First, we need to unregister a WordPress core filter and register our own slightly modified version.

Add the following lines of code to your plugin file or functions.php file.

remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'custom_trim_excerpt');

Next we copy and paste the function “wp_trim_excerpt” from “wp-includes/formatting.php” into our file and rename it to “custom_trim_excerpt”.

Now just comment out the line that calls “strip_shortcodes” so it looks like the code below.

function custom_trim_excerpt($text = '')
{
	$raw_excerpt = $text;
	if ( '' == $text ) {
		$text = get_the_content('');
 
		//$text = strip_shortcodes( $text );
 
		$text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
		$text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);
		$excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', 55);
		$excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', ' ' . '[...]');
		$text = wp_trim_words( $text, $excerpt_length, $excerpt_more );
	}
	return apply_filters('wp_trim_excerpt', $text, $raw_excerpt);
}

The last step is to make sure all the excerpts (manual and automatic) are run through the “do_shortcode” function. Add the line below and you are good to go!

add_filter('get_the_excerpt','do_shortcode');

The desired effect can be achieved using the following process.

First, duplicate the your default loop template file, usually index.php and rename it to blog-page.php

At the top of this file, insert this comment so that any static page can use this template file by setting the template drop down by editing the page in the WordPress dashboard.

<?php
 
 	/*  	Template Name: Blog Page    */
 
?>

Next set up an alternate post query in the template file by creating a new instance of WP_Query. This is a better approach than calling query_posts(), since query_posts() alters the global query variables, which will have some undesirable results( e.g. your “blog” page won’t get the current-menu-item class applied to it in the navigation, so the link item can’t be highlighted).

Use the code below to create a new instance of WP_Query. Pass in the following default query vars so that post paging works correctly. It might also be helpful to run your alternate query variables through a filter, so you can hook into this query in a plugin or in the functions.php file and further customize it.

<?php 
 
global $paged; 
$alternate_blog_query_vars = apply_filters(
 	'alternate_blog_query_vars',
 	array(
 		'posts_per_page'=>get_option('posts_per_page'),
		'paged'=>$paged
	)
);
 
$alternate_query = new WP_Query($alternate_blog_query_vars);
 
?>

Next, alter the loop functions to use the $alternate_query instead of the main query. Look for the calls to have_posts(), and the_post(), and change them so it looks like this:

<?php 
 
if ($alternate_query->have_posts()) :
 
	while ($alternate_query->have_posts()) : $alternate_query->the_post();
 
		<!-- loop code goes in here -->
 
	endwhile;
endif;
 
?>

That should just about do it. You can now set any page in your WordPress website to display the posts that would normally appear only only the home page. You can also use the filter ‘alternate_blog_query_vars’ to modify the posts that are shown on these pages.

The only problem I ran into with this approach is that the wp-paginate plugin wouldn’t recognize that this post needed to be paginated, because it only considers the main loop when it is rendering its pagination buttons. I fixed this by temporarily making my custom query the main query, then resetting it once the pagination was rendered so that nothing would break further down in the code.

<?php
 
  if(function_exists('wp_paginate')) {
 	global $wp_query;
  	$tmp_query = $wp_query; 
	$wp_query = $alternate_query;	
	wp_paginate();
	$wp_query = $tmp_query;
 }  
 
?>

Easy as pie!

• Presentation Slides – (keynote slides, pdf)
• Make My Blog Honest Plugin Page
• Advanced PHP by George Shlossnagle

Here is a simple hack that you can add to your themes functions.php file, or build into your plug-in in order to identify when a “Custom Link” page is active, and add the “current-menu-item” class.

add_filter('nav_menu_css_class', 'AddCurrentMenuItemClass',1,2);
 
function AddCurrentMenuItemClass($classes,$item)
{
$link = site_url().$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
if(strpos($link, $item->url) !== false)
{
$classes[] = 'current-menu-item';
}
return $classes;
}

If you don’t want the menu item to get the current-menu-item class when viewing a sub-page, use the following:

add_filter('nav_menu_css_class', 'AddCurrentMenuItemClass',1,2);
 
function AddCurrentMenuItemClass($classes,$item)
{
$link = site_url().$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
if(strcmp($link, $item->url) == 0)
{
$classes[] = 'current-menu-item';
}
return $classes;
}

Make sure the url for the Custom Link matches the format of the $link variable. That is to say, it should be the full site_url (you can find out this value by looking at Settings > General in the WordPress Dashboard) followed by your archive page slug.

