WordPress Wiki Theme

A feature list, oh yeah!

Derek Herman — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:42:57 +0000

The WordPress Wiki Theme is packed with some great features and here is a list to wet your appetite.

6 Color Variations to Choose from
jQuery Live Search & Regular Search
WordPress 2.7 Compatible Theme
Custom Wiki FAQs Plugin
Sliding Sidebar Navigation & FAQs Content
AJAX like on page Login & Log Out
Quick Links to Add Post & FAQs
AJAX Star Rating
Tons of Page & Post Styles Including Info Boxes
Simple Related Articles in Sidebar
Bread Crumb Navigation
RSS Updates for Each Category
And a few things I’m sure I forgot

Installing the WP-PageNavi Plugin

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:40:12 +0000

The wp-pagenavi plugin by Lester Chan will give you pagination. To get this plugin working just upload the plugin to the “/wp-content/plugin” folder and activate it in the admin menu, the plugin is now available and ready to be used without any customization.

No really it’s that simple

How to Write a FAQ

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:37:31 +0000

So easy a caveman could do it!

Seriously, this is easy! All you need to do is give it a title (the question) and fill in the textarea (the answer). Then you can choose if you want it to stick to the front page. As well, you will select the category the FAQ will be associated with and since the theme really only shows subcategories by default you should choose the subcategory you want it to be associated with, unless you don’t mind it not being visible except only on the FAQs page (if you decide to have one). Once you do all that the FAQ will show at the bottom of the category page you associated it with or it will be on the home page, as well. That’s up to you.

Lastly you need to choose the priority level of the FAQ which will rank it and the higher the rank the higher up the list the FAQ is on the page. As well, if two FAQs have the same priority and category the oldest one will be higher on the list, just so you know.

It’s that simple, pretty much like a post.

How to Style an Article

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:34:41 +0000

When writing an article with the WordPress Wiki Theme you have a few options for styling your posts. Below I will demonstrate the various styles and code used to achieve the desired effect. The first style is the sections div

Typography
Shout Out’s
Other Stuff

To archive the sections style you would add the following code.

Typography

Shout Out’s

Other Stuff

Typography

This section is a very important part of the theme. There was a lot of thought that went into the typography, and that’s why this theme looks so freaking awesome. Go me, LOL. Anyhow, here are the different typography elements.

H1 Heading

H2 Heading

H3 Heading

H4 Heading

H5 Heading

H6 Heading

This paragraph shows how all text encapsulated only within

tags will appear. Donec leo. Aliquam risus elit, luctus vel, interdum vitae, malesuada eget, elit. Nulla vitae ipsum. Donec ligula ante, bibendum sit amet, elementum quis, viverra eu, ante. Fusce tincidunt. Mauris pellentesque, arcu eget feugiat accumsan, ipsum mi molestie orci, ut pulvinar sapien lorem nec dui.

More text examples are as follows:

This is emphasised text
This is strong text

This is an acronym
~~This is deleted text~~
This is a link

This is a quote. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis tempor. Nullam tortor. Nulla vel dui. Curabitur et metus. This is a quote. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis tempor. Nullam tortor. Nulla vel dui. Curabitur et metus.

Unordered list

List item example
List item example
- Sub list item example
- Sub list item example
List item example

Ordered list

List item example
List item example
1. Sub list item example
2. Sub list item example
List item example

Definition list

Definition title: Definition description
Definition title: Definition description

Shout Out’s

There are a few shout out styles I want to demonstrate for you here:

Success

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip consequat.

Error

Help or Question

A Tip

A Code Block

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip consequat.

Other Stuff

This is a quote. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis tempor. Nullam tortor. Nulla vel dui. Curabitur et metus. This is a quote. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis tempor. Nullam tortor. Nulla vel dui. Curabitur et metus.

A Screen Capture of the WordPress Wiki Theme (alignleft)

A Screen Capture of the WordPress Wiki Theme (alignright)

Right Click View Source

Feel free to look at the source of this website to see exactly how things are done if you don’t understand completely

Installing the WP-PostRatings Plugin

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:27:46 +0000

The WP-PostRatings plugin by Lester Chan will give you the ability to rate posts and in doing so the four posts with the highest rating will be displayed on the front page. However, if you decide not to install this plugin the front page will show the last four posts instead, or if no posts have been rated yet and the plugin is installed it will still show the last four posts, as well.

Getting set up for ratings

To get this plugin working just upload the plugin to the “/wp-content/plugins” folder and activate it in the admin menu, the plugin is almost ready to be used, we just need to change a few settings.

Before leaving read this next part. It’s very important and if you’re having issues with the way rating is working then you might want to read this again.

The Proper Settings

Go to “Ratings->Ratings Options” and choose (stars_crystal), with a max rating of 5. Then below where it says “Ratings AJAX Style” set the “Show Loading Image With Text” to NO. The other options on that page are up to you.

Rating Templates

Next, go to “Ratings->Rating Templates” and input the following code into the correct fields.

Ratings Vote Text:
Rate this Article %RATINGS_IMAGES_VOTE% (%RATINGS_USERS% Ratings)

Ratings Voted Text:
Rate this Article %RATINGS_IMAGES% (%RATINGS_USERS% Ratings)

Ratings None:
%RATINGS_IMAGES_VOTE% (No Ratings Yet)

Highest Rated:

%POST_TITLE%

%POST_EXCERPT%
Read Article ›

The other two are totally up to you, these four are the ones that are needed to make the theme act correctly and need to be done before the rating system is fully functional!

And that’s it! You have ratings.

Have fun, and enjoy!

Installing the Wiki FAQs Plugin

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:15:18 +0000

All you really need to do is upload the Wiki FAQs plugin to the “/wp-content/plugin” folder and activate it in the admin menu, the plugin is now available and ready to be used without any customization.

The Wiki FAQs plugin is a completely custom addition built specifically for this theme, you will not find it anywhere else. If for some reason you want to use this plugin with another theme and need help getting it working I would be happy to help at my hourly rate, please contact me for more info.

Installing the WordPress Wiki Theme

Derek Herman — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:14:30 +0000

To install the WordPress Wiki Theme, you first would need to purchase it from ThemeForest.net. After you have downloaded the theme you would need to unzip the folder on your desktop and find the folder that says “themes” and open it.

It is important to note that you should always start with a fresh install of WordPress 2.6 or 2.7 (preferred) before attempting to use this theme.

Upload the Theme

Next upload (FTP) your chosen theme or all of them to the “/wp-content/themes” directory on your server. You will need to figure out how to upload your files on your own, but I suggest you contact your hosting company if you’re not sure how to FTP files to the server.

Activate

Click on the WordPress Wiki Theme to activate

To activate the theme go to “Appearance->Themes” in the WordPress admin area (if you are running a version below 2.7 go to”Design->Themes”), then click on the theme you want to activate.

Now that the theme is activated, you can now start to add posts. Adding posts works by using the_exerpt() to display the preview text. Basically, write a small sentence or two in the field that says “Exerpt” and you will have text that doesn’t pull from the first however many word in the actual post (much cleaner way to do it). This particular method is used to keep the style of the posts consistent and not have (…) at the end of a preview and allows us to have a custom “read more” text. If you want to use a tag you will need to do some editing to the actual theme files, message me if you need help doing that.

The navigation uses a parent child category structure for building the sliding sidebar navigation. Be sure that all posts are added to a subcategory and that the parent category is only a container for sections of the web site.