Tag Archives | blog

Add Shortcodes to Your Posts with WooThemes the Easy Way

By Matthew Guay on February 3, 2011 in Techinch

Would you like to add more features to your blog posts without having to hand code them in HTML? All WordPress themes from WooThemes include shortcodes to make it easier for you to add quotes, buttons, download links and more to your blog posts. The only problem is, you’ll still have to remember all of the codes to add the shortcode features to your posts.

That’s all now changed as WooThemes has now incorporated a great visual shortcode generator into their theme framework. This was first created as a third party WordPress plugin by developer Rico Gundermann, but now it’s been baked into the latest WooFramework. All you’ll have to do is update your theme and you’ll be ready to start adding features from shortcodes in two clicks. Here’s how to do it.

Add Shortcodes the Easy Way

First, make sure your site is running a WooTheme with the latest version of the WooFramework. You can check this from the Update Framework button under your theme settings in your WordPress dashboard. If it’s out of date, click Update and seconds later, you’ll have the latest features.

Now, head over to your post editor to start writing a new post. You’ll notice a new Woo button on the visual editor toolbar. This opens a menu with options for all the different shortcodes you can use to add buttons, icons, multiple columns in your text, quotes, social media buttons, and more. Select the one you want to get started.

A box will now open with the options for that shortcode. Enter any text that will be included, choose your styles, and preview the whole thing on the right. Click Insert when you’re finished, and you’ll be able to see the actually shortcode used along with any modifications. Even if you prefer to simply enter raw code, this is a great way to discover your theme’s shortcode features.

You’ll likely find features you didn’t know your theme had. Below is a preview of the WooThemes tabbed box with a quote inside, all made with shortcodes on my secondary, WooThemes powered site http://maybring.com/.

Want to try out the Shortcode Generator without having a WooTheme installed on your site? Just head over to the WooThemes Playground where you can try out all of the WooThemes features without having to purchase and install a new theme on your site. Here’s more info about the WooThemes Playground: http://techinch.com/2010/10/08/testdrive-woothemes-for-free/

Conclusion

Shortcodes aren’t unique to WooThemes; in fact, most professional WordPress themes include them nowadays. ElegantThemes have actually included shortcode buttons in the post editor for a while now. The only problem is, they end up making the editor too wide for small screens, and there’s no easy way to remove the buttons from the editor. WooTheme’s integration just works better than any other I’ve tried previously, and having everything in a menu makes it very easy to use. Plus, since the original plugin is opensource, hopefully other developers can use it to add great shortcode integration for their themes as well!

Does your favorite WordPress theme include shortcodes, and do you find yourself using them often?

Comments { 1 }

Redirect Your WordPress.com Blog to Your Self-hosted Blog Easier Than Ever

By Matthew Guay on January 21, 2011 in Featured, Techinch

WordPress.com is a great place to get started blogging. You can get a free blog with all of WordPress’ great features, themes, and support without having to deal with hosting and the frustrations of keeping your own site secure and updated. However, if your blog grows and you decide to take it to the next level, you’ll likely want to move on to running your own site self-hosted on your own hosting account or servers. If you were blogging at WordPress.com with your own domain (yourname.com), then it’s very easy to move: just import your export file from WordPress.com, redirect your domain, and you’re all set.

However, if you were blogging with a WordPress.com domain (yourname.WordPress.com), it’s a bit trickier to move. You can still just import all of your old posts, but any links to your blog will be dead and you’ll lose much of the traffic you previously had. If you don’t want this to happen, you’ll need to redirect your WordPress.com links to your new blog. Used to, this was very difficult. You had to add your domain to WordPress.com, which itself was a difficult task, then go change your CNAME records back to your new hosting account. With the delays in DNS propagation, it could often mean your site was more or less offline for a full day. That’s no fun!

The New, Easy WordPress.com Redirect

This past year, WordPress.com added a brand new Offsite Redirect upgrade option that makes it much easier than before to redirect all of your old WordPress.com traffic to your new self-hosted blog. Your site won’t be offline at all during any of the process, and it’ll actually take less than 5 minutes to get it redirected. Plus, your old links will be HTTP 301 redirected, which will make search engines pick up on your new links and not keep your old site’s links around.

Ready to get started? To redirect your blog, just login to your WordPress.com dashboard and open the Upgrades page from the left-hand menu.

