10 Very Useful WordPress Hacks

Design
10 Very Useful WordPress Hacks

WordPress is a great platform but it’s not perfect, so that’s why many users want to optimize it a little. A friend of mine sent me a document with a bunch of wordpress scripts, so I wanted to share some of them with you. Please note that I’m not the one who wrote them; these scripts are so popular that I couldn’t find the authors for them. So, let’s thanks the unknown coders who make our life easier with their work. :)

How to open links in new window by default

First, open quicktags.js in the wp-admin folder.

Find:

Source code

if (!edCheckOpenTags(i)) {
var URL = prompt('Enter the URL' ,defaultValue);
if (URL) {
edButtons[i].tagStart = '<a href="' + URL + '">';
edInsertTag(myField, i);
}
}

Replace with:

Source code

if (!edCheckOpenTags(i)) {
var URL = prompt('Enter the URL' ,defaultValue);
if (URL) {
edButtons[i].tagStart = '<a href="' + URL + '"';
if (URL!='http://')
{
var defaultTarget = prompt('Enter the Target' ,'_blank');
if (defaultTarget) edButtons[i].tagStart += ' target="' + defaultTarget + '"';
} edButtons[i].tagStart +='>';
edInsertTag(myField, i);
}
}

How to prevent search bots from indexing search results

Add this script in the <head> section of your header.php file.

Source code

<?php if(is_search()) { ?>
   <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow" />
<?php }?>

How to add “edit this” button on posts

All you have to do is to put this script where the_content() is, pobably in the single.php or page.php file. This link will only be visible if the user is administrator of author.

Source code

<?php edit_post_link(__('Edit This')); ?>

How to add a control panel link visible only for the admins, and also and edit button
Put it inside the loop and your blog will have “Login” and “Edit” for Admins only

Source code

// Begin WordPress loop
<?php
get_header();
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
?>
 
// Admin only code
<?php if (current_user_can("manage_options")) : ?>
<a href="<?php echo bloginfo("siteurl") ?>/wp-admin/">Admin</a>
<?php  edit_post_link(‘Edit’, ”, ”);  ?>
<?php endif; ?>
 
// code here, get contents
...
...
 
// End WordPress loop
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
Sorry, no pages matched your criteria.
<?php endif; get_footer(); ?>

Create a custom database error page

Create and add the script above in “db-error.php” directly inside your /wp-content/ folder and WordPress will automatically use that when there is a database connection problem.

Source code

<?php // custom WordPress database error page
 
  header('HTTP/1.1 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
  header('Status: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable');
  header('Retry-After: 600'); // 1 hour = 3600 seconds
 
  // If you wish to email yourself upon an error
  // mail("your@email.com", "Database Error", "There is a problem with the database!", "From: Db Error Watching");
 
?>
 
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Database Error</title>
<style>
body { padding: 20px; background: red; color: white; font-size: 60px; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
  You got problems.
</body>
</html>

How to embed a page inside another page

This script can be used in the regular page loop. All you have to do is to replace **ID** with the ID of the page that you want to embed.

Source code

<?php $recent = new WP_Query("page_id=**ID**"); while($recent->have_posts()) : $recent->the_post();?>
       <h3><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
       <?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

How to add the author bio at the end of the post

This script will display the user name and bio from User settings area in the Admin Panel.

Source code

<div class="author-box">
   <div class="author-pic"><?php echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), '80' ); ?></div>
   <div class="author-name"><?php the_author_meta( "display_name" ); ?></div>
   <div class="author-bio"><?php the_author_meta( "user_description" ); ?></div>
</div>

How to create a Facebook “Like” button

Add this script into single.php template underneath where it outputs the content of the post.

Source code

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo rawurlencode(get_permalink()); ?>&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" id="facebook-like"></iframe>

Move WordPress Admin Bar to the Bottom

Add this CSS to your CSS file, add all the code to your functions.php file in order to make it work.

Source code

function fb_move_admin_bar() {
    echo '
    <style type="text/css">
    body {
    margin-top: -28px;
    padding-bottom: 28px;
    }
    body.admin-bar #wphead {
       padding-top: 0;
    }
    body.admin-bar #footer {
       padding-bottom: 28px;
    }
    #wpadminbar {
        top: auto !important;
        bottom: 0;
    }
    #wpadminbar .quicklinks .menupop ul {
        bottom: 28px;
    }
    </style>';
}
// on backend area
add_action( 'admin_head', 'fb_move_admin_bar' );
// on frontend area
add_action( 'wp_head', 'fb_move_admin_bar' );

Reset Admin Password Through Database

You’ll need to be able to run SQL on that database, like for example, through phpMyAdmin.

Source code

UPDATE `wp_users` SET `user_pass` = MD5( 'new_password_here' ) WHERE `wp_users`.`user_login` = "admin_username";

Please not that you use these hack at your own risk.

Bogdan

Bogdan is the founder of Top Design Magazine. You can find him in Bucharest-Romania so next time you want to drink a beer there and talk about web and stuff, give him a message.