Getting blank pages on your WordPress admin panel?

Tried re-installing WordPress? Kept activating and de-activating plugins with no results? Kept looking at WordPress files like wp-config.php to find a blank line? Tried increasing WordPress memory limit by editing wp-config.php and still getting WordPress Blank Screen of Death?

OK, let's cut to the chase:

First, .htaccess file is your friend. Add the line below to your .htaccess file to troubleshoot the WordPress blank page error:

php_flag display_errors on

Now when you go back to your WordPress admin panel, you'll get an error message telling you what it is that is wrong. More than likely the error will be about exhausting memory. If that's the case, don't even mess with wp-config.php file. Here is what you do:

Delete the line we put in the first step and add the following line in .htaccess file:

php_value memory_limit 64M

Now, if the error message was memory related and this does not fix it, try putting 96M instead of 64M.

That's it! You just solved your WordPress admin panel blank screen problem.

There are a number of lightbox tools are available. Until I discovered ColorBox JQuery plugin, I wasn't completely comfortable using any of them.

Why ColorBox? Well, it is easy to use, lightweight and it supports all kinds of different content like photos, photo groups, slideshow, ajax, inline, and iframed content.

I am using ColorBox JQuery plugin on one of my sites but I wish it was as easy as the thumbnail viewer plugin when using on a WordPress site. With thumbnail viewer plugin all you need to do is add rel=thumbnail to any link tag surrounding your thumbnail. You'll see an example below.

There are a couple of WordPress ColorBox plugins available. I haven't tried the LightBox Plus yet. I haven't been able to get the JQuery ColorBox WordPress plugin to work. I'd rather use ColorBox JQuery plugin on my WordPress site without a plugin. I am still experimenting with that. Including JQuery functions on WordPress header is a little different. I will soon update you on that. Stay tuned...

UPDATE 03/06/2010:

OK! Now the image on this post works with ColorBox. Here is how I made it work:

Added the link to the ColorBox stylesheet on the header.php right after all the other stylesheet links.
After "wp_head();", I put the link to the ColorBox script and the JQuery function call:

$(document).ready(function($){
$("a[rel='colorbox']").colorbox();
});

Now, pay attention to the $ in the function bracket. You won't see it on ColorBox example pages. This is required when you are adding JQuery functions to your WordPress header. Without that all the $ within your code would not be interpreted correctly. This is the best way to add JQuery functions to your WordPress header.

Finally I added the rel="colorbox" to the link to the image. You can use a different name but make sure it is the same one you in the JQuery function.

One last point: If you have the WordPress Flickr Manager plugin as I do, disable the image viewer.

Here is the ColorBox example:

Last week I joined the ElegantThemes theme club.

It is a steal at $19.95 per year. You get immediate access to 14 WordPress themes. The theme you are seeing on this blog is one of these 14 themes. As Nick summarizes:

Each WordPress theme comes expertly coded in valid XHTML and CSS, and all are made compatible with the latest version of WordPress. I make sure that each template performs flawlessly in each of the most widely used browsers to insure maximum functionality. Furthermore, all sidebars are made widget ready for your convenience.

Elegant Themes also has a very reasonable licensing agreement. You are allowed to make modifications and remove credit links. As long as you don't claim to own the themes and/or try tell or distribute them and use them on the websites you own you won't be violating terms of use.

Why I did I decide to join the Elegant Themes?

There are hundreds maybe thousands of free WordPress themes available online. Some of them are great themes and supported and updated by the authors who should be praised for their contributions. During the past year and a half as I started using WordPress, I found great free themes I still use.

I also dabbled in modifying these themes and even making my own theme by reading "WordPress Theme Design: A complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes" by Tessa Blakeley Silver. I recommed the book to anyone who wants to create his/her own theme.