You’ll find the Site Redirect upgrade option near the bottom of the page. You can read more about the upgrade, or just click Buy Now to get started redirecting your WordPress.com blog to your new domain.

Enter the domain name you want to redirect your site to, then confirm that you entered the site correctly.

Now, just select whether you want to pay directly with your credit card or through your PayPal account.

Enter your payment info or login to your PayPal account, and then authorize and complete the transaction.

As soon as your payment goes through, you’ll see your new domain listed on your Domains page. Unlike the old domain redirect hack, this method will actually show that this domain is for a site redirect. If for some reason you decide to switch to a different domain, you can change the redirect domain from this page as well. You can also enable Auto Renew so you won’t have to remember to authorize the payment again every year.

Now, just try visiting your old WordPress.com domain. It should immediately redirect to the new domain you added. It’s that easy!

Adding the New Redirect After Using the Old Redirect

If you had previously setup your WordPress.com blog to redirect by manually adding your domain and then changing the CNAME records, you could just keep paying for your Domain Mapping upgrade every year, and it’ll continue working the same. However, it’s the same price to redirect, so I decided to switch my site to the new redirect. There’s only one problem: you can’t add a redirect to a domain you already have mapped to your account. If you try to add one, you’ll see an error like the one below.

If your domain mapping is almost ready for renewal, you could go ahead and remove the old mapping, then add the new site redirect. Just scroll down on the Domains page, choose your old yourname.wordpress.com domain as the primary one, then delete your domain mapping. Once this is done, you can add your new Domain Forwarding as above.

Conclusion

WordPress is one of the most versatile blogging and CMS systems, and I’m certain that the free WordPress.com blogs have gotten many people (such as myself!) started using WordPress over other similar tools. Now that it’s so easy to redirect your old blogs, there’s really no major difficulty to moving your blog to a self-hosted setup if you wish. And, hey, if you ever decide that managing your own hosting is too difficult, you could go back to WordPress.com just as easily and add your domain there. The choice is yours, and that’s how it ought to be!

Comments { 1 }

Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress

By Matthew Guay on December 10, 2010 in Featured, Techinch

Would you like to move your blog from Tumblr to your own WordPress blog? There’s no one-step way to do it, but you can move everything from your Tumblr blog and make your new setup as nice or nicer than your old Tumblr blog. Let’s see how you can move everything and get your new WordPress blog working as much like Tumblr as possible.

1) Getting a New Site

First, you need to get a new site. If you already have a hosting account, simply make a new WordPress install for your new site. Otherwise, you’ll need to sign up for hosting account. I highly recommend DreamHost – they’re hosting this site, and have done a much better job than other hosts I’ve used. Other highly recommend options from others include Media Temple and HostGator. They all offer one-click installations of WordPress so it’ll be easy to get your site up and running.

Here’s 2 articles that can help you install WordPress if you’ve never done it:

Install WordPress Manually on Your Website

Install WordPress on Your Own Server With Softaculous

Or, if you need help, ask away in the comments!

2) Install a Tumblog Theme

Once WordPress is installed, you’ll need to get a theme running to make your site look like you want. Any WordPress theme would work fine for a normal blog, but if you want to keep using Tumblr’s unique post types, including image, link, and quote posts, then you’ll want a theme designed for a tumblog blog. You can either turn any WordPress theme into a tumblog theme, or you could purchase a premade tumblog theme from WooThemes. These include Canvas, Retreat, Slanted, Cinch, and Crisp, my personal favorite. Once you’ve got a Tumblog theme running, you should see Tumblr-style editing options on your WordPress Dashboard.

3) Export Your Tumblr Content

Now it’s time to start moving your posts from your old Tumblr site to your new WordPress site. Head over to Benapps.net, which contains a free tool that can export your Tumblr posts. Enter your Tumblr blog address, select HTML export format, and then select how you want your post addresses to be imported. For most purposes, the first option is fine.

Scroll down, and under Export for, select Self-Hosted WordPress Installation. You could leave the other options as default or change them as you wish; it’s up to you. Finally, press Export. Seconds later, you should be prompted to save a tumblr_yourblog.xml file; save it to your computer, as you’ll need to import the data from this file into your new site.

