Overview

We will cover everything from exporting/importing a database in PhpMyAdmin to creating a new one, creating a new user, updating user privileges… And last but not least, I will show you how to update your old domain name URIs (e.g. http://old-domain.com) to your new domain name (e.g. http://new-domain.com) using SQL Queries in PhpMyAdmin.

SQL Query is a powerful tool that you can use within your MySQL database: you can create, drop or update one of your tables, select or delete a specific row… and much more. So as always, be sure to make a backup of your database before playing with this tool; if not, you could seriously screw it up. I always recommend to save your backups in at least two different places. That could be on your computer, external hard drive or in the cloud (Dropbox, Mozy Backup…).

For this tutorial, I will assume you have an Apache server and PhpMyAdmin installed. PhpMyAdmin is easier to use than it might seem at first glance so don’t let this scare you. This step by step tutorial should hopefully be simple enough even for a first time user.

If you are a more experienced user, you may want to skip some sections and go straight to “Step 6: SQL Queries“.

Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Download/Upload all your WordPress files Via FTP

First things first, you will need to download ALL your files from your old host and upload them to your new host.

• Connect via FTP or SFTP to your old host with your favorite FTP client. Mine is Filezilla but WinSCP is also a good alternative for Windows. To configure your FTP client, refer to your host documentation. If you can not find it, contact a technician. Hosting companies usually offer a 24/7 support and they should be able to provide an answer within a few hours or less.

  Note: SFTP stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol. Not all hosts allow you to transfer files via SFTP but if they do you should favor this protocol over FTP. That basically means that all your files will be encrypted during transfer (read “more secure”).

• Once connected, browse to your WordPress folder and download all your files locally onto your desktop or into a specific folder of your choice. This includes files from your themes folder and plugins folder. Make sure to save the .htaccess file at the root of your WordPress site. Neglecting to save your .htaccess file will result in broken permalinks. That is of course if you are using permalinks.
• Now that you have made a backup of your WordPress site, you will need to upload ALL your WordPress files to the new host. Configure your FTP client to connect to it.
• Browse to your new site directory and transfer all the files from your machine to the server.

Step 2 – Export your database

Connect to PhpMyAdmin on your old host. Most hosting companies have Cpanel or a similar control panel. On the main screen, you should see a bunch of icons. Scroll down to the Databases section and log into PhpMyAdmin.

• Once you have reached PhpMyAdmin, you will see all your databases on the right hand side of the panel. Select the database that correspond to your WordPress install. It will load all your tables on the next screen. Click the export tab on the top.
  
• On the next screen, select all the tables.
  
• Scroll to the bottom and check “Save as file”. Leave the default valued (_DB_) or give it a custom name. If you have a large database you might want to zip it. Click Go. It will ask you where you want to save the file. Select a folder and click save.
  

Step 3 – Create a new database

If you have Cpanel, you can directly create a new database right from the control panel (Cpanel -> Databases -> MySQL Databases -> Create Database) but since we are talking about PhpMyAdmin in this tutorial, I am going to show you how to do so in PhpMyAdmin.

• Connect to PhpMyAdmin on your new host. On the home page, you should see a field to create a new database. Enter the name of your database and click “Create”.

  

  If everything has worked correctly, you should see this message:

  

Step 4 – Create new user in PhpMyAdmin

Once you created a new database, the next step is to create a user to administrate this database.

• Click on the privileges tab on top.

  

• It will take you to this page:
  
• Click on “Add a new user”. On the next page, choose your username and then select “localhost” in the Host section. For password, you can either enter your own or generate one.
• Now Scroll down to Global privileges section. Leave it blank at the moment as shown in the screenshot below. Click on the “Go” button.
  
• If everything worked fine, you should see this dialogue:
  
• On the same page, scroll down to the “Database-specific privileges” section and select the database you previously created.
  
• It will take you to this screen. I usually check all the boxes and leave the admin section unchecked. Click “Go” when you are done.
  
• You should see another message:
  

Step 5 – Import your database

• Still in PhpMyAdmin, click the import tab (make sure your new database is selected on the right).
  
• On the next page, select the database you exported in step 2. Click “Go”.
  
• You should see this message if everything worked fine.
  

Step 6 – SQL Queries

Now that we have successfully imported the database onto the new server, we need to replace the old website URI (e.g. ‘http://www.old-domain.com’) with the new URI (e.g. ‘http://www.new-domain.com’).