WordPress Theme Design

Tessa Blakeley Silver. Packt Publishing 2008, Paperback, 224 pages, $30.90

I found that it is a lot easier and faster to start with a theme and then modify it to my needs and desires. This is the number one reason I joined the Elegant Themes. I got an immediate access to 14 themes to do just that.

Even if you are not interested in doing any modifications, having 14 different themes to choose for your website / blog for only $19,95 is a steal. There are premium WordPress themes available for $79 plus. Yes that is $79 + for one theme. Most themes you get at Elegant Themes have options to change color scheme and look easily. This is great for newbies who still want to have a blog with a unique look.

Its been a long time since we had any contests on Blog Oh! Blog. To add to your winter happiness, I am announcing a mega contest where everyone gets a chance to win not one, not two, but 10 Super Premium WordPress themes made by the coolest theme designers from all over the Internet.

Mega Contest - Win 10 Premium Themes worth $700

Those are pretty cool WordPress themes.

Even if you do not win, a visit to jai's blog is well worth it. He has great looking free WordPress themes available for download.

WordPress Flickr Manager is another great plugin I recently discovered. It integrates your Flickr account with WordPress backend.

Adding pictures to posts has always been a hassle for me. It makes inserting pictures to posts a snap. You can insert one photo or a complete set of photos quickly and easily. I highly recommend this plugin if you regularly insert sets of pictures on your posts.

Here is an example:

I have been searching for a good Google Maps Plugin for WordPress. Google Maps Plugin by Avi was the one I had found the most useful after trying a few others. After inconsistent results and css problems with different themes, I even tried using iframe embed on pages and posts within “code” tags as I explained here.

I have been looking to find a solution to accomplish the following tasks:

1) I want to be able put maps of places I visited on individual posts. I also want to have a single page with a map with markers of all these places I posted about. Clicking on these markers will open the info window with a link to the individual map.

2) I want to add a location mashup map for a business with multiple locations. This will work pretty much the same as above except the markers will link to the individual location maps.

I am happy to report that I found the right plugin: Geo Mashup Plugin for WordPress.

A single map page that can present your posts in many ways

• It can show just one category, for example
• Clicking on a post marker shows a summary of the post in an info bubble

A small search map on the post editing page to easily add location to posts

Template tags to make links from located posts to the map and other things

GeoRSS automatically added to feeds

Option show the full post for a clicked marker on the map page

You can see a working example of this plugin on my latest project CarDealsNet.com.

This is a must-have plugin.

Note on Word WordPress 2.6: While working to set this plugin up, I wanted to have the mashup page have a different page template. I noticed that my "page template" option disappeared. I found out that the page template I use did not have the header:

<?php

/*
Template Name: Geo Mashup
*/

<?

I am pretty sure the template without the header worked on the previous WordPress version. Anyways, if you don't see the "page template" option while writing a page even though you created one, it is because you forgot to add the template header.

Google Maps for WordPress plugin I posted about before has not been working consistently. Even after the latest update, it was not able to pinpoint the marker to the exact location on the map. After trying another plugin that gave JavaScript errors, I decided to use iframe embed on pages and posts within "code" tags which worked out great. The the moral of the story is that before you run out and try to find a plugin to accomplish a certain task, see if you can do it without a plugin.

Perishable Press has a good article titled Optimize WordPress: Pure Code Alternatives for 7 Unnecessary Plugins about this.

The process of embedding the Google Map on your blog page or post is very easy: After you searched for the address on Google Maps, you'll see a link on top left corner of the map that is titled "Link to this page". When you click on the link, dropdown box will offer you two options. Click on "Customize and preview embedded map" option and adjust your map size settings so that the map fits your blog page/post, copy the code and past it on your page/post within "code" tags. That is all there is to it. This is the easiest way to go if you only need a simple location map on your blog.

The same approach applies to WP iPaper plugin I talked about here. There is no need to use it at all. Get your iPaper embed code and insert it on your post/page within "code' tags. This way you can even include the document's text in embed code. Including the text of your document in the embed code will allow search engine crawlers to index the document. As Scribd explains:

This will mean people who search for relevant terms may end up at the page where you add the embed code. This will help drive more traffic to web pages where you embed the document.