4) Import Everything Into WordPress

Back in your WordPress dashboard, select Tools on the left sidebar and click Import. Then, click WordPress on the list of Import options. The tool you used before put your Tumblr posts into WordPress format, so this is the best way to import them.

You’ll now be prompted to install the importer. Click Install Now so you can get your content imported.

Once it’s installed, click Activate Plugin & Run Importer.

Click Choose File, then select the file you just downloaded from the Tumblr export site previously. Click Upload file and import to get all your posts moved over. Moments later, all of your posts should be imported into WordPress!

Now, select the author to assign these posts to, and check the Download and import attachments to get your images copied over too.

You can see all of your imported posts from the Posts menu. As you can see here, all posts were organized into categories based on what type of post you’d created in Tumblr.

There’s only one problem: your posts aren’t taking advantage of your theme’s tumblog features. This is fine; your posts will still be fully readable in WordPress. However, if you want to take advantage of the tumblog features of your theme that let you have link, image, quote, and other post types, you’ll need to edit them. To do this, you can bulk edit the posts by category.

On the top of the posts page, select the category you want to change and click filter. Then, select all the posts and click Edit under Bulk Actions.

Now, select the correct Tumblog post for the category you selected, and click Update. You’ll now need to repeat this for each of your categories. Once you’re done, though, your blog will look much more like it did before.

5) Move Your Domain and Redirect Old Posts

If you had your own custom domain in Tumblr, you should now move it to your new hosting account or redirect it to your new site. If you’re unsure about how to do this, you can follow the directions at the first part of this post, this time directing your domain to your WordPress site rather than Tumblr.

Then, you can redirect the links to your old posts by editing your .htaccess file, or with a simple WordPress Plugin. To do this, install the Simple 301 Redirects plugin in WordPress.

Open the Simple 301 Redirects tool under Settings once it’s installed. Now, enter your tumblr post link on the left, leaving off the initial domain name (the link should look something like /post/123456789/name), then enter the correct address for that post on your WordPress site. You’ll need to repeat this for each post. This is tedious, so if your content isn’t very important then you may not want to do it. Otherwise, though, if your posts have been linked on many other sites, this will keep your traffic flowing to your new site.

6) Add Plugins to Automatically Share your Content

One of Tumblr’s best features is that it can automatically share your new posts with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. With two new plugins, though, WordPress can do the same. Just install the WordTwit and Wordbook plugins from the Plugins menu, and activate each of them with your personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, respectively. Now when you publish a new post, it’ll automatically be shared with your friends around the world.

Additionally, if you had enabled Disqus comments on your Tumblr blog previously, you can now install the Disqus for WordPress plugin. It will automatically move your old comments over, so you can keep the discussion going on your new site.

7) Post from Anywhere

Tumblr’s mobile app makes it easy to post to your Tumblr blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Thankfully, you can get the same features on WordPress. You can install the WordPress Mobile app on your iOS, Android, Blackberry, or Symbian device, so no matter what phone you’re using you can always share the latest things that are going on. The only problem is, the default free WordPress app only lets you post normal blog posts, not newer Tumblog posts. For that, you’ll need the Express app for iPhone, which is an app from WooThemes specially designed to post to Tumblog blogs. Check out my review of Express on AppStorm.net, or head over to the iTunes Store to download it today.

Conclusion

Phew, you made it! Congratulations, your Tumblr blog is now safe on WordPress. Hope the move went good for you, and if you hit any snags, feel free to ask questions in the comments below and I’ll do my best to help you. Or, if you’d like to see a WordPress blog that was imported from Tumblr, check out my tumblog at www.maybring.com. I just got it moved to WordPress this week, and it’s working great.

Happy Blogging!

Comments { 7 }

Turn Your WordPress Blog into a Tumblr-style Tumblog for Free

By Matthew Guay on November 1, 2010 in Techinch

Would you like to be able to post Tumblr-style image, link, quote posts, and more from your blog? Here’s how you can give your WordPress blog a makeover and give it the Tumblog power and simplicity you need.

Tumblr is a popular hosted blogging service that helped popularize Tumblogs, a type of blogs typically filled with short posts. Tumblr makes it dead simple to post images, videos, quotes, or links on your blog, and many users prefer this to full blog posts. Whether you’ve wanted to switch to a simpler blogging style or simply wanted to add some Tumblog-style posts to your existing blog, there’s now a way to do this without leaving WordPress behind. WooThemes recently released a free plugin, WooTumblog, that makes it easy to transform your WordPress blog into a perfect Tumblog. It’s slightly complicated to integrate with your site, so let’s see how it works.