(Note: This step is actually optional. In most cases, the domain name will remain the same. If so, you can just skip this section.)

In a default WordPress install, you only need to replace the URI in 3 tables: wp_posts, wp_postmeta and wp_options.

• To run a SQL Query, click on the SQL tab on top
  
• This will take you to this screen.
  
• Now enter the following queries one by one and click go for each. Don’t forget to change http://www.old-domain.com and http://www.new-domain.com by your old domain name and new one respectively. Also, if you changed the default table prefix (e.g. “wp_”) to something else, make sure to update it in the queries below.
  ^?View Code PHP

  UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.old-domain.com','http://www.new-domain.com');

  ^?View Code PHP

  UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com');

  ^?View Code PHP

  UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com');

  ^?View Code PHP

  UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.old-domain.com', 'http://www.new-domain.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';

  You probably noticed that the last query is a little bit different from the others. What we do here is to replace the old domain name with the new one only for “home” and “siteurl” in the option_name column. Here’s how it looks in PhpMyAdmin when you browse the wp_options table:

  

• If your query was successfully executed you should see a dialog like the one below with the number of raw affected.
  

(Note: Some plugins need the site URI. You might need to update that as well. The easiest way to check if another table contain the old domain name is to do a search in PhpMyAdmin (your database -> Search tab -> Select all the tables). It will return all the tables that contain the old site URI and you can then change accordingly as explained above.)

Step 7 – Edit wp-config.php

• Open and edit wp-config.php in your favorite web/text editor (Dreamweaver, Aptana, Notepad…).

  Replace the old settings with your new database name, username and password you created in steps 3 and 4.

  ^?View Code PHP

  <?php /** The name of the database for WordPress */ define('DB_NAME', 'new-site');   /** MySQL database username */ define('DB_USER', 'yourusernamehere');   /** MySQL database password */ define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');   /** MySQL hostname */ define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');   /** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */ define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');   /** The Database Collate type. Don't change this if in doubt. */ define('DB_COLLATE', '');

• Save the document and upload it to your server via FTP.

Conclusion

That’s it! Load the site in your browser and if everything went well, you should see it as it was on the old host. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any question, leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer you.

If you want to learn more about SQL query, read this excellent article from Onextrapixel.com: 13 Useful WordPress SQL Queries You Wish You Knew Earlier.

Do you know any other SQL query tricks? Share them with us!

Gallery

Gallery gives you an intuitive way to blend photo management seamlessly into your own website whether you’re running a small personal site or a large community site.
Requirements: PHP 4.3.0+ , PHP safe_mode must be turned off, ImageMagick or NetPBM, MySQL 3+

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Plogger

Plogger is your photos integrated into your website, a fully featured photo sharing package with an attractive and easy to use administrative interface that makes managing your galleries a breeze.
Requirements: MySQL v3.23+, GD1.0+, and PHP4+

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Coppermine

Coppermine is a multi-purpose fully-featured and integrated web picture gallery script written in PHP using GD or ImageMagick as image library with a MySQL backend.
Requirements: PHP 4.2.0 +, MySQL 3.23.23 +, either GD or ImageMagick (any version)

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4images Gallery

4images is a powerful web-based image gallery management system. Features include comment system, user registration and management, password protected administration area with browser-based upload and HTML templates for page layout and design.
Requirements: PHP, MySQL

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Minishowcase

Minishowcase is a small and simple php/javascript online photo gallery, powered by AJAX that allows you to easily show your images online, without complex databases or coding, allowing to have an up-and-running gallery in a few minutes.
Requirements: php/javascript

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Galleriffic

A jQuery plugin for rendering fast-performing photo galleries.
Requirements: jQuery-1.2.6

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dfGallery

Flash Gallery to support both Flickr , Picasa , Fotki, Photobucket and Custom Images.
Requirements: PHP 5

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ZenPhoto

Zenphoto is an online photo gallery application designed to be “a simpler web photo album”. It includes dynamic image processing, folder-based albums, …
Requirements: PHP 4.10+ with GD support, MySQL 3.23+

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NoobSlide

Nice and easy plugin for image slider. 8 slider samples in total.
Requirements: Mootools v1.11 and v1.2

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Imago

Ajax Image Gallery with focus on simplicity and ease of use. This gallery has connectors for Flickr, SmugMug & SimpleViewer to call images from them or use their XML files.
Requirements: Mootools v1.11

