elegant.
• Community. Almost any questions I had, there was an answer somewhere out there. If I had a need, I could almost always find a plugin to fill it.
• The Codex. I think I can say that The Codex was my WordPress teacher. It’s such an awesome, community-driven resource.
• Comment moderation. Simple and useful.
• Easily upload media, even then.
• RSS feeds galore. For almost anything you can think of: site wide, categories, tags, all comments, per-post comments, authors, search results,
• Template tags. Genius. Even non-developers can wrap their heads around these commands.
• SEO. Out of the box WordPress is pretty good. With classic plugins like Google Sitemap XML and All in One SEO, you can do a pretty good job of optimizing a site for the search engines.
• The future. Every new version of WordPress added useful features. Some of the best were the addition of tags, one-click upgrade of plugins and core, installation of plugins and themes from the admin (bye-bye FTP!), better comment management in the admin with Reply to, Widgets (at first I didn’t like them!).

It seems timely that yesterday I was part of a panel comparing the three leading Open Source content management systems: Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. In my presentation, I emphasized the elegance of WordPress, and explained how the content management works. The tweets during my presentation indicated that people were pretty excited about what WordPress has to offer. Here are some examples:

Here’s the presentation. Click on Menu > View Fullscreen on the player to view in full screen. All images and underlined text are live links. I’d love to hear your feedback!

Widgets

Widgets are only helpful up to a certain point since there isn’t a great plugin  for a WYSIWYG visual editor that I’m aware of. The Rich Text Widget and WYSIWYG Text Widget are buggy and aren’t compatible with 2.9.2.  Rich Widget is ok but requires too many clicks and is not so user friendly.

Custom Fields

Custom fields are only helpful up to a certain point – since once again there is no visual editor. Coding in your own add_meta_box to the functions.php to add customized,  user-friendly custom fields takes a fair amount of time and quite a bit of PHP know-how. Also, explaining to clients the concept of custom fields is not a super joy.

So, what is the solution for expanding WordPress CMS functionality?

Content Blocks

I investigated a few CMS content block plugins, and here’s what I have to say:

1. Page.ly MultiEdit Excited to try out a new plugin that would help with editable content, I installed the MultiEdit plugin with instructions here. MultEdit lets you flip between tabs to edit multiple areas of content! So exciting, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the content in each tab to save properly. It only saved the content in the last tab called “Right”. Sigh.

2. Multiple Content Blocks This plugin is insanely easy to use. All you have to do is add one snippet of code <?php the_block (‘newarea’); ?> to a page template and voila! you have another WYSIWYG text editor in the admin area. Whatever you enter into this new content area will show up on the page where the snippet is. Amazing. BUT, I couldn’t figure out how to use this code in the sidebar since the sidebar isn’t a page. Sad.

3. Page blocks I followed the instructions for how to use the plugin like a good girl, but I still couldn’t get it to work the way I wanted with additional editors in the editing page area.

4. Custom field template Bring out the champagne peoples! We have a winner! This plugin is the daddy of all custom field plugins. It lets you add whatever customization you want to the custom field and then add code into your template as if it were a regular custom field.

Here’s how to use it.

1. Install and activate the plugin. Obviously.
2. Go to the new tab in the admin area called Custom Field Template.
3. Modify the example they have. Here’s the one that I created:[ContentAreaName]
   type = textarea
   rows = 4
   cols = 40
   tinyMCE = true
   htmlEditor = true
   mediaButton = true
   This means that the custom field I created has a WYSIWYG TinyMCE text editor, an HTML view, and a media button so that the client can upload an image. There are tons more options explained in the settings page.
4. Add this code to wherever you want in your template files:

<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, “ContentAreaName”, true)) { ?>
<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, “ContentAreaName”, $single = true); ?>
<?php } ?>

or if you want to add it as a shortcode, use [ContentAreaName]

That’s all for now. If you have another content block CMS tip, please share!

