jdbentley

To do what you’re asking to do, you can use the WordPress Lock Out plugin (Found Here).

You can set the “Coming Soon” page in the WordPress admin. This plugin will only let people who are logged in actually see the design/site. If you use Lock Out, you won’t have to worry about switching between themes. Just keep it set on the one you’re working on. But the answer, for future reference, is that you won’t lose any changes by switching themes. Once you edit a theme it stays edited.

You’ll have to look in the theme and find out what class or id the sidebar has to change the CSS file.

Or you could surround the text in your widgets with <span style=”font-weight:normal;”> </span>

No problem! Glad to help.

Using page templates won’t affect anything that’s added by the WYSIWYG editor. It will let you structure, organize and style how that content is displayed and also lets you add content that can’t be touched through the text editor.

A page template looks something like this:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Generic Template
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
	<div id="posts-column">
	<div class="borderlayer">
		<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
		<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
			<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
			<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this page &raquo;</p>'); ?>
			<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
		</div>
		<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
	<?php edit_post_link('Edit this entry.', '<p>', '</p>'); ?>
	</div>
	</div>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

get_header, have_posts, the_title, etc are all functions of WordPress. From <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> to <?php endwhile; endif; ?> is called “The Loop”. Everything there is directly related to the content a user can edit. <?php the_title(); ?> is the title of the page and <?php the_content(); ?> is the content of the page (obviously). You can move them around within the loop to be displayed however you want them to be displayed. Outside of the loop you can add any other content you want, like the iframe.

I know it’s kind of confusing and I’m not sure I do it any justice, but once you try it out you’ll get what I mean and see that its exactly what you’re looking for. You don’t really have to know php to work with it.

The control you want means learning how WordPress functions under the hood (that is, getting away from the admin area.) The kind of functionality you are looking for can be found in Page Templates. Duplicate the Page.php file of a theme, rename it to whatever you want and add

<?php
/*
Template Name: WhateverItsCalled
*/
?>

to the very top. You can write whatever HTML you want in it around the post template code (or delete the post template code, whatever.) Whatever page you intend to use that code on, when you edit it you’ll be able to choose the new page template from a dropdown menu on the right side of the screen.

I haven’t had this issue but you might have Page Styles turned off in Firefox. Check View > Page Style. It should be on Basic Page Style. Did you try opening the site in a new tab or after restarting Firefox?

A quick Google search brought up this script (with instructions) which when accessed via a web browser will let you reset your password.

Follow the steps written below the heading “My Preferred Way to Reset WP Admin Password:”

Let me know if it works.

I just pulled the code from one of my sites where I run multiple loops. Here is how I’ve got the code set up:

<?php query_posts('cat=-5&showposts=5'); ?>
     <ul>
	<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
	<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
	<?php endwhile;?>
     </ul>
<?php endif; ?>

So I think the mistake I made last time was keeping have_posts even though query_posts takes its place.

<?php query_posts('category_name=news&showposts=1'); ?>
     <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

         <div id="news_date">
               <?php the_date(l, F jS, Y); ?>
         </div>

         <div id="news_title">
               <?php the_title(); ?>
         </div>

         <div id="news_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php query_posts('category_name=artist_blog&showposts=1'); ?>
     <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

         <div id="artist_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php query_posts('category_name=writer_blog&showposts=1'); ?>
     <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
         <div id="writer_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

You can do it with any number of Social Bookmarking plugins – like Share This.

Search “Social Bookmarking” at the WordPress plugin directory.

Go to Tools>Export. This will create an XML file of all your posts, pages, comments, etc for you to download. That’s typically all you have to do.

Whenever you need to restore your site just go to Tools>Import and upload the XML file.

You can also check out the WP-DB-Backup plugin – https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/ I’ve never used it but it has 4 stars and over 100 ratings. This plugin will save all the data from the core WordPress database tables. To restore the database you’ll have to use phpMyAdmin (rather than WordPress itself) which might be complicated if you’re new to databases.

You might also look into doing full site backups. If that’s what you want to do, you should check out your host’s website for more information.

I’m not particularly a genius with WordPress’ functions, but I’ll have a go at it.

It looks to me like you should be running the loop after you run query_posts for every category you want to call.

This is how I think it should look:

<?php query_posts('category_name=news&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
               <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

         <div id="news_date">
               <?php the_date(l, F jS, Y); ?>
         </div>

         <div id="news_title">
               <?php the_title(); ?>
         </div>

         <div id="news_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php query_posts('category_name=artist_blog&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
               <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

         <div id="artist_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php query_posts('category_name=writer_blog&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
     <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
         <div id="writer_post">
               <?php the_content('Read more...'); ?>
         </div>

     <?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Let me know if that works.

I just found Cufon a few days ago. It’s way easier to use than all the other options. No flash involved. Just convert the font to a javascript file and link cufon and the font file in the head.

Sorry, I meant add a slide box to the top for Categories, Latest Comments, Archives and stuff like that. Essentially a “sidebar”.