English Mike

Have you ever slaved over the formatting of particularly tricky blog post then forgotten how you did it?  Ever gone back and edited an old post to hunt down the fiddly HTML you wrote so you can use it again in a new post?  Well, I have, and I just found out something that makes the whole process easier and quicker.

Continue reading “WordPress Quick Tips #4:
Formatting Your Posts the Easy Way” »

Are you thinking of using a plugin that uses shortcodes? (Shortcodes are tags in square brackets like [az-index id="1"] that some plugins use to embed content into posts and pages.)  Do you want to be able to use a shortcode in your blog’s sidebar instead of your post or page?

Well, if the answer to both those questions is “Yes” then you have come to the right place!

Continue reading “WordPress Quick Tips #3:
Adding a Shortcode to a Sidebar Widget” »

This tip similar to Tip #1 in that it will help you add HTML styling to parts of your blog that the usual HTML styling doesn’t reach! Last time it was post headings, this time we’re targeting your blog’s tagline.

While it’s perfectly possible to style your blog’s tagline using a CSS stylesheet, that method only allows you to modify the styling of the whole tagline. If you want embolden one word, or italicize one phrase, then you’re out of luck. If you try adding <strong> or <em> tags, they just appear in the tagline. So, what to do?

Well, the solution is a little bit more involved than last time, which is why I’ve designated this article for tweakers as opposed to regular bloggers, but in most cases it only requires a one line change to your theme’s header file to do it.

So, if you’re ready, let’s go…

Continue reading “WordPress Quick Tips #2:
Embedding HTML in Blog Taglines” »

Did you know that you can embed HTML tags in the titles of your posts? I didn’t until I wanted to create a two-line title the other day. But now, after my “D’oh” moment, I suspect I might be making frequent use of this little feature.

For example, the title of this post has two lines and italic text. The HTML I used is as follows:

Just remember that your permalink (the URL of your post) may look a bit screwy if you don’t edit out the HTML. This is what WordPress did to the permalink of this post:

The HTML brackets are removed but the tags themselves remain, mangling the text. So don’t forget to tidy up your permalinks before publishing your HTML-enhanced titles.