Today, WordPress Garage turns one year old. Hasn’t our little baby grown up fast? Blow out the candles…

It is exactly one year ago today that I wrote my first post here. It was about Jerome’s Keywords Plugin, which was a popular plugin for creating tags in WordPress before they became a built-in feature.

The reason I started this blog is because at that time, I was building web sites for clients, but felt that I could not justify creating static sites anymore. I was searching desperately for a solution that would enable me to create sites with a content management system that wouldn’t break the bank, and that I could manipulate and customize without being a programming wizard.

I looked into many open source options, and found that WordPress was easiest to use from the designer/developer’s point-of-view, and from the user’s point-of-view. So my company started building sites on WordPress. As we built, we learned a lot and I felt like we really need a good way to organize the information we were gathering about good plugins and how to use them, themes, and code hacks.

And thus WordPress Garage was born. Between WordPress’ categories, tags, and the search function, I figured we’d always be able to locate the information we need within minutes.

Apparently, others also were looking for this information, and readership grew as well, which is good because it’s a lot more fun to write when you know people are listening.

Birthday presents

In honor of WordPress Garage’s birthday, I have two new presents:

1. A WordPress Garage facebook page! If you like this blog, please come on over to this page and become a fan. I’d really like to get to know my readers a bit more.
2. The WordPress Garage YahooGroup – I’m on the WordPress Pro mailing list, which is about the most dry and boring list on earth. I suggested that the list become more active, and while people said it wasn’t appropriate for that list, they liked the idea. So, this email list’s goal is to be a place where people can help other people with their WordPress issues. Looking for that perfect plugin? Can’t figure out why your blog is breaking? Join the list and ask!

Statistics and summary

It’s fun to compare my first month on WPG to this last month. Site visits have gone up 1,424%, and pageviews have gone up 841%. Now I get almost 8000 visitors a month according to Google Analytics, and over 14,000 page views. Most of my visitors come from Google Search, with the rest coming from StumbleUpon and other sites. My top referring sites in order of traffic are:

• Darren Hoyt
• Hack WordPress
• Emma Alvarez
• Ryan Hellyer
• Weblog Tools Collection

Most popular posts

The most popular posts on WPG at the moment are:

• Giving each WordPress post a thumbnail, and display the thumbnail on the home page
• 13 plugins that will make WordPress into a CMS
• WordPress plugin easily creates drop-down navigation
• Images, thumbnails and custom fields in WordPress

Best WP Garage tips

These posts aren’t necessarily the most visited, but the tips in them are pretty useful:

• List only child Pages of a specific parent Page – how to list all the child Pages of the current page in the sidebar
• Displaying single post pages differently in specific categories – how to give single posts a different style based on which category they are in
• The Excerpt Reloaded – how to retain HTML in WordPress excerpts without messing up your page.
• Things I do to optimize and secure every WordPress site and blog – this post listed almost every plugin, optimization and hack that I do to every new WordPress blog. It’s a little outdated by now, but it still is helpful.
• Make managing your WordPress dashboard easier with Admin Drop Down Menus plugin – Admin Drop Down Menus is one of my favorite plugins
• WordPress upgrade nightmare and lessons learned – I almost lost this entire site due to something stupid that I did. Learn from my mistakes and make sure your upgrade doesn’t crash and burn
• Giving each comment its own link in WordPress – This shows you how to make each comment into its own kind of mini-post, which is useful if you ever want to link to specific comments
• Recent Comments code snippet – this code snippet places recent comments in your sidebar for those who don’t want to use widgets.
• WordPress challenge: getting class current_page_item to work when home page is not blog – if your home page is a static page and not your blog, WordPress’ current_page_item class doesn’t work on the blog page so the link to your blog on your navigation bar won’t get highlighted if you are on the blog page. Check out the comments on this post to see the various solutions offered by people.
• How to protect your WordPress site – some good tips for a more secure WordPress site

Most controversial posts

A little bit of controversy adds color to an otherwise boring monologue about loops and plugins. I don’t like to create conflict, but getting people to participate in an active discussion is just fun.

