Help with php coding please

[Ian J]

I am struggling along with my Wordpress blog and am slowly but surely getting there. I am hamstrung by the fact that whilst I can muddle through simple html I don't understand php at all.

I have a problem with one of the sidebars as it includes "Popular Tags" which I quite like but I don't like the way that the more a tag has been used the larger the tag appears in the sidebar. This is helped by the fact that the most used tag is four words totalling about 40 characters and the tag is so large that it's off the page.

I am attaching the coding for the sidebar in the hope that making the tags all the same size is something fairly simple and I have coloured in red the section that I think is relevant although I may be miles out.

<div class="sidebar last"><!--Sidebar Right -->
<div id="sub_feed">
<a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">
<img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/subscribe180x40.jpg"></a><!-- Enter Your Feed URL Here -->
</div>
<form method="get" id="searchform" action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/">
<div class="box"><!--search-->
<h3>Search</h3>
<div class="row">
<input type="text" value="<?php the_search_query(); ?>" class="search" name="s" id="s" size="20" />
<input type="image" id="submit" src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/go.gif" value="submit" class="submit" />
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div class="cap"></div>
</div><!--/Search box-->
</form>
<div class="box" id="subscribe"> <!--subscriber-->
<h3>Subscribe</h3>
<ul>
<li id="s-yahoo"><a href="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">Yahoo</a></li>
<li id="s-google"><a href="http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">Google</a></li>
<li id="s-bloglines"><a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">Bloglines</a></li>
<li id="s-newsgator"><a href="http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">newsgator</a></li>
<li id="s-rss"><a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">RSS</a></li>
</ul>
<!-- Uncomment Below Code for Email Base Subscription -->
<!--<div class="box" id="mailinglist">
<h4>Subscribe By Email</h4>
<form id='mailinglist_form' method="post" action="">
<input type="text" name="email" value="" class="email" />
<input type="image" src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/add.gif" value="Sign Up" name="email-button" />
</form>
</div> -->
<div class="cap"></div>
</div><!--/Subscribe box-->
<div class="box">
<h3>Categories</h3>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_categories('show_count=1&title_li='); ?>
</ul>
<div class="cap"></div>
</div><!--/Catagory box -->
<div class="button" id="bookmark">
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php" onclick="window.open('http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?wt=nw&pub=deannab&url='+encodeURIComp onent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent( document.title), 'addthis', 'scrollbars=yes,menubar=no,width=620,height=520,re sizable=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,status=no,scree nX=200,screenY=100,left=200,top=100'); return false;" title="Bookmark using any bookmark manager!" target="_blank">Bookmark</a>
</div><!--/bookmark-->
<!-- Widgetized right sidebar -->
<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')
|| !dynamic_sidebar('right_sidebar') ) : ?>
<?php endif; ?>
<div class="box" id="tagcloud">
<h3>Popular Tags</h3>
<ul>
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=18&number=30&orde rby=count&order=DESC'); ?>
</ul>
<div class="cap"></div>
</div><!--/tagcloud box-->
<div class="box" id="archives"> <h3>Archives</h3>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
</ul>
<div class="cap"></div>
</div><!--/archive box-->
</div><!--/sidebar-->

[RichardK]

I don't know php, but I'd try this:
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=8&number=30&order by=count&order=DESC'); ?>

[Ian J]

Richard - it is rather obvious when you look closely at it. Thanks very much as it worked a treat.

The only other problem that I would like to address is that even with the tags now all the same size one or two are still too long for the sidebar and stick out of the right had side rather than wrap round. If there is no cure for that I suppose I can live with it.

Thanks again

[Paul_HDLover]

Ian where are you getting the popular tags values from? I cant see them in the above code?

[Ian J]

I haven't a clue as I don't understand php or SQL at all but they are definitely appearing on the blog sidebar

[Paul_HDLover]

linky?

[WibXL]

Originally Posted by Paul_HDLover

Ian where are you getting the popular tags values from? I cant see them in the above code?

The tag values are generated by a separate plugin which then displays them in the sidebar using the code in red.

[WibXL]

Originally Posted by Ian J

The only other problem that I would like to address is that even with the tags now all the same size one or two are still too long for the sidebar and stick out of the right had side rather than wrap round. If there is no cure for that I suppose I can live with it.

If you can't find out how to do it with the plugin or code itself and depending on the theme used you may be able to increase the width of the sidebar slightly to make the text fit but this may throw your sites design out of whack and if images are used for the sidebar it won't look too good.

The width of the sidebar is probably contained in style.css so have a look in there if you want to give it a try and it'll be in the sidebar section saying something like width:180px;

EDIT: Failing that you could just install a different tag cloud generator from the Wordpress plugins directory.

[Ian J]

Thanks Wib. I did take your suggestion and looked at alternative plugins but they all looked a bit complicated so I just edited the sidebar and removed all of the coding for the tags so now it doesn't appear at all which doesn't really worry me.

[WibXL]

No problem, was it the plugins themselves that looked complicated or installing them as there is another plugin that will automate the process for you and to install it is just a matter of unzipping it and then uploading it to your plugins folder.

[Ian J]

I can manage to install plugins but sometimes I get defeated by setting them up afterwards as I don't understand the instructions. I've installed a couple of interesting looking plugins so far that I can't get to work as I don't understand the setup options.

Still, it's good fun learning

[WibXL]

Since setting up my new blog I've been trying to stick to plugins that come with a built in sidebar widget as you don't need to edit any code yourself but some of the instructions can be lacking in places. I tend to just mess about with any options that I don't understand to see what they do and hope that I don't break anything in the process.

If you're going to take that approach though backing up your site first would be a good idea but most of the time any problems can be solved simply by deleting the messed up plugins folder.

It'd be nice of all of the plugin settings pages were in the same place as at the moment they seem to be everywhere which doesn't help.

[Ian J]

I'm stuck again.

I would like a facility that shows if there are any comments for each blog post and preferably that you can click on to take you to view them.

At the moment there is no way of knowing if there are any comments or not for a given post unless you click the header to be taken to that page. I am worried that people will stop visiting and posting comments if they think that they are not appearing.

[signs]

Originally Posted by Ian J

I'm stuck again.

I would like a facility that shows if there are any comments for each blog post and preferably that you can click on to take you to view them.

At the moment there is no way of knowing if there are any comments or not for a given post unless you click the header to be taken to that page. I am worried that people will stop visiting and posting comments if they think that they are not appearing.

Pm Bob (Mr incredible) he's hot on this i believe

[WibXL]

Originally Posted by Ian J

I'm stuck again.

I would like a facility that shows if there are any comments for each blog post and preferably that you can click on to take you to view them.

At the moment there is no way of knowing if there are any comments or not for a given post unless you click the header to be taken to that page. I am worried that people will stop visiting and posting comments if they think that they are not appearing.

You could use a theme that already has the facility built in, I use Aerodrome from here and it works pretty well for that. Or you could use the recent comment widget that's built in to Wordpress to show say ten recent comments in your sidebar. That can be found in dashboard>design>widgets.

There is also a plugin that will allow your users to recieve comment updates via email but I can't remember the name of it at the moment. One of the easiest ways though would be to try to get your users to sign up to your comments RSS feed to have the comments sent straight to a RSS reader.

EDIT: The plugin is called subscribe to comments but it looks like there might be problems with it when used with the lastest version of wordpress.