Installing WooTumblog on Your WordPress Site

First, you’ll need to add the WooTumblog plugin to your site. Simply open the Add new Plugins page on your WordPress dashboard, search for WooTumblog, then install and activate it.

Now, open your Permalinks settings page under Settings on your WordPress Dashboard. Click Save on the bottom of the page without making any changes to register the custom taxonomies that WooTumblr added to your site.

You can also tweak your Tumblog settings from the Tumblog Options link under Post on your Dashboard.

There’s one more thing you’ll need to do … you need to add some code to your theme files to get WooTumblog fully integrated in your site. Here’s how to do it.

Editing your Theme Files

sshot-2010-11-01-1-12-20-39 You’ll need to edit two of your theme’s PHP files to get the Tumblr functionality working on your site. Depending on your theme, you’ll need edit your index.php or loop.php file, as well as single.php. Open the Editor page under your WordPress Appearance menu, then select the appropriate file and make the following changes, or edit the files in your favorite offline text/code editor and upload the files once you’ve added the new content.

Editing loop.php

First, you’ll need to change your title style. Find the line that contains <?php the_title(); ?>, and replace that line with:

<?php woo_tumblog_the_title(“entry-title”); ?>

You can do this easily by searching for the_title on the editor page; now just replace that whole line with the code above. Do note on some themes, including most themes from Elegant Themes, you’ll need to edit entry.php instead of index or loop.php, so you may need to look through your theme a bit to be sure. Alternately, if you’re using the WordPress 3.0 default theme, TwentyTen, just replace line 126 with that.

sshot-2010-11-01-1-12-27-41

Now, scroll down a bit, and add the following code in a new line above both <?php the_excerpt(); ?> and <?php the_content:

<?php woo_tumblog_content(); ?>

These are located on lines 134 and 139, respectively, in the TwentyTen theme.

Once you’ve made the changes, be sure to save your file with the button on the bottom of the editor, or in your code editor program.

Editing single.php

Switch over to single.php, and add the same code as before. Replace the title line the same as above, then add <?php woo_tumblog_content(); ?> above the line containing <?php the_content(); ?>. These will be located on lines 23 and 30, respectively, on the TwentyTen theme.

Save your changes again, and if you’ve been editing your theme offline, go ahead and upload the changes.

If you need more help adding the Tumblog support to your theme, click the Help tab in your WordPress Dashboard Tumblog Options page.

Adding Tumblog Posts

Your site won’t look any different until you start adding new Tumblog style posts. The good thing is, WooTumblog makes it easy to do that. Directly from your Dashboard, you can start adding new Quote, Image, Video, or other Tumblog-style posts via the new Tumblog widget. Simply select the article type you want, start adding your new content, and click Submit when you’re ready to publish your content.

If you’re adding a picture post, you can upload the picture directly from the Tumblog widget. Quick and simple!

Alternately, if you have an iOS device, including an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, you can purchase the Express for WordPress app, which lets you post Tumblog posts with images, links, quotes, and more directly from your device. Since Tumblog posts are generally shorter than full blog posts, this is a great way to keep your blog updated on the go. We plan to review the app soon, but if you try it out, let us know what you think!

Once you’ve got some Tumblog-style posts up and running, visit your site’s homepage to see how the new posts look. With those few changes, you’ve just added a ton of functionality to your site!

My favorite Tumblr feature is the Link posts, which let the title of your article link directly to the site or article you’re mentioning. And this works the exact same on your WordPress blog with WooTumblog.

See it in action

Want to see WooTumblog in action? Here’s the official video showing how to add it to your site and create tumblog posts:

Use a Theme With WooTumblog Built In

Although it’s not too hard to get WooTumblog integrated with your existing theme, sometimes it’s easier to just get a pre-existing theme that’s ready to use out of the box and go with it. WooThemes already offers 5 themes that include tumblog functionality already, so you won’t have to do anything extra to get it working. These include Retreat, Slanted, Cinch, and Crisp, my personal favorite. Canvas, WooTheme’s popular theme that lets you tweak it to no end, now also includes tumblog support. If you’d like to see how any of these themes work before you purchase one, be sure to test them out for free on the WooThemes Playground.

