1. Move all the posts from one category to the other (the one you want to merge into).
2. Delete the duplicate category.
3. Add a URL forwarder to redirect the previous category URL to the new URL.

Here is how it can be done:

1. Go to “Posts -> All Posts”. Filter all the posts with the category you want to delete.

2. Check out the number of posts in this particular category.

At the top of the screen, click Screen Options and enter the number of posts to appear on the screen.

3. Check every single post in this category. Click Edit.

4. Add the category that you want to merge into.

5. Once done, go to “Posts -> Category”. Delete the category from the list.

6. Lastly, using a FTP application, download the .htaccess file (assuming you are using a Linux web host) from your server root. Open the .htaccess file with a text editor and addd the following line to the top of the file.

redirect 301 relative-path-to-old-category-url http://your-domain.com/path-to-new-category-url

For example, the old category URL is at http://your-domain.com/category/old-category and the new category URL is http://your-domain.com/category/new-category. So in your .htaccess file, you will put:

redirect 301 /category/old-category http://your-domain.com/category/new-category.

Save and upload (and replace) the .htacess file to your server.

That’s it.

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For example: you want to implement a permalink: http://your-site.com/movies/1 which translates to http://your-site.com/index.php?movies=1.

Here’s how you do it:

In your plugin or theme’s functions.php file, add the following lines:

add_action('generate_rewrite_rules', 'my_add_rewrite_rules');
function my_add_rewrite_rules( $wp_rewrite ) 
{   $new_rules = array( 
     'movies/(.+)' => 'index.php?movies=' .
       $wp_rewrite->preg_index(1) );
  $wp_rewrite->rules = $new_rules + $wp_rewrite->rules;
}

add_filter( 'query_vars','my_insert_query_vars' );
function my_insert_query_vars( $vars )
{   array_push($vars, 'movies');
    return $vars;
}

add_filter('parse_query','my_parseQuery');
function my_parseQuery() {
	if (get_query_var('movies'))
		add_action('template_redirect', 'my_template');
}
 
function my_template()
{	include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/movies.php');
	exit;
 
}

The first function translate the new permalink structure to the one you want.

The second function is to add the query variable into the default variable list.

The third function is to redirect the page to a custom template when the new query variable is detected.

That’s it.

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1. Open your theme’s functions.php file.

2. Copy and paste the following code:

add_action( 'admin_head-post.php', 'wpdb_fix_html_editor_font' );
add_action( 'admin_head-post-new.php', 'wpdb_fix_html_editor_font' );
 
function wpdb_fix_html_editor_font() { ?>
    <style type="text/css">
        #editorcontainer #content, #wp_mce_fullscreen, .wp-editor-area {
            font-family: Verdana,Arial,sans-serif!important;
        }
    </style>
<?php }

3. Save the functions.php file back to the server.

That’s it.

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<img src="path/to/your/image" width="123" height="456" class="aligncenter size-full" alt="" title="">

In most cases, this is absolutely alright. However, if you are using a responsive theme or are dealing with responsive web design, the “width” and “height” attribute will be a major roadblock that you need to get rid of.

Here’s how you can do it.

1. Open your theme’s functions.php file.

2. Copy and paste the following code:

add_filter( 'post_thumbnail_html', 'remove_width_attribute', 10 );
add_filter( 'image_send_to_editor', 'remove_width_attribute', 10 );
 
function remove_width_attribute( $html ) {
    $html = preg_replace( '/(width|height)=\"\d*\"\s/', "", $html );
    return $html;
}

3. Save the changes.

That’s it. Next time when you insert image into the post via the WP image uploader, the width and height attribute will no longer be there.

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Paste this code to the functions.php of your theme folder.

function custom_excerpt_length( $length ) {
	return 30; //change this number to determine the number of words returned
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'custom_excerpt_length', 999 );

Adding “Read More” link after the excerpt

function new_excerpt_more($more) {
        return '... <span class="read-more"><a href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">Read more  &raquo;</a></span>';
       //if you just want to remove the [...] after the excerpt, use 'return '';'
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

That’s it.

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Here is how you remove them:

In your functions.php, copy and paste the following code:

add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );
function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
	global $wp_meta_boxes;
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_quick_press']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_incoming_links']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_right_now']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_plugins']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_drafts']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_comments']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']);
	unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_secondary']);
}

What the above code does is to unset the widgets from the dashboard array so that they won’t get loaded in the frontend. If you want to preserve any of the widgets, simply remove them from the above code.

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Here’s now you can display the popular posts (most commented) in the sidebar.

Open your functions.php file and copy the following code:

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
add_shortcode('show_popular_posts', 'wpdailybits_popular_posts');
function wpdailybits_popular_posts($atts)
{   global $wpdb;  	
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		'num'=>5
	), $atts));
    $num = $atts['num'];
    $posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count, ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 ,  $num");  
    $popularposts = '';    
    if($posts)        
    {   $popularposts .= '<ul class="popularpostlist">';
	    foreach ($posts as $post) 
        {   $id = $post->ID;  
            $title = $post->post_title;  
            $count = $post->comment_count;  
            if ($count != 0) {  
              $popularposts .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($id) . '" title="' . $title . '">' . $title . ' ('.$count.' comments)</a></li>';  
            }  
        }    	
        $popularposts .= '</ul>'; 
    }	
    wp_reset_query();
    return $popularposts;
}

Then in the widget area of WordPress, drag a new text widget to the sidebar and enter [show_popular_posts num="5"] where num is the number of posts to show.

