Blog | Ari Salomon: WordPress Expert

The difference between “custom content type” and “custom post type” and how to use them

By Ari Salomon | Published: May 2, 2015

“Custom Content Types“ (CCT) or “Custom Post Types” (CPT) are the same thing: ways to group together similar types of content. “Custom Post Types” is the official name since WordPress started with “posts” but I think it’s more useful to think of them as types of “content”. They are stored just like posts and pages with a unique ID (what Drupal calls a ‘node’), but aren’t considered the same as a post or a page. WordPress comes with 2 main default content types: posts and pages. Technically these are also CPTs: menus, media/attachments and links (an older default that won’t appear on newer WP sites).

Taxonomies are ways to categorize CPTs. Tags and Categories are the default taxonomies for Posts. If you are building a food website perhaps “color”, “flavor” and “season” would be usefully custom taxonomies. Tags and Categories are very similar but have a different admin interface and only Categories allow for nested (“parent/child”) sub-categories. Only “posts” are in the main default RSS feed but WordPress automatically builds an RSS feed for each taxonomy item and each CPT.

Custom Page Templates are special files for WordPress that control how content will be displayed. They are used only with pages in WordPress, not with posts or CPTs.

Here’s a breakdown:
CPT data types

Posts
Pages
Menus, Attachments (Media), and Revisions (technically CPTs but not as useful to think of them in the context of this article)
Common Custom Post Types added by plugins or themes:
- Forms (like Gravity Forms)
- Events
- Products
- Quotes
- Sliders
- Portfolio items
- FAQs

Used to structure and relate CPT data

Tags
Categories
Post Formats
Custom Taxonomies

Used to display CPT data

“Archive” (an index or overview page that commonly shows 10 recent posts at a time. for a simple blog this is the homepage. But every taxonomy term will have an archive page and WordPress also builds archives pages by date.
“Permalink” or “single”: shows one post

Posted in WordPress | 1 Response

PressThis 2.0 › WordPress 4.2 “Powell”

By Ari Salomon | Published: April 23, 2015

Really excited about the new “Press This” in WordPress 4.2 – just released today. Here’s how it look (and a “meta” screenshot of me making this post).

But I found a bug already – dragging an image into the browser uploads to media library but “add to post” button doesn’t actually add it to the post. This was always an issue with the older PressThis – it opened up the ease of adding images to media library from an external web page but would not allow adding images directly to media library/this post. Well there is also the nice new “undo” button….

You can now also save PressThis as an “app” using the “Add to Home Screen” button on an iPhone. then you enter a URL to “scan” for content. It works and is a great shortcut but I found it only grabbed images – not the page title. And of course you can’t preselect text from the source web page to start your post – that’s a great feature of the full PressThis bookmarklet.

The first part of the intro video is all about PressThis:

[wpvideo e9kH4FzP]

Source: WordPress › WordPress 4.2 “Powell”

Posted in Web Design, WordPress | Comments closed

Scam alert – web designers targeted – hearing impaired wants agroamerica site

By Ari Salomon | Published: March 25, 2015

First read the Forum post here: http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/forum/graphic-design/general/1584508-scam-alert

Ultimately, he wanted to send me the amount of the project plus an additional $2700 which I was then to pay his content manager.
Post any online classified ad and you’ll get a bunch of quick replies from people “interested in your item” they all use this we’ll send you extra money ploy. The check is always counterfeit.

Here’s the 2 exchanges I had recently…. luckily that second one tipped me off that the first one was a scam. I didn’t waste time sending them a proposal.

Begin forwarded message:
From: Jennifer Wooldridge j.wooldridge@outlook.com
Subject: RE: Web Design Service Ca!!!
Date: March 2, 2015 at 8:29:36 PM PST

Thanks for your swift response and i have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in CA and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com <http://www.agroamerica.com/>…. the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.

Note:
1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I want the domain name as Finestplantationproduce.com <http://finestplantationproduce.com/>
4. you will be updating the site for me.
5. i will be proving the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $4000 to $8000

Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??

Jennifer

email thread started with:
Am Wooldridge i am an hearing impaired.i wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards ??