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(E)² Photo Gallery

(E)² Photo Gallery is a open source gallery. Designed to allow you to upload your photos to a desired folder, tell the (E)² Photo Gallery what folder to look at and it will automatically load the images using PHP.
Requirements: Mootools v1.1

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Pathfusion : Slideshow

Slideshow with transition between images.
Requirements: Mootools v1.11

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Galleria

Galleria is a javascript image gallery written in jQuery. It loads the images one by one from an unordered list and displays thumbnails when each image is loaded. It will create thumbnails for you if you choose so, scaled or unscaled, centered and cropped inside a fixed thumbnail box defined by CSS
Requirements: Jquery

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PixelPost

Pixelpost is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible photoblog application for the web.
Requirements: PHP 4.3+ / MySQL 3.23.58+

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SmoothGallery

This gallery and slideshow system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading…) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website…
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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FlashFlickr PhotoGallery

A photogallery made in Flex2/AS3 using Flickr API. This application let users to browse your flickr pictures, see your sets, tags and notes.
Built with Flex 2 / AS3.

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MooFlow

iTunes like image gallery. It is the script I chose to use to display my showcase on my homepage.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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LightWindow

A more advanced Lightbox clone.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

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Viewer – mootools

Slideshow to display image galleries or page sections.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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Slimbox

Slimbox is a 4kb visual clone of the popular Lightbox JS v2.0 by Lokesh Dhakar, written using the ultra compact mootools framework.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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Revolver – Fast Image Rotation Engine

Revolver can be used as a clean, simple way to showcase a design portfolio, sketchbook, photoblog, or simple image gallery.
Requirements: PHP 4+

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ImageFlow

ImageFlow is an unobtrusive and user friendly JavaScript image gallery.
Requirements: PHP 4.3.2+ with the GD extension 2.0.1+

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BarackSlideshow

An elegant, lightweight slideshow script based on Obama’s homepage slideshow.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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SlideShow 2

Slideshow 2! is a javascript class for Mootools 1.2 to stream and animate the presentation of images on your website.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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Showcase

CoverFlow gallery like.
Requirements: Prototype

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PathFusion : multibox

Another lightbox clone that supports images, flash, video, mp3s, html.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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UvumiTools Gallery Plugin

If you’re sick of the overused Lightbox image viewer, bring something fresh and new to your web site with the UvumiTools Gallery.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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3D Curve Photo Gallery

3D Curve Flash Photo Gallery using Papervision3D and XML.
Requirements: Adobe Flash (version 9) is required to edit the FLA file.

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Stack Photo Gallery

Flash XML gallery built on Adobe Flash CS3 ActionScript 3.0.
Requirements: Adobe Flash (version 9) is required to edit the FLA file.

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SqueezeBox – Expandable Lightbox

SqueezeBox is an unobtrusive LightBox inspired overlay, for modal boxed content on your site. It’s a snap to show images but just as easy to use HTML elements, Ajax requests, iFrames, SWF movies and more.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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MediaBox

Using the MooTools javascript library, Mediabox lets you open flash, video, and html content in a floating “lightbox” style window.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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Space Gallery

Simple image gallery built with jQuery.
Requirements: jQuery

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Javascript Image Gallery Using Mootools (part 2)

HTML friendly Javascript image gallery using mootools.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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Image Gallery v1.0

Flash Image gallery. When you click a thumbnail, original image opens in a Lightbox like window.
Requirements: Flash

View Demo | Download

Circular Thumbnail Gallery

A circular thumbnail gallery.
Requirements: Adobe Flash (version 9) is required to edit the FLA file.

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Flash Gallery

Flash Gallery is a free application that allows you to create a slideshow on your website easy and fast.
Requirements: PHP (not requred if you work with Flickr)

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flashLightBoxInjector

flashLightBoxInjector is a PrototypeJS class that bridges the gap between Flash and Lightbox2.
Requirements: PrototypeJS

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Multiple Photo Gallery

Flash photo gallery for multiple categories powered by XML files.
Requirements: Adobe Flash (version 8 or higher) is required to edit the FLA file.