Showing most commented posts from the last 3 months

To show the most commented posts only from the last 3 months, use the following code instead:

add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
add_shortcode('show_popular_posts', 'wpdailybits_popular_posts');
function wpdailybits_popular_posts($atts)
{   global $wpdb;  	
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
		'num'=>5
	), $atts));
    $num = $atts['num'];
    $last3months = date('Y-m-d', mktime(0,0,0,(date("m")-3),date("d"),date("Y"))); 
    $posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count, ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_date > '$last3months' ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 ,  $num");  
    $discussion = '';    
    if($posts)        
    {   $discussion .= '<ul class="popularpostlist">';
	    foreach ($posts as $post) 
        {   $id = $post->ID;  
            $title = $post->post_title;  
            $count = $post->comment_count;  
            if ($count != 0) {  
              $discussion .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($id) . '" title="' . $title . '">' . $title . ' ('.$count.' comments)</a></li>';  
            }  
        }    	
        $discussion .= '</ul>'; 
    }	
    wp_reset_query();
    return $discussion;
}

It should show up something like this:

That’s it.

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We can use custom field to solve this. Here is how you can do so:

Create a new post/page with excerpt/teaser that you want to show your reader. At the custom field section, create a new custom field “external_link” and place the external URL in the value field.

Now open up your index.php file. At the part that display the post title, it should look something like this:

<h2 class="entry-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="Permalink to <?php the_title(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

Replace it with the following code:

<?php 
	if(($external_link = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'external_link', true)))
		$title_link = $external_link;
	else
		$title_link = get_permalink();
?>
<a href="<?php echo $title_link; ?>" title="Permalink to <?php the_title(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>

What the above code does is to check if there is any external link set for the current post. If yes, it will replace the title link with the external link. When your reader click on the link, he/she will be directed to the external URL.

You can use the above code in archive pages such as category.php, tag.php, author.php or archives.php.

To insert the post with external link in your feed, open the functions.php file and paste the following code:

function wpdailybits_linkrss($content) {
    global $wp_query;
    $postid = $wp_query->post->ID;
    $external_link = get_post_meta($postid, 'external_link', true);
    if($external_link != '') {
		$content = $external_link;
    }
    return $content;
}
add_filter('the_permalink_rss', 'wpdailybits_linkrss');

That’s it. The post should appear in your RSS feed with an external clickthrough link.

Image credit: chrisdlugosz

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WordPress doesn’t come with an easy way for the normal users to create custom post type, but luckily there is a useful plugin for that.

Custom Post Type UI is a WordPress plugin that allows you to create custom post type with a few clicks. It is pretty comprehensive and easy to use.

After installing (and activating) Custom Post Type UI, go to “Custom Post Tpe -> Add New“.

On the left side is where you create custom Post Type and the right side is where you create custom taxonomies for the custom post type.

To create a new custom post type, fill in the detail on the left pane and click “Create Custom Post Type”.

You can also click on the Advanced Options to see more configuration options.

Here is where you can change the permalink structure for your custom post type and also define what features it support. To get full capabilities, the best way is to check all the boxes beside the “Support” field.

Adding Categories and Post Tags feature to Custom Post Type

After we have added a new custom post type, we want to set up the categories and post tags feature for this post type. While we can reuse the existing categories and post type, it will cause an overlap with the default post structure.

Select the Post Type that this is attached to (the post type that you have just created).

To create a new custom taxomonies, fill in the detail on the right pane (Create Custom Taxomonies). Under the Advanced option, for Category-type feature, select “TRUE” for “Hierarchical”. For Post Tags feature, select “FALSE”.

When you are done, you should now see a new entry in your sidebar.

You can now insert new Cooking Class or Recipe as per normal post.

Viewing custom post type on the frontend

In most cases, WordPress will load the custom post type with URL of the form: http://your-site-url.com/post-type-rewrite-slug/your-permalink-structure.

The “post-type-rewrite-slug” is the “Custom Rewrite Slug” that you have set when creating the custom post type.

However, some of you might see a “404 not found” page instead. This is because WordPress has not registered the permalink structure of the Custom Post Type yet. To fix this, in the Dashboard, go to “Settings -> Permalink“. Click the “Save Changes” button without changing anything. This will flush the permalink structure and register the custom post type rewrite slug.

Now, you should be able to view your custom post type on the frontend.

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Here’s how you can disable the admin bar:

Open the functions.php file in your theme.

Paste the following code at the end of the file:

function hide_admin_bar_settings() {
?>
	<style type="text/css">
		.show-admin-bar {display: none;}
	</style>
<?php
}
 
function disable_admin_bar() {
    add_filter( 'show_admin_bar', '__return_false' );
    add_action( 'admin_print_scripts-profile.php', 'hide_admin_bar_settings' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'disable_admin_bar' , 9 );

Save and replace the file in the server. That’s it. You should have a more responsive Admin Dashboard now.

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