Conclusion

There’s a great reason WordPress is such a popular option for building blogs and websites of all shapes and sizes. The WooTumblr lets you keep using WordPress’ power while taking advantage of the simplicity of Tumblr. There’s a ton of uses for Tumblog themes, so let us know in the comments how you end up using your WordPress Tumblog … feel free to leave a link to your Tumblog site so we all can see it.

Get more information about the WooTumblr plugin

Get the Express App for your iPhone or iPod touch to post Tumblog posts on the go [App Store]

Check out all the tumblog WooThemes

Comments { 14 }

Testdrive WooThemes for Free

By Matthew Guay on October 8, 2010 in Techinch

Are you looking for a great theme for your new site or blog, but can’t quite decide on which one? Here’s how you can try out any WooThemes WordPress theme for free to see how it works before you purchase it for your site.

WooThemes is one of the most popular WordPress theme developers, and they have themes that cover almost any use. From a simple and stylish blog theme to a customized frontpage for your new app to a full-blown real estate site, WooThemes has nearly 100 themes that you can choose from, including some very nice free themes. Actually, the problem usually isn’t finding a theme that will work great for your site; the problem is deciding which one will work best for your site. Most WordPress themes let you preview them before your purchase or download, but this doesn’t let you see how easy or difficult they will be to use and customize.

WooThemes takes this to the next level, and lets you try out all of their WordPress themes on your own temporary blog for free before you purchase a theme. Let’s get started and see how you can play with WooThemes for free.

The WooThemes Playground

To testdrive any WooTheme for free, you’ll need to register for the WooThemes Playground. You can signup at this link, or from the link on the Try Before You Buy link on any theme’s page.

Before you can get started, you’ll need to make a new account. Simply enter the username of your choice and your email address, and click Sign up.

Now, enter a name and title for your test site, and click Signup. This will create a temporary blog for you that will run for 24 hours, but the great thing is, it includes every WooTheme available so you can try them out on this test site.

Moments later you’ll receive an email with a link to activate your test blog, so click the link to activate it.

Once it’s activated, you’ll receive a new email with the password for your site and a link to login. Click the link, then login with your username and the password you received in the email.

Once you login, you’ll be greeted with the default WordPress dashboard. The only difference is, this WordPress install includes every WooTheme available. To get started trying out themes, click the Appearance button on the left sidebar.

Trying Out WooThemes

Your test site’s Appearance page will include every available WooTheme for you to try. Just click the Activate link under the theme you want to try to see how it looks.

Once the theme is activated, it will automatically open the theme’s preferences page. Alternately, you can click the new Woo button with your theme’s name on the left sidebar to open it. Now you can try for yourself and see how easy WooThemes are to customize.

Some of the themes will have tons of options. Here you see the theme options for Estate, WooTheme’s real estate site theme, which lets you easily list properties, agents, maps, and more.

You can even try out Canvas, WooTheme’s increasingly popular framework theme that lets you design your own unique theme without messing with code. Canvas is an especially good theme to try out in the WooThemes playground, as it’s hard to know if you’ll really like it until you can try tweaking it yourself.

Take Your Customizations To Your Own Blog

Once you’ve tweaked a theme to perfection, click your test site’s name on the top of the dashboard to preview your work.

If you like your customizations, you can save them and import them to your site once you’ve purchased your WooTheme. Go back to your test site’s WordPress dashboard, and click Framework Options under your theme’s name.

Select the Export Options tab in the WooThemes panel that opened, and copy the code in the textbox. Now save this code in a safe place, as you’ll need it to import your settings on your site.

Now, head back to WooTheme’s main site, purchase and download the theme you were trying out (make sure you purchase the same theme you were using), and then install it on your own WordPress site. Then, open the Framework Settings page on your own site as before, and this time select the Import Options tab. Paste the code you copied from your test site into the Import box, click Save, and your customizations will be live on your own site. Now That’s a great way to try out and then use a theme!

The WooThemes Playground is a great resource, and I was very impressed with their backend features after trying them out this way. It’s a great way to see what their themes offer before you make a purchase, so give it a try and let us know which WooTheme is your favorite. Clinch and Canvas are my personal favorites at the moment .