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Milkbox

Another lightbox clone, but this time is written for Mootools 1.2.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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FotoViewr

Web-based image gallery application which enables you to create 3D image galleries for your Flickr photos. They even provide you with the code to embed the gallery in your site or blog.
Requirements: Flickr account

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DhoniShow

Ever wanted an easy inline gallery on your website? Then DhoniShow is for you. Just throw some images into your HTML source and let JavaScript do the rest!
Requirements: Prototype 1.5+ and Script.aculo.us

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Zen Flash Gallery

Zen Flash Gallery combines simplicity and elegance. Minimalism goes together with functionality and does not distract the user from viewing of images, his main task.
Requirements: No special requirements

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Art Flash Gallery

Art Flash Gallery will organically blend with any design thanks to multiple appearance settings.
Requirements: No special requirements

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Slideroll Gallery AV

Gallery AV creates great-looking, customizable Flash photo and video galleries. Simply drag and drop your photos and videos onto the creator.
Compatibility: Windows & Mac OS X

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JSGallery

AJAX image gallery built with Mootools.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

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easyALBUM

A DOM photo Gallery solution that is browser friendly, keyboard friendly, bandwidth friendly and more…
Requirements: No Requirements

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Flash Photo Browser

Flash photo gallery very similar to Stack Photo Gallery in the list above.
Requirements: PHP, Flash Player 7+

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Phormer

Phormer is a PHP-Based PhotoGallery Manager application, that helps you to store, categorize and trim your photos on the web with various helpful features!
Requirements: PHP

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Polaroid Gallery

Opensource flash gallery. The script loads images and image titles dynamically from an external xml file or a flickr RSS feed. Then the script processes the data and creates an interactive flash gallery.
Requirements: Flickr account, Flash to edit the FLA file (Note from the author: The FLA file is not very well commented, and the parts that are is in Norwegian)

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Slideflow

An Ajax based slideshow inspired by Apple’s cover flow interface. The photos and titles are read from an XML file, and the thumbnails are pre-generated using Photoshop actions.
Requirements: Scriptaculous and Prototype

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ImageFlow

An iTunes CoverFlow style gallery.
Requirements: Flash (optional) to edit the FLA file

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FancyBox

FancyBox is a jQuery Lightbox Clone.
Requirements: jQuery

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Flash Photo Gallery

Flash Gallery is a FREE, simple photo gallery built in Macromedia Flash 2004, that uses XML files to store the information about which images to display.
Requirements: image editing program to create thumbnails and a text editor to edit the XML file.

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Control.Tabs

Control.Tabs attaches creates a tabbed interface from an unordered list of links/anchors that point to any elements on your page that have an id attribute. It can be use to display images.
Requirements: PrototypeJS

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Couloir Photo Gallery

This photo slideshow is a demonstration of Flash-like behavior implemented solely in Javascript, HTML, and CSS. The code is offered as-is — Couloir.org offers no technical support.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

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Flash Gallery Generator

A robust Flash photo gallery and slideshow.
Requirements: No special requirements

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Dynamic Image Gallery and Slideshow

This extremely lightweight JavaScript image gallery and slideshow script clocks in under 3kb packed and includes a number of cool features.
Requirements: Javascript

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Flickr Slideshow Generator

Flickr Slideshow Generator allows you to generate the HTML necessary to embed a custom Flickr Slideshow in your page or blog.
Requirements: Flickr Account

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FlickrShow

Flickrshow is a lightweight, cross-browser javascript slideshow, providing you with an easy way to display your Flickr images on your own website.
Requirements: Flickr Account

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flShow

This carousel can be used as a nice photo slideshow, an effective product showcase, a cool menu for your site, and much more.
Customization via XML file

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Highslide JS

Highslide JS is an open source JavaScript software, offering a Web 2.0 approach to popup windows. It streamlines the use of thumbnail images and HTML popups on web pages.
Requirements: some basic HTML knowledge is required to install Highslide

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GreyBox

GreyBox can be used to display websites, images and other content in a beautiful way.
Requirements: some basic HTML knowledge is required

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Showcase Slideshow With MooTools

A javascript tutorial showing how to make a showcase feature slideshow for your home page with MooTools.
Requirements: MooTools v1.2

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slideViewer

slideViewer is a lightweight (1.5Kb) jQuery plugin wich allows to instantly create an image gallery by writing just few lines of HTML such as an unordered list of images.
Requirements: jQuery 1.2.1 and the jQuery easing.1.2 plugin

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jQuery virtual tour

This is an extension to the simple panorama viewer that allows you to play a little bit more with jQuery by adding interactivity to transform some panoramic views into a virtual tour!
Requirements: jQuery

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CrossSlide

CrossSlide is a jQuery plugin that implements in Javascript some common slide-show animations, traditionally only available to the web developer via Adobe Flash^TM or other proprietary plugins.
Requirements: jQuery