Consumer evangelists vs. lawyers: using “WordPress” in domain names – this is the post where Matt Mullenwegg commented three times. In this post, I argued that WordPress shouldn’t shun blogs (like mine) that use the word WordPress in their domain name, and should rather embrace these consumer “evangelists” who love the product so much that they volunteer their own time to talk or blog about it. After I wrote this post I finished Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin, and he also talks about this idea.

Anyways, Matt and Lorelle didn’t like my opinion, and accused me, or those like me, of “blatant[ly] disregard[ing]…a core tenet of our community,” of being like a scraper, and of legal violations. In the end Matt kind of softened up and he said he’s “thrilled about [me] or anyone who blogs about WordPress.” He said if I want clarification about their policies I should feel free to email or call him. So, mustering up some good ol’ Israeli chutzpah, I called him and left him a message. Despite his generosity, I think this blog is still shunned by the WordPress powers-that-be. Oh well.

Would we use WordPress if there were no plugins? – I just threw out this question to make us think about how valuable WordPress would be on its own. I think it’s value lies in the fact that it supports plugins.

ZDNet says WordPress not clunky, but also not CMS – I referred to an article by ZDNet about whether WordPress is a CMS and sparked a lively discussion.

WordPressGarage is being scraped! I want to stop them…now! – I realized that one particular site was scraping all of my content and republishing it. I threw the issue out to my readers, and got some interesting responses in the comments.

Is WordPress’ security vulnerable at its core? – WordPress is being upgraded all the time because of security issues. Plugins also have constant security vulnerabilities. Is this standard, or is there a problem with WordPress? BlogSecurity.net said there’s a problem with WordPress. Read the post to find out more.

Milestones

• Someone told me that I’m one of the coolest people in the WordPress community! Can you believe it? (No, it wasn’t my mother.) While in the real world I am far from being considered cool (mother with lots of kids who works hard to pay the bills with little time for play), I guess that in the WP community my geekiness is…cool…or something.
• WordPressGarage listed as one of Top 40 Blogs About WordPress!
• I’m sure there was something else I got excited about over this past year, but I can’t remember.

So happy birthday WordPress Garage, and may we enjoy another fun year of WordPress blogging together!

Recently I posted about why I think WordPress is a CMS. This led to a pretty interesting discussion in the comments on the topic, but it was unresolved.

Here’s some more fuel for the fire: I just came across Josh Byers’ blog, thanks to his amazing Custom Admin Branding Plugin. He has a post there that lists the plugins he uses to transform WordPress into a full-fledged content management system (CMS). Aside from the fact that it’s good to know about the plugins he mentions, it’s interesting to note that by adding a few plugins, Josh feels that his WordPress sites can be considered CMSs, as opposed to just blogs.

Here are some of the plugins that he says he uses to make WordPress into a CMS. Visit his blog to see the rest of them, and read his concise descriptions of each one, and why he uses them:

• Custom Admin Branding Plugin - this plugin is his creation
• Clutter Free
• Custom Admin Menu
• Custom Write Panel
• Dashboard Editor
• Post Template
• Search Everything

Here are a few more tweaks and plugins that I think help make WordPress into a great CMS:

• The WordPress static home page option – obviously. The fact that the home page of your blog can be a static Page by selecting a single option in the admin changes WordPress from a blog into a CMS. I don’t know why people always ignore this.
• Page Links To Plugin: gives more flexibility to WordPress Pages by allowing you to link them to other pages, like category pages.
• Role Manager Plugin: better and more precise role management in WordPress
• Future Posts Calendar Plugin: this plugin is a savior. It gives me an overview of the days when posts are scheduled to be published, so I can make sure that posts are spread out evenly across the week, instead of all of them ending up on Tuesday (for example).
• Admin Drop-down Menus Plugin: also a life saver (not the candy). Can you imagine getting to the Write Post page with just one click, instead of clicking on Manage, waiting, and then clicking on Post? Will, this plugin turns everything into drop-down menus, so submenus are just one click away.
• All in One SEO pack, Google Sitemaps Generator Plugin and Meta Robots WordPress plugin: just upload and activate these WordPress plugins, and you’ll have a serious SEO advantage over so many other sites.

