Customise the WordPress Search results page
Another in my series of Peachpit Web Design Reference Guide WordPress articles was published the other day — Customizing WordPress 2.5.1: Search:
After arriving at your blog, visitors may want to search for specific items you have written about. Make sure visitors have easy access to Search and that results are useful to them. This article, based on WordPress 2.6.1, shows you how to make sure visitors find what they’re looking for on your blog.
Search is such an important part of any website. Use this article to really help your visitors.
Make 404 Pages much more helpful in WordPress
My Peachpit Web Design Reference Guide article about keeping lost visitors on your site has been published — Customizing WordPress 2.5.1: 404 Pages:
Friendly text and useful links in the
404.phpfile give your confused visitors a much more pleasant experience when visiting your site. They will stay, rather than go, and they may even come back again.
Make your blog just a bit friendlier. 
How to embed YouTube videos without invalid code
I’m developing a new blog and decided to check the validity of what I was doing. Once I recovered from the shock of 67 errors I realised that 2 embedded YouTube videos may well have been contributing problems. So I went searching and found this excellent advice:
If you’re looking to embed a YouTube video in your website’s code and want to retain your validity, … use the following
<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” style=”width:425px; height:350px;” data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7_6B6vwE83U”><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7_6B6vwE83U” /></object>
[Via : Embedding YouTube Videos as Valid XHTML 1.0, Bernie Zimmermann.]
Of course, you need to substitute the correct URL in two places.
In my new blog I fixed up a few other coding errors, used the above technique for the youTube videos and soon had the thrill of seeing the green ‘valid’ ribbon.
Mac OS X and the php.ini upload limit
Finding and fixing php.ini upload limits on Mac OS X.
Last night I was messing round exporting a WordPress blog and importing it into WordPress on my own Mac so I can play around with the design.
The MacTips blog I exported has almost 900 posts (ie 900 Tips). The downloaded file was 2.1Mb. That’s not particularly large, but it was enough to cause a problem when I tried to import it into the blog I’d set up on my Mac.
Maria Langer and I wrote in Chapter 10 of WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide about exporting and importing between blogs.
When I came to import that 2.1Mb file I received an error message: The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini. That upload limit is set at 2Mb, so I needed to change it.
It seemed obvious that the file php.ini was the one to edit, but where and how? Some Googling brought me to Enabling PHP and Apache in Leopard by David Powers.
First I had to create php.ini by copying another file, then it was a simple matter to locate the 2Mb limit and change it. I changed it to 8Mb.
David’s instructions are clear and easy to follow. You need a decent text editor such as TextWrangler (free) or BBEdit, and to paste in a few lines of code in the Terminal.
After amending the upload limit I went to the Sharing System Preference, turned Web Sharing off and then on again. That done, the import went smoothly. Now I can experiment with blog designs, with real content, but without disrupting the public blog.
This blog now on WordPress 2.5
We’ve just updated this blog to the new WordPress 2.5. If you notice any quirks or see any problems, please let us know.
WordPress 2.5 Admin screens totally changed
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After upgrading from WordPress 2.3.3 to 2.5 the first, most obvious difference is in the Dashboard. The screenshot on the left above is from my Oddity59 blog, not yet upgraded, while that on the right is from TiKouka.
The colour scheme has changed, information and links have been moved around, fonts reduced in size, and some previously ‘fixed’ items have been made mutable. Overall things seem slicker and sleeker, more efficient and more compact.
A nice touch is the summary of your blog — how many posts and pages and so on. Here’s what mine says right now:
You have 2,325 posts, 12 pages, 2 scheduled posts, contained within 34 categories and 558 tags.
You are using Neoclassical theme with 13 widgets. Change Theme This is WordPress version 2.5.
Immediately below that are lists of Recent Comments and Incoming Links.
Very obvious are the buttons to go straight to write a new Post or a new Page.
Changes continue through each individual Admin screen. New features include a Media Library that displays all the images and other media you’ve uploaded, and tells you which posts they’ve been used in.
WordPress 2.5 is a new version, rather than a minor point upgrade. If you’re not a confident WordPress user, I suggest you do some reading before you upgrade, and maybe watch the 4 minute screencast.