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Pamoorama

Pamoorama is a simple script that aims at spicing up your panoramic image a little bit.
Requirements: Mootools v1.11

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jCarousel

jCarousel is a jQuery plugin for controlling a list of items in horizontal or vertical order.
Requirements: jQuery v1.2.1

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PictureSlides

instant.js 2.2 allows you to add an instant picture effect (including tilt) to images on your webpages.
Requirements: jQuery v1.2.1

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instant.JS

slided.js allows you to add slide frames and shadow to images on your webpages.
Requirements: no requirements

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slided.JS

slided.js allows you to add slide frames and shadow to images on your webpages.
Requirements: no requirements

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Airtight Interactive SimpleViewer

SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewing application.
Requirements: text editor and image editing software / Picasa software / For pro version: Flash 8+ to edit the FLA file.

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Airtight Interactive TiltViewer

Flash image viewing application in 3D style.
Requirements: text editor and image editing software / Picasa software / For pro version: Flash 8+ to edit the FLA file.

Visit »

Airtight Interactive PostcardViewer

PostcardViewer is a simple flash-based image gallery from Airtight Interactive.
Requirements: text editor and image editing software / Picasa software / For pro version: Flash 8+ to edit the FLA file.

Visit »

Airtight Interactive AutoViewer

AutoViewer is designed to display a linear sequence of images and captions.
Requirements: text editor and image editing software / Picasa software / For pro version: Flash 8+ to edit the FLA file.

Visit »

Flash Page Flip Photo Gallery template for Picasa

This template is based on the free version of the FlashPageFlip flash engine on www.flashpageflip.com.
Requirements: Picasa Software

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Search-This Photo Viewer

The Photo Viewer uses both Flash and XML. All data is stored within an XML file making it easy to make modifications and update.
Requirements: No special requirements

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Agile Gallery – Flash Version

The Flash version of AgileGallery is a free Flash photo gallery that rips through the XML output from Picasa (a free download from google) and generates the paging and thumbnails and displays the full sized photos along with any description entered in Picasa. It also includes a slideshow feature.
Requirements: Picasa, Flash Player to view the gallery

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FIG – Flash Image Gallery

The FIG is a gallery application that can be used by anyone to display multiple galleries of photos, artwork, or other pictures with descriptions.
Requirements: no server-side language required

Visit »

WS-Slideshow

Flash based slideshow for everyone.
Requirements: Flash Player Plugin Version 9.0.28 or later

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ShadowBox.js

Shadowbox is an online media viewer application that supports all of the web’s most popular media publishing formats.
Requirements: Javascript

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Zoomy.js

Zoomy.js is a Prototype class that allows you to easily create image gallery: the script make simple magnification of images with customizable options, as popup and overlaying boxes.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

Visit »

Canvas Gallery with reflections (Beta)

Canvas gallery with thumb reflection. Based oin Prototype and reflection.js. Beta version.
Requirements: Prototype

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jQuery Image Gallery

A jQuery image Gallery.
Requirements: jQuery

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Thumbnoo

Thumbnoo, displays thumbnails with an option to enlarge them.
Requirements: no requirement

Visit »

Flowplayer – Scrollable

While this script is mainly used to embed videos on your site, you can also use it to display images in a Coda-like fashion.
Requirements: jQuery

Visit »

mooCicle

Sample javascript gallery for motools.
Requirements: Mootools v1.11

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Interface Slideshow

Slideshow from Interface.
Requirements: jQuery

Visit Demo | Download

SexyLightBox

SexyLightBox is another Lightbox clone for Mootools.
Requirements: Mootools v1.2

Visit »

Auto-Generating Photo Gallery

Automatically generate a Photo Gallery from a directory of images.
Requirements: PHP, jQuery, FancyBox plugin

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qGallery (Beta)

qGallery is a simple to use prototype based gallery script. This is still a beta version and it doesn’t work in IE yet!!!. I hope the author will be able to comment about the future of qGallery.
Requirements: PHP, jQuery, FancyBox plugin

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Protoflow

ProtoFlow is a coverflow effect written in Javascript. It uses Reflection.js to do all the image reflections.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

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PrettyPhoto

PrettyPhoto is a jQuery lightbox clone.
Requirements: jQuery

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Photo Slider

Slideshow image gallery.
Requirements: jQuery, photoslider.js

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jQuery Cycle Plugin

Another Slideshow.
Requirements: jQuery

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jqGalScroll v2.1

jqGalScroll takes list of images and creates a smooth scrolling photo gallery scrolling vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.
Requirements: jQuery