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 17:36:32 -0700
From: Terrance Spencer <terrancespencer01@outlook.com>
subject line: web designer needed
Thanks for your swift response, here is the job details

l have small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in NV and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa, so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?.
I need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .http://www.agroamerica.com…. the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out. I have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.

Note:
1. I want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. I want only English language
3. I don’t have a domain yet but i want the domain name as qualityfarmzproduct.com
4. you will be maintaining and updating the site for me.
5. i will be providing the images, logos and content for the site.
6. i want the site up and running before ending of next month.
7. My budget is $3000 to 6000

Kindly get back to me with:
(1) an estimate
(2) your cell phone number
(3) And will like to know if you are the owner ??

Original message:
Good Day,
Am Terrance Spencer I am an hearing impaired. I wanna know if you can handle website design for a new company and also if you do you accept credit cards kindly get back to me with you requested to my email address terrancespencer01@outlook.com so I can send you the job details. I will be be expecting your responds, Thanks.

here’s another one:

From: Calton Ball <caltonball500@gmail.com>
Subject: WEB DESIGNER NEEDED ASAP
Date: August 5, 2015 at 6:34:56 AM PDT

Good DAY!

I’m hearing impaired i need to know if you can handle website design for a new company and i also need to know if you accept credit cards as form of payment?

Regards,

Carlton Ball

Posted in Web Design | 226 Responses

Safari 7.1.4 Where is “Empty Cache”

By Ari Salomon | Published: March 24, 2015

Speaking of food metaphors…. an Apple moved the cheese.

Trying to clear cache in Safari 7.1.4? It’s no longer under the “Safari” menu.

Here’s how to clear the cache in the new Safari. Select “Preferences” from the Safari Menu and then follow these steps…

Select the “Advanced” tab and check the “Show Develop menu in menu bar” box
Note the “Develop” Menu. Select “Empty Caches” from the Develop Menu.

The keyboard shortcut didn’t change but this hardly seems a step forward IMHO.

Posted in Product Reviews | Leave a comment

Fake reviews at Yelp, Amazon Books – authenticity engine details

By Ari Salomon | Published: January 26, 2015

An interesting new report from PBS NewsHour about fake reviews on Yelp and Bazaarvoice:

They don’t mention the services that sell Facebook friends and other social media followers but that’s in the same dishonest ball park.

Reminds me of Amazon’s decision to delete thousands of book reviews that generated an uproar — the company never offered a public explanation for the sweeping purge back in 2013.

Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers’ reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine.

…
Amazon has not said how many reviews it has killed, nor has it offered any public explanation. So its sweeping but hazy purge has generated an uproar about what it means to review in an era when everyone is an author and everyone is a reviewer.

Is a review merely a gesture of enthusiasm or should it be held to a higher standard? Should writers be allowed to pass judgment on peers the way they have always done offline or are they competitors whose reviews should be banned? Does a groundswell of raves for a new book mean anything if the author is soliciting the comments?

via Amazon Book Reviews Deleted in a Purge Aimed at Manipulation – NYTimes.com.

Posted in Product Reviews | Tagged yelp | Leave a comment

Notes from WooConf 2014

By Ari Salomon | Published: November 22, 2014

wooconf-ari WooConf was full of interesting talks and it was great to meet up with Woo-enthusiasts… I liked that part of the presentations were technical and part were marketing driven – my goal is to help my small business ecommerce clients understand how to use marketing tools to optimize the performance of the websites I build for them. I’m not primarily a marketing guy so some of this is new territory for me.

SAAS Marketing Tools

GraphFlow: recommendation engine
Improvely: Conversion Tracking & Click Fraud Monitoring
Vero – Track behaviors and trigger all kinds of email autoresponders
Raven: online marketing reports – integrate all kinds of reports in one place
SharpSpring: marketing automation

Other tools

Elto marketplace for Woo and other dev tasks like site speed
Measure site speed with GTmetrix
Tip: Sliders are not good for conversion rates
Plugin to sort products in many ways — maybe useful if you have lots of products

Notes on talks

Brennan Dunn: Getting more client from your website
Cyndie Shaffstall: 3 kinds of email marketing: drip, nurture and blast
Chris Lema: Always inspiring but I also noticed this post of his: Drag and drop editors (esp VelocityPage)

Chris Lema

Posted in Web Design, WordPress WooCommerce | Leave a comment

Creative WordPress Archive Pages – Posts in Grids

By Ari Salomon | Published: October 16, 2014

“Snazzy” Archives at thinkimagine.com

I use “Snazzy” Archives (wp.org page) and you can view mine but it is more interesting when you go back in time to view months where I have more posts. It has not been updated in a while but it still works great.

