How to Do it

WordPress has the ability to create styles for types of pages other than what is in the index.php file. This allows you to add things to single post but not every-page, a helpful way to understand this is this image. WordPress offer a template for Archives called Archives.php, but this styles the pages where the archives are shown. So what if you want to change the page where all the archives are managed i.e. http://rmaspero.com/archives. WordPress also offer a thing called page templates. This allows you to create a page in WordPress and change that pages individual template.

Page Template

Now if you open your FTP Client and duplicate you index.php file. Delete the loop and everything inside the loop(that is the bit that goes <?php if post ect.. and until it goes <?php end ect…). Then add this to the top of the document, you can rename it to what every you want.

<?php
/*
Template Name: Archives
*/
?>

This tells WordPress this file is a page template called Archives. Now we are ready to move on.

Monthly Archives

Now install the plugin SRG Clean Archives and activate it then choose the correct setting in its setting panel in WordPress’ admin panel. Next add this to our template file we just made.

<div class="archives-type">
<h2>Archives by Month:</h2>
<ul>
<?php if (function_exists('srg_clean_archives')) { srg_clean_archives(); } ?>
</ul>
</div>

This creates a div to hold the monthly archives in and then gives it a header of Archives by Month and finally calls the plugin to create a list of the posts.

Archives by Tags

Now we simple copy and past in this below,

<div class="archives-type">
<h2>Archives by Tag:</h2>
<?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=22'); ?>
</div>

Again it creates a div to contain the tags the gives it a header of Archives by Tag. Then we have a WordPress tag that summons a tag cloud and inside that we limit the min size font to 8 and max size to 22, you can adjust sizes to suit your theme.

Archives by Categories

Again this is a simple cut and past job,

<div class="archives-type">
<h2>Archives by Category:</h2>
<ul id="category-centre">
<?php wp_list_categories('title_li='); ?>
<div class="clear"></div>
</ul>
</div>

Here we have a containing div and a header called Archives by category. Then we call WordPress for a list of the categories and tell it to exclude the title categories from the list.

Conclusion

That was simple. Depending on what theme you have you may need to remove certain thing from the copy of the index.php. Some themes already have a archives.php not be confused with archive.php. You can style this however you like but if you just want to see the whole code I am offering my template and the CSS for it as a download here. [download#5#size#nohits]

Straight Corner

Its name is Straight Corner, named because it has curved and right angle corners (I know it really does not make that much sense). The CSS is not valid because it makes use of special functions in Webkit based browsers (i.e. Safari) and Geko based browsers (i.e. Firefox) that allow it to have rounded corners.So before I ramble on about that stuff here is a list of some of the features.

• The blog content, sidebar and footer have rounded corners in and Mozzila based browser and and Webkit based browser.
• It has two dynamic sidebars one as a sidebar and one as a footer
• Add your own header by just replacing the header.jpg in the images folder
• Admin comments are highlighted
• It has been tested in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Safari 3, Opera

I hope you enjoy the theme and if there is anything that you are interested in don’t be shy just shoot me and email. Here is a demo link DEMO and here is the download link [download#4#nohits].

When you first launch the app you will be presented with a screen asking you to add your blogs account information such as url, wordpress username and password. Then you are lead to a screen where you can add another blog or just go on an enter the blog you just entered. Here you are able to see some of your most recent posts to that blog and any local drafts you have stored on that account.

In the bottom left you have a refresh button to get the newest post from the server. In the right hand side you have the create new post button Which asks for a title, tags, categories, status and your post. You have a lot of control but you still can’t set things like comments (on/off), trackbacks and the url. The post area is a basic HTML editor which is not that easy to use unless all you are writing is a simple text post because of screen size, this is not helped when you rotate the iPhone, the app stays vertical.

At the bottom of the screen you have Write, Photos, Preview and setting. Photos allows you access any photo’s on the device. It would be nice to see some flickr integration and previous photos on your blog but we may see these in later versions. Inserting photo’s is a horrible experience you select the photo’s from gallery in your iPhone and it added it to the bottom of the post, after it is published. There are not options for size or placement (left, right, top of post) they all appear after the post at the bottom. When writing a post the preview section loads a preview like wordpress would, but if the post has already been published you get a HTML preview as well as the wordpress preview after. This is very confusing. Then in setting you can set the publish date and password but more could be added there.

Overall this is a very good start, but there is room for improvement, and don’t forget that as soon as they give out a new release you will have to go through the first steps again as apple give developers nowhere to store saved data. Here is a gallery of all my images so you can see what I am talking about.