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Image/Photo Gallery Viewer using jQuery

The jQuery jqGalView Plugin allows you to take a grouping of images and turn it into an flash-like image/photo gallery.
Requirements: jQuery

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Suckerfish HoverLightbox Redux

Redux combines the suckerfish dropdown menu with Lightbox to enlarge the image.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

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Lightbox 2

This list would not be complete without the great Lightbox image gallery that has inspired so many of us. For those who still don’t know it, Lightbox is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page.
Requirements: Prototype & Scriptaculous

Visit »

The Lightbox Clones Matrix

This is not another photo gallery but a comprehensive list of all the lightbox clones for jQuery, Prototype & Scriptaculous, Mootools, YUI…

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jQuery.popeye – an inline lightbox alternative

jQuery.popeye degrades gracefully into a scrollable list of thumbnails which link to an enlarged version.

Visit »

Summary

I hope you enjoyed reviewing this list and hope you discovered something new that you can use for your next web project. Please, if you know another sensational and free photo/image gallery that you would like to share with us, leave a comment!

// Remove pages from search
function mySearchPostsFilter($query)
{
if ($query->is_search)
{
$query->set('cat','12,14,16,17,18'); // your category IDs
}
return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts','mySearchPostsFilter');

That’s it! Replace the posts category IDs (’12,14,16,17,18′) by your owns and it should work.

1- Change the feed URL

The most common and maybe easier way to do so is to change your feed structure. In the default WordPress theme, the RSS link (in footer.php) is:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>">Entries (RSS)</a>

You can exclude any category by appending a query string to the feed URL, like this:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/feed?cat=-3&cat=-12">Entries (RSS)</a>

‘12‘ in this example is your category ID. In older version of WordPress, the category IDs were displayed in Manage -> Categories, next to category name. However, in WordPress 2.5+, the WordPress Gurus removed this feature (only god knows why). To identify the category ID, mouseover the category name to see its ID in the status bar of your browser. Otherwise, you can install Reveal IDs for WP Admin 2.5 plugin to reveal the post, page and category IDs.

A more common PHP structure might work as well:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/feed=rss2&cat=-3,-12">Entries (RSS)</a>

If you are using RSS2, your code will be:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/feed=rss2&cat=-3&cat=-12">Entries (RSS 2)</a>

Depending on your permalink structure, you might need to add index.php to your feed url:

<a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/index.php?feed=rss2&cat=-5">Entries (RSS 2)</a>

2- Exclude categories in your template’s functions.php file

Jangro explains how to exclude a category from feed by adding a few lines of code to the template’s functions.php file:

function myFeedExcluder($query) {
 if ($query->is_feed) {
   $query->set('cat','-12');
 }
return $query;
}
 
add_filter('pre_get_posts','myFeedExcluder');

This code will keep the category ID=”12″ out of the feed. If you want to exclude more than one category, put them in separated by commas ‘-12,-25,-33′.

3- Add a plugin to WordPress

If you are not into coding, you can install the Ultimate Category Excluder plugin. It allows to exclude any categories from your front page, archives, and feeds. Once you installed it, go to the Category Exclusion page in your admin panel to exclude a category by selecting one. That is that easy.

You can also install the Stealth Publish plugin to exclude a specific post from being published in feeds.

4- Exclude category from RSS feeds in FeedBurner

If like me you are using FeedBurner, go to dashboard and click “Edit Feed Details”. In the field “Original Feed”, enter the feed URL with the categories you want to exclude as explained in first step above.

Conclusion

The methods described above would be interesting to implement if you write about two (or more) different topics on your site. Let’s say you write about Linux (which would be ID=”1″ in our example below) and Windows (ID=”2″). Some of your readers might want to read your Linux articles but not the Windows ones, and vice-versa. Thus, you could create two feed links, the first one excluding Windows feeds for your Linux reader and the second one the Linux feeds:

<a href="http://yourdomain.com/feed?cat=-2">Subscribe to Linux Feed</a>
<a href="http://yourdomain.com/feed?cat=-1">Subscribe to Windows Feed</a>

Preview / Download

Installation

• Unzip the file.
• Upload the files and folders to your server.
• Modify code as you wish.