I think that the whole argument over whether WordPress is a CMS boils down to the lack of an exact definition of what a CMS is. So, according to my definition of a CMS, which holds no weight whatsoever, WordPress meets the criteria.

But what struck me the most about this article was the Update at the end, where he says that he was corrected by Dennis Howlett, who pointed out that WordPress isn’t actually a CMS.

This is something that I really don’t get. WordPress manages content, does it not? Then why isn’t it a CMS? How come I can call the awful, clunky systems that I used before WordPress CMS systems, even though they don’t have even half of the functionality and features of WordPress.

I know that the above might not make sense, so here is a detailed description of the problem:

If you use WordPress as a CMS, you generally create the Pages you want to appear on your nav bar under Write > Write Page. One of those Pages is the Home page, for example, and you create another Page for your blog posts called Blog. Then, you go to Options > Reading, and select one of those pages for your front page from the drop-down list, in this case you would select the Home page, and another page for your blog posts, in this case the Blog page.

You create a style in your style sheet called current_page_item which causes the current page that the viewer is on to appear differently in the nav bar or list of pages. For example, you want the background color of that page on the nav bar to change from green to purple.

Now, here’s where the problem lies: all pages on the nav bar change from green to purple when the user is on that page…except the Blog page! For some reason, that Blog page does not pick up the current_page_item class.

So my question is: does anyone know of a solution to this problem?

Thanks!

First, let’s just review what this plugin does: it allows you to create a Page, and then have that page link to any URL anywhere on the web. I mostly use it to link Pages in my navigation bar to Categories, or posts, but you could theoretically link a Page to any other page on the web.

It seems that in the new version, Pages links in the navigation are now highlighted when you click on them, even if they are linking using the plugin. This means that if you set a CSS style so that the current page you are on looks different in the navigation, this will apply also when the Page links using this plugin.

I highly recommend checking out this plugin…

Page Links To>> 

This plugin allows you to add whatever you want to the Dashboard through PHP and HTML and allows you to even add Sidebar Widgets. You may also wipe the entire dashboard or individually remove some of the more irritating sections like the Dev news, Planet Wordpress and the getting started section.

That part about getting rid of the Dev news is great. I’m sure it’s confusing for clients to get to a Dashboard filled with all sorts of stuff that they probably will never read.

Compatible with WP 2.1.

Wordpress Dashboard Editor>>

Customize the Wordpress Login Screen in 10 Steps>>

All of these CMS’s have rather complicated administration interfaces, tend to be difficult to theme, and usually don’t put as much emphasis on syndicated publishing as blogging software. It’s really interesting when you think about it; after all, on a typical website you might publish a couple handfuls of static pages, whereas you might have a fresh news posting every week. Doesn’t it make sense for a platform to emphasize news/blog content over static pages? Moreover, if you are going to hand something over to a client, it’s natural to opt for something that non-technical people can use (and do every day). When I tell people “updating this site is just like updating your Livejournal/Xanga,” that’s one of the great things about Wordpress. It’s the combination of the simple admin interface and the focus on blogging (even when the end result is not a blog) that makes Wordpress ideal for most simple sites that I would build for a client.

He does point out that WordPress has its limitations, which makes sense since it’s goal is to be a good blogging platform. But he sums up with a good point:

…content management systems shouldn’t just be about offering more features and functionality for the developer, but being user-friendly for the client too.

I have started to use WordPress as a CMS system because it is relatively easy to theme and customize, and web site owners can easily update their content.