From now until August 24th you can register and use the code SPEAKERS11 for a 50% discount. Learn more at http://word11.com

Once I had my graphic designed, I thought I’d invoke a little jQuery to give it some pizzaz. I banged out the script in a few minutes and it was good to go. We launched the site, hit Facebook, Twitter and the Aurora Importing blog and waited for the traffic to roll in.

It took some time for us to get our first sign ups. In fact on the first day, the form sat completely untouched. If we were to run this contest again, I think I would avoid starting off the contest at an even number. When you see “100 samples available”, people tend to assume the counter is simply non functional, rather than believe they are actually the first person to sign up. It’s also scary being the first person through the door. What if you get ripped off? What if you’re the only one that falls for it?

On day two John did some digging and found some interesting forums, twitter accounts and deal websites to mention the contest too. Not long after I started seeing the counter tick down to zero, a within about an hour and a half, it was all over!

I had a look at my jQuery code, and seeing that rest of the week wasn’t looking to busy, I set off inspired to write my first legit jQuery plugin. I ‘plugged in’ (to borrow a term from “The Social Network”), and before I knew it, it was all done!

If you’ve got a minute, check out flipCounter, BloggingSquared’s first jQuery plugin, and let us know what you think!

Building a landing page is a lot of fun.You’re afforded the flexibility of not having to build the page within the architecture of the parent page, so you can focus on making the page clean, concise and functional. Large images, prominent calls to action and a clear information architecture are all friends of the landing page.

The Aurora Espresso Coffee landing page is part of a year long strategy that we’ve developed with Aurora Importing, designed to help them build a strong online community of loyal customers who share a passion for quality food products. Check out the page and let us know what you think.

This plugin covers the following topics:

• Creating a Plugin within a class structure to better encapsulate your plugin and avoid conflicts with other plugins
• Creating actions and filters
• Creating an install script that runs on plugin activation and deactivation, and also performing the important step of removing all traces of your plugin upon deletion.
• Internationalizing your plugin so that it can be translated by the WordPress community, and also how to create language files
• Creating administration pages, registering settings, saving settings, properly loading JavaScript and CSS into admin pages, adding a link to the plugins settings page on the plugin activation page.
• Using action and filters
• Executing actions with and without Ajax from user-facing and admin-facing pages in a clean consistent manner.
• How to load Ajax Elements
• Registering and creating a WordPress 3.0 multi-widget
• Interacting with the database, proper input sanitization
• Returning error messages to the user with the WP_Error object

Please check out the plugin and let me know if you find it helpful, or if you can think of ways in which it can be improved.

Download the B2Template Plugin 2.0 from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

To fix this issue, I’ve thrown together a quick widget that acts as a wrapper for WordPress’ built-in widget, but lets you set a different link category for each language you have setup using WPML. I hope you find this useful.

To install, copy and paste this into your theme’s function.php file or insert code into a file in the plugins directory.

* NOTE – This code may be out of date. Please try commenter Loic’s solution here if the code below does not work properly.