Usage

Open index.php in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) and change email line 164:

$to = 'yourname@domain.com';

- Designers struggle to create a theme, install the CMS, create a database, change the settings, upgrade to the newest CMS version, teach the client to use it…

- Clients haven’t got a clue about using a CMS and complain about the cost.

Both sides are unhappy!

What’s the solution?

My employer ask me few days ago: “I want something simple to implement and easily editable by anyone. Even a ten years old kid should be able to edit his site. Do you know something?”

I answered: “Yep! CushyCMS”

CushyCMS is the perfect solution for most of small businesses or individuals sites. Designers code their sites as they normally do in their web editor but add an extra class name “cushycms” to each of their editable elements. Clients/editors edit the content in an easy to use interface right from their browsers. It can’t be easier! And it only takes 5 minutes to set it up.

Don’t believe me?

Read the tutorial below and tell me if you still disagree!

Step 1: Add a new site

After you registered, add a new site to CushyCMS. You will be prompted to enter your site url, and FTP details:

Step 2: Control Panel

When you are done, you will be redirected to the control panel. You can Assign a new page or add new editors to site:

At the bottom, CushyCMS gives some basic instructions:

You first need to let Cushy know what parts of your page are editable. You do this by adding a class name of cushycms to each of your editable elements. Example:

Step 3: Assign a new page

In “Sites & Pages” click on “Assign page to site…”. You will be redirected to a new page:

Choose a page from the list and give it a name. Click “Assign page”.

Step 4: Class name cushycms

Open your page in your web editor and add the the class name cushycms to your editable elements (DIV, p, h1, h2…):

<h1 class="cushycms">Just 4 simple steps...<br />...to turn a static webpage into a powerful sales tool.</h1>
<div class="cushycms">
<h2>1.Contact Us</h2>
<p>The first step in your process will be to contact our company. We will discuss your specific ideas and needs, match them with our product offerings and outline a timeframe for completion. During this time we will analyze and go over variations in your script design, budgetary matters and offer guidance so that your project will be excitement with anticipation.</p>
</div>

Upload the new page to your server and go back to your browser.

Step 5: Edit Content

In control panel, in the section “Sites & Pages”, click on the page you want to edit. It will open the visual editor:

Edit your page and save your changes. Click “View live page”. The page should reflects your changes.

Links

Visit Site »

Still not convinced? Watch the video

How to use Gravatar on your site

The avatar feature is by default supported in WordPress 2.5+. Log into WordPress and click Settings then Discussion. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to Avatar Display and select Show avatars. Click Save changes. This will turn on avatars on your site.

If you don’t have a Gravatar yet, you will need to create one here ». When you sign up to Gravatar, enter the email address you usually use to leave comments on sites and forum.

Change default avatar

If you open the default WordPress theme and open comment.php (/wp-content/themes/default/) in a text editor you can see this line:

<?php echo get_avatar( $comment, 32 ); ?>

This code displays the gravatar of the commenter on your posts. ’32′ is the size of your image in pixels.

If commenter didn’t sign up to Gravatar, the default avatar will be displayed. Here’s an example:

Now let’s see how to change the default avatar by your own image. In my case, I chose to use my logo as my default avatar (good for branding). First, create an image 32×32 and save it into your image folder (e.g. /wp-content/themes/default/images/). Now change the default code line above by this one:

<?php
    $urlHome = get_option('home');
    echo get_avatar( $comment, $size='32', $default = $urlHome . '/wp-content/themes/default/images/avatar.jpg' );
?>

The first line will get the domain name url of your site (e.g. http://yoursite.com). The second one ($default) will retrieve the avatar image from your folder image. Change the url path to your image in the line above (/wp-content/themes/default/images/avatar.jpg).

And now a full example:

<li <?php echo $oddcomment; ?>id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">
   <?php
       $urlHome = get_option('home');
       echo get_avatar( $comment, $size='32', $default = $urlHome . '/wp-content/themes/default/images/avatar.jpg' );
   ?>
   <cite><?php comment_author_link() ?></cite> Says:
   <?php if ($comment->comment_approved == '0') : ?>
   <em>Your comment is awaiting moderation.</em>
   <?php endif; ?>
 
   <small class="commentmetadata"><a href="#comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>" title="">
   <?php comment_date('F jS, Y') ?> at <?php comment_time() ?></a> 
   <?php edit_comment_link('edit','&nbsp;&nbsp;',''); ?></small>
   <?php comment_text() ?>
</li>

Style your avatar

Next step will be to style your avatar to make it look more like a photograph. Open style.css in your text editor or navigate to the dashboard and click Design then Theme Editor. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Stylesheet (style.css) in your right sidebar. This will open style.css in the theme editor. Find “.commentlist li .avatar” in your stylesheet. If it doesn’t exist, add the code below after “.commentlist li”:

.commentlist li .avatar {
	float: left;
	border: 1px solid #EEEEEE;
	padding: 2px;
	background: #FFFFFF;
	margin-right: 7px;
}

This will display the avatar on the left of the commenter name and add a border to it.