Now on to another plugin I have started using:

WordPress Custom Admin Branding plugin is great if you have a blog/website you will allow others to register and use admin area to contribute. You can customize your WordPress login screen to look the way you want.

The Custom Admin Branding Plugin allows you to not only re-brand the WordPress login screen, but also the admin header and footer with your own custom images.

I rather have the total control of how my sidebars look. Although the WordPress widgets are easy to use and great time savers, they don't always work well with all the themes.

I like the Tag Cloud but I noticed that a big Tag Cloud on a sidebar does not look good. So I decided to put the Tag Cloud on a separate page:

http://blog.nonstopsites.us/tags/

Here are the instructions to do it:

If you have tons of tags and you want to display them all in one place, but not on the main page of your blog, you can create a tag archive page. Here's how.

1. Make a copy of your single.php or index.php template, and name it something like "tag-archive.php"
2. At the top of your tag archive template, insert this:
   <?php
/*
Template Name: Tag Archive
*/
?>
3. Replace everything from
   <?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
   to
   <?php endif; ?>
   (aka The Loop) with the <?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?> function. You can download a Kubrick-compatible tag archive template here.
4. Upload the new template file tag-archive.php to your theme folder.
5. Create a new page and call it something like "Tag Archives". Under Page Template in the sidebar, select the new template you created. Leave the body of the page blank, and publish it.
6. Make sure you link to the new page in your navbar or sidebar so people can find the tag archive page

Displaying Tags on a Tag Archive Page

 

Last week I had to put together a site in a few hours that would contain videos, mp3 files and a simple contact form.  Considering the lack of time I decided to use WordPress to put this site together.

Step One was to pick a theme that I can quickly make it look distinct without spending much time. I found the Options theme by Justin Tadlock was perfect for the job. I have not studied the documentation and not even using most of the options available but it was a good choice since it fit the project.

Step Two was to add some static pages. One was a location page where I wanted to use Google Maps Plugin for WordPress I mentioned here before. Unfortunately it only displayed the map as a gray rectangle. Figuring that it was due to style sheet issues and not having time to go through it, I opted to use the iframe embed of the Google Map which worked perfectly.

I also wanted to have some documents available on this site. I like scribd and the ipaper format so I went ahead and got the WP IPaper Plugin. It did not work at first. Since I really wanted to have the IPaper version of documents on this site, I decided to spend a little more time to troubleshoot which led me to discover that the plugin works only if you do not put the access key in quotes. Cool!

It is time for the videos and I realize what a hassle to embed videos in WordPress... Well, after a quick search online I came across FLV-Embed Plugin. Since I already had FLV copies of videos available this plugin was a perfect choice.

To have the mp3 files embedded, the clear choice was Audio Player WordPress Plugin.

When it came to deciding on the contact form, I quickly scanned and tried a few plugins promising to accomplish this task effortlessly. Finally I decided to use cforms II. It is easy to understand, install, use and customize. It does the job!

In less than three hours Swift299Gas.com was up and running thanks to WordPress and all these theme and plugin authors who make them available.

Here is the latest plugin I installed here: WordPress Sphere Related Content Plugin. I think it is pretty cool.

The Sphere Related Content plug-in displays an icon link at the end of your blog posts. When a reader clicks on the icon link, Sphere finds blog posts and media articles related to your content. See it in action on over 1 billion article pages on popular media sites and blogs like the WSJ, New York Times, TechCrunch and Real Clear Politics. Our plug-in works best on English language blog posts and topics that are being actively discussed in the blogosphere.

WordPress Sphere Related Content Plugin

It has the new video widget and extra options for political bloggers. Too bad Skip Dunn can't use this one since he is still blogging on nucleusCMS platform.