J.me

If the WordPress automatic update failed

This problem encountered since I moved my server to IIX, which has less bandwidth for international user, and for that reason too, the downstream is too small to download whole WordPress package that used for updating. That’s why, I always get timeout error. So, I’m simply unable to automatically update my WordPress.

However, the solution is actually simple, by increasing the timeout so the download can be completed. Once it is, the updating will going smoothly. So this is how to do it, in manual way.. 🙂

Now, my blog is do follow

Now, my blog is do follow. That means, while you are commenting on any of my article, you will get a free backlinks from my blog. But, but, please do not spam! I also has disable trackback as this morning I got about 200 and more trackback that not even related with my blog. While I trying to visit the URL, I just got that the blog has been deleted by blogspot.

For anyone that used WordPress blog and want his/her blog to be do follow, it can be archived by editing the wp-includes/comment-template.php file or by using some plugins. I don’t know the plugins name that do this work, you can search on Google, because I think that editing this file is far more easy. 🙂

Another new templates

Since this blog launched, I have changed this blog templates three times. So, this is my third WordPress template. The first one, is called as Modern Capsule, that focusing on black, white and red colors. The second one is a simple template, called as Simple Golden Black, which used black and gold as its base color. Now the third one, its a ‘whole’ semi transparent template, that I called as Cross Line. Yup, almost all element is semi transparent. And the interesting one is, it changed the background color based on the current time (GMT +7), from morning to night. lol 🙂 Is it better?

How to create WordPress template part 2

Now is the part 2. If you haven’t read the part 1 yet, go here to read it. If in the part 1 we have make the graphics we need to build the template, now it is the time to play with CSS and HTML. But first, before we going further, we must first understand the WordPress template hirearchy. The WordPress template, in the very minimum, need at least two files, style.css and index.php. We can however have more files that recognized by WordPress to deliver different look on different requested page. But now, we create the standar template, at least we have header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php, index.php, comments.php, functions.php and style.css.

How to create WordPress template part 1

Do you want to create your own WordPress template? It is not hard actually if you have enough knowledge of XHTML (or HTML) and CSS, and a little basic of PHP. This guide will split into multiple part as it is quite long. This is my way of creating WordPress template, so it might different than you. The first part is for preparation and designing, I haven’t touch the coding part yet, it will be on second part. I will make it with example and this example will be available to download for everyone later. Hehe… 🙂

First is the preparation. For me, I will take a paper and a pen and start thinking of how the template will look like. Hmm… As of now, I will create a simple templates like usual blog template. One header with logo and description on top, one sidebar on left side, the content is on the center (right side from the sidebar), and one footer on bottom. That’s it. Okay, once you are ready then, let’s open your favorite graphics editor. For me, it is GIMP.

Use your own avatar with Gravatar

If you want to use your own avatar on this blog (and other) while leaving your comment, you need to have an account on Gravatar (Globally recognized avatar). This blog (as well as most WordPress blog) have Gravatar enabled. 🙂

To use it, you must first sign up an account on Gravatar website. Then upload your avatar image and you are ready to use your own avatar on any blog that compatible with Gravatar. To use it, you must use the same email when leaving comments as your registered email on Gravatar. Easy huh? 🙂

Upgrade to WordPress 2.7

Now, I have upgraded to WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane”. The new admin interface is pretty cool, alot of improvement has made. It is now available to download on the WordPress website.

If you aware how to upgrade your current WordPress to this new version, then read this whole story. 🙂

Fixing IE bugs and using Jquery

Now, the templates is better, as I use Jquery, I can get the actual window size on Internet Explorer 7+. Also with a little enhancement with Jquery, you can see the animation while showing or hiding the side menu. Also I update the graphics to a little smaller so you can see the content wider.

It still use fixed width, I will solve this later so if you are using wider screen, the head logo and menu will not separated from the main element. 🙂 I’m still testing this templates and will improve it day by day. Damn, I think I really interested on creating WordPress templates now. Maybe I will make a public templates soon.

Testing the new templates

Here I create my first and only templates for WordPress, the result is as you can see on your screen. It still buggy I think, so please report me whenever you see something unexpectedly happens while navigating here.

This templates should works fine on Mozilla Firefox 3+ and Google Chrome. Opera 9 shows fine too, but have some margin problem. Internet Explorer didn’t works well, I can’t resize the element height so you will see a scrollbar on your browser window and a scrollbar inside the element. There also an error reported that I didn’t have clue yet.