The end result:

Done!

Avatars should be enabled on your site now. But if you run into a problem, you can check the WordPress Gravatar documentation or leave me a comment and I will try to do my best to help you.

[tags]wordpress, gravatar, avatar, tutorial[/tags]

LightForm is now a WordPress plugin (only works with latest WordPress v2.5.1). The plugin is called WP-Lightform and can be downloaded here. Thanks to Alex Rogers for the good work.

View A Demo

Preview / Download

Use of this contact form is free of charge but the copyright notes in the footer must remain intact.
I would appreciate if you send me the URI of your site if you use LightForm.

Changelog:

Features:

• Form Validation using FormCheck2.
• Spam Check.
• Display user IP, user agent and referrer in the message.
• Display a dialog box when message sent succesfully.
• Inputs and textareas are styled with NiceForms.
• Works in the most recent browsers (IE6+, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Netscape).

Installation:

1. Download and unzip the file
2. Copy all the files to your root Directory

Usage:

Open index.php in your web editor (e.g. Notepad) and change the email address line 55:
$to = 'yourname@domain.com';

License:

The CSS, XHTML, PHP and design is released under Creative Commons Attribution v2.5.

FormCheck2 is released under the MIT license.

NiceForms is released under no specific license. You are free to use and modify but you must provide credits to the author.

Caution

Form validation won’t work anymore if users disable Javascript.

EasyPHP is a complete software package including an Apache server, a MySQL database, a fully PHP execution, as well as easy development tools for your web site or your applications.

Ok, but what is it for?

Well, well! EasyPHP is a software allowing the use of PHP and Databases directly from your computer. If you make your own websites you may have noticed you can’t preview your PHP pages from your browser. That’s why you need to have a software such as EasyPHP to do the job.

Also, it is faster to preview your work from your computer (localhost) than from your webserver.

Let’s now see how to use EasyPHP:

1. First of all, you will need to download it. So go to visit http://www.easyphp.org and come back to read this post once you are done.
2. Install it in Program Files.
3. Enter in your new created directory (for example: C:\Program Files\EasyPHP2.0) and pay attention to the /www and /mysql/data directories. The first one is used to store your web projects and the second for your databases.
4. Create a new folder (for example: MyProject) in /www and put your full website (index.html, about.html, contact.php, images, CSS, JS and so on) into it.
5. Launch EasyPHP. A window should open as shown on this image:



Tip: EasyPHP will go to your system tray when you minimize it.

6. Now open your browser and enter localhost or http://localhost or 127.0.0.1 (your browser won’t make the difference). Here is a snapshot of what you should get:

Now, all you have to do is to select your project to preview your PHP pages from you browser. That’s it!

A word about MySQL in EasyPHP:

Before concluding this post, I would like to say a few words about using MySQL with EasyPHP. If you want to test a CMS (Content Management System), E-commerce or a Blog (WordPress…)… on your computer you will first need to create a database.

All you need to do is to create a new folder in C:\Program Files\EasyPHP2.0\mysql\data (for example you could name it as db_myProject) and when prompted during the installation fill as shown below (I took as example a WordPress Configuration):

<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'db_myProject');    // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'root');     // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', ''); // ...and password. Leave it blank if you are using EasyPHP!!
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');    // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
 
(...)
?>

In some cases, you may be prompted to change some variables in the php.ini file (for wikis or E-commerce mostly). Go to your system tray and right-button click on the EasyPHP icon and pick Configuration/php. The php.ini file will open in Notebook. Edit the variables, save your file and close it. Then restart EasyPHP to apply the changes.

That’s it for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed! If you have any question, comment this post and I will do my best to help you.

This contact form will return a validation message if the message was sent succesfully.
It will also display an error message if you try to send an empty message or if the e-mail is invalid.

Preview / Download

There are only two scripts for this simple contact form:

• contact.php : the PHP contact form itself (contact.php)
• style.css : the CSS page (style.css) to control the layout of the page