Another great option is the JetPack Infinite Scroll + Masonry and some detailed notes on making a responsive Pinterest-like Grid of posts.

Dynamic Grid: WordPress Posts Feed Slider

This plugin offers an animation option to the grid of posts

I also found a Query Posts plugin that spits out fairly raw content for you to style with CSS
Reviews of a few post grid plugins
Grid Layout Shock offers free and paid version of it’s post grid plugin
Also minimal listing of months/years can be useful too if you don’t want a big preview image

Posted in Web Design, WordPress | Leave a comment

Review of WordPress Face Detection Cropping Plugin: My Eyes Are Up Here

By Ari Salomon | Published: October 6, 2014

What a great name for a plugin: “My Eyes Are Up Here”

It helps get around the problem of WordPress cropped thumbnails that always take the center of an image – but sometimes you have a a face or other point of interest that is not in the center. From an aesthetic point of view, if you’re using the rule-of-thirds when you frame your shot, the subject is always off-center — but ultimately depends what the image is.

face not centered test So here’s a test image with a face that is not centered:

and here’s before and after shots of how the media editor looks….

… I clicked the “detect faces” button and it said “No faces were found” – so that’s too bad but… I added a “hotspot” manually and clicked the “finish adding hotspots” button

Before pressing “add hotspots”

after pressing “add hotspots”

this view from the post editor is pretty cluttered since the theme I’m testing in has lots of extra sizes. It’s a bit confusing but once you know what to look for it is a nice time saver.

Note this all appears in both the ‘media’ part of the WP admin area as well as when adding an image directly to a post like this:

View from within the post editor

Here’s a comment from the wptavern review: “If your theme makes heavy use of featured images with human subjects, this plugin will help you to get the desired crop around faces and avoid the dreaded crotch shot”

Thanks to the folks at interconnectit for providing this free plugin.

Posted in WordPress | 1 Response

Notes on WordPress 4.0 – “evolutionary”

By Ari Salomon | Published: September 4, 2014

Evolutionary but not revolutionary. It’s a big new number but a “regular” number of new features—some really useful, however. The other good news is that fewer big changes means fewer chances of breakage while updating.

WordPress 4.0 “Benny” has been released today. Here’s the intro video

Features

new media library uses space more effectively: infinitely scrolling “grid view” added to the “list view”

new plugin views use space less effectively but provide more info:

TinyMCE editor: New behavior of the editor is really useful – having the top bar be “pinnable” so it’s always visible is key for pages with lots of content. There are other improvements to keyboard and cursor interaction with TinyMCE views.

Looking forward to using it and to WordCamp in October.

Other features:

Previews of oEmbed URLs in the visual editor and via the “Insert from URL” tab in the media modal.
Select a language when installing WordPress
Widgets in the Customizer are now loaded in a separate panel
Improvements to formatting functions

via A Guide to WordPress 4.0 – Tuts+ Code Article.

Posted in Web Design | Leave a comment

Alternatives to Hello Bar: WordPress Notification Bar Plugins

By Ari Salomon | Published: June 14, 2014

Hello Bar is a SaaS which charges based on the number of clicks the bar receives. If your bar receives 7,500 clicks per month, HelloBar would cost you $50/month. It’s a great service and includes it’s own analytics but many sites will benefit from a simpler option without ongoing fees.

Foobar ($14)

Foobar is my favorite alternative to Hello Bar. $14 is a one time payment at CodeCanyon and it features a powerful customization panel. Customizing colors, font size, shadows as well as social icons and much more. You can save multiple Foobars and assign to to specific pages. It’s great also for occasional ’emergency’ notices also.

attentionGrabber (free)

Foobar was my favorite, but attentionGrabber is nicely designed visually. The transition effect is smooth. Like Foobar, you add official Twitter and Facebook button next to the post link. So with regards to the backend and in terms of design attentionGrabber is the best.

Web Design and Development