* NOTE – Commenter Uli has also improved this plugin and extended it in a similar way to translate RSS Feeds. Visit barcelonabudget.es for more info.

add_action('widgets_init',  array('LinkTranslationWidget','register_widget'));
 
class LinkTranslationWidget extends WP_Widget
{
 
	function LinkTranslationWidget() {
 
		/* Widget settings. */
		$widget_ops = array( 'classname' => 'LinkTranslationWidget', 'description' => __('This widget allows you to set different link categories to display based on a language setting.', $this->plugin_name) );
 
		/* Widget control settings. */
 
		/* Create the widget. */
		$this->WP_Widget( 'LinkTranslationWidget', __('WPML Links'), $widget_ops );
 
	}
 
	function register_widget()
	{
		register_widget('LinkTranslationWidget');
	}
 
	function widget( $args, $instance ) {
 
		global $sitepress;
 
		if(class_exists('WP_Widget_Links')) {
 
			$link_widget = new WP_Widget_Links();
 
			if(isset($sitepress))
			{
 
				$lang = $sitepress->get_current_language();
				$instance['category'] = $instance[$lang.'_category'];
				$link_widget->widget($args, $instance);
 
			}
 
		}
 
	}
 
	function update($new_instance, $old_instance) {
 
		$new_instance = (array) $new_instance;
		$instance = array( 'images' => 0, 'name' => 0, 'description' => 0, 'rating' => 0);
		foreach ( $instance as $field => $val ) {
			if ( isset($new_instance[$field]) )
				$instance[$field] = 1;
		}
 
		$langs = $this->GetLangs();
		foreach($langs as $lang=>$lang_id)
		{
			$instance[$lang.'_category'] = intval($new_instance[$lang.'_category']);
		}
 
		return $instance;
 
	}
 
	function form($instance) {
 
		$settings = $this->GetSettings();
		$langs = $this->GetLangs();
 
		$instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, $settings );
 
		$link_cats = get_terms( 'link_category');
 
		foreach($langs as $lang=>$lang_id)
		{
			echo '
 
<label for="'. $this-&gt;get_field_id($lang.'_category').'">'. __('Select Link Category') . ' (' .$lang.'): </label>';
			echo '
<select id="'. $this-&gt;get_field_id($lang.'_category').'" name="'. $this-&gt;get_field_name($lang.'_category').'">';
			foreach ( $link_cats as $link_cat ) {
 
				echo '
<option value="' . intval($link_cat-&gt;term_id) . '">term_id == $instance[$lang.'_category'] ? ' selected="selected"' : '' )
				. '&gt;' . $link_cat-&gt;name . "</option>
 
\n";
			}
			echo '</select>
 
';
 
		}
		?&gt;
<input class="checkbox" type="checkbox" /> id="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_id('images'); ?&gt;" name="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_name('images'); ?&gt;" /&gt;
		<label for="&lt;?php echo $this-&gt;get_field_id('images'); ?&gt;"><!--?php _e('Show Link Image'); ?--></label>
<input class="checkbox" type="checkbox" /> id="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_id('name'); ?&gt;" name="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_name('name'); ?&gt;" /&gt;
		<label for="&lt;?php echo $this-&gt;get_field_id('name'); ?&gt;"><!--?php _e('Show Link Name'); ?--></label>
<input class="checkbox" type="checkbox" /> id="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_id('description'); ?&gt;" name="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_name('description'); ?&gt;" /&gt;
		<label for="&lt;?php echo $this-&gt;get_field_id('description'); ?&gt;"><!--?php _e('Show Link Description'); ?--></label>
<input class="checkbox" type="checkbox" /> id="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_id('rating'); ?&gt;" name="<!--?php echo $this--->get_field_name('rating'); ?&gt;" /&gt;
		<label for="&lt;?php echo $this-&gt;get_field_id('rating'); ?&gt;"><!--?php _e('Show Link Rating'); ?--></label>
 
		<!--?php 	} 	function GetLangs() 	{ 		global $sitepress_settings; 		$langs = $sitepress_settings['default_categories']; 		return $langs; 	} 	function GetSettings() 	{ 		$settings = array(); 		$settings['images'] = true; 		$settings['name'] = true; 		$settings['description'] = false; 		$settings['rating'] = false; 		$langs = $this--->GetLangs();
		foreach($langs as $lang=&gt;$lang_id)
		{
			$settings[$lang.'_category'] = '';
		}
		return $settings;
	}
 
}