While working to get WordPress functioning properly on a Zeus Web server, one of the issues I came across was the fact that I couldn’t seem to get any SSL functions working properly. I tried 2 or 3 different plugins, and all of them started causing infinite redirect loops as soon as they were activated.

Eventually, after quite a bit of investigating and testing, I found the cause of the issue: that particular server (and, presumably, all Zeus servers) doesn’t use any of the same indicators that SSL is being used that apache does. On apache servers, PHP usually has a handful of indicators that SSL is currently being used to serve the page. For instance, there’s a server global variable called “HTTPS” that gets set to “on” for many PHP configurations; SSL is generally served over port 443 instead of port 80; etc. (more…)

If you’re trying to get WordPress working on a Zeus Web server, and you’ve gotten as far as using a good rewrite script to make permalinks work properly, you might have noticed that query strings don’t work at the ends of your permalinks. At first, it seemed like this wouldn’t be too big of an issue; it just meant that users wouldn’t be able to preview posts/pages, and there would be one or two other issues they’d have to live with. However, after using the site that way for a little while, we started coming across more and more issues that this caused, and it finally reached a tipping point.

To solve the issue, I wrote a simple function that runs any time a 404 error occurs on the site. Essentially, it parses the path of the requested page, cuts off the query string temporarily, and then searches the database for a post or page that has the slug at the end of the path.

You may be wondering why I didn’t just parse the request/get variables sent with the page. The problem is, those were empty in each of the cases I tested. (more…)

For those of you that might not know (and I was one of you about a month ago), Zeus is a Web server package that’s used instead of apache by some Web hosts. If you’re planning to use WordPress, and you have a choice between apache and Zeus, I would definitely recommend choosing apache. However, sometimes you don’t have a choice in the matter; and you have to do what you can to make things work.

WordPress will work out of the box with Zeus, but a lot of things won’t behave the way you might expect. One of those things is the permalink structure.

Instead of getting nice, clean URLs like “http://example.com/blog/2012/01/my-first-blog-post/”, you get “index.php” shoved in there (like “http://example.com/index.php/blog/2012/01/my-first-blog-post/”). You can correct this issue, but it’s not quite as simple as updating an .htaccess file (in fact, without some jiggery-pokery by your Web host, Zeus doesn’t support .htaccess at all). Instead, you have to apply a rewrite script to your server configuration.

After quite a bit of searching and trial & error, I finally found a working rewrite script configuration for WordPress. A hosting company called ZipHosting posted the scripts below in their knowledgebase. The first script is set up for you to use if WordPress is hosted in a subdirectory, and the second is for use with WordPress in the root directory. (more…)

On November 17, Engine Yard will host a discussion around the future of PHP. Engine Yard describes the event, “If you are a PHP developer using PEAR and Pyrus, we invite you to join us this week as we explore the future of PEAR and Pyrus. We’ll be discussing issues such as where PEAR/Pyrus will be going in the next few years, what obstacles may be on the horizon, and how they’re going to get where they’re going.”

One of the panelists is Till Klampäckel who many of you know as one of the people who worked with HTMLCenter for many years. Till also just published a book (in German) about the database service CouchDB which you can purchase on Amazon.de.

The panel is free, will be streamed live and the panel will take questions via Twitter. If you are interested, you can register for the event here.

First of all, let me apologize for having been so absent over the last few weeks. As you may or may not have heard already, we just launched the new website at University of Mary Washington, and things have been hectic trying to put the final pieces into place.

One of those final pieces was to get WP Super Cache up and running on the site, in order to keep our server from overloading. When we first launched, I didn’t realize that we didn’t have the plugin configured properly, and our various plugins and theme functions really started to drag things to a crawl.

After doing a lot of digging and debugging, I found that WP Super Cache was ignoring cached files throughout our server because they all included GET variables. (more…)

I recently worked with a client to help move a GoDaddy “WebsiteTonight” website into WordPress. In the process, I recommended that she turn her existing WordPress website into a multisite installation, set up her second site as another site in that install, and then set up domain mapping to give each of the websites a separate domain name.

This setup allows her to login a single time, and be able to switch back and forth between the sites to perform edits. It also makes it simpler to manage plugins, update WordPress and keep the theme consistent between the two sites. (more…)

The other day, I was playing around with the WordPress [

] shortcode, and came across the need to exclude an image that was attached to the page. The image I needed to exclude was kind of like a featured image, and I didn’t want it to appear again in the gallery itself. So, I searched for information about excluding images from the WordPress [

] shortcode, and came across the related WordPress Codex article.

While reading that article, I noticed a handful of features I’d never known about in that particular shortcode. After all, I always basically assumed that the options WordPress gives you when inserting a gallery were probably the only options that were available. (more…)

Unfortunately, I keep finding WordPress plugins that try to call cURL functions directly. Unfortunately, not only do these plugins fail to work if cURL isn’t installed, it throws a fatal PHP error in the process.

The problem with using cURL in WordPress plugins is that WordPress solved that problem more than 2 years ago by implementing the WP_Http class. WP_Http is a class included in the WordPress core that has multiple options. One of those options is cURL, but it gracefully reverts to other PHP functions if cURL isn’t available.

Basically, anything you can do with cURL can be done with the WP_Http class, and it will allow your plugin to be much more versatile and compatible with more server setups. (more…)

For some reason, by default, WordPress only includes the “Get Shortlink” button when editing posts; not when editing any kind of custom post type or when editing pages. Honestly, I’m not sure why, since pages and custom post types all use the same basic short URL as standard posts (example.com/?p=[post_id]).

The solution is simple, though. You just need to hook into the get_shortlink filter. Following is a simple function that will help you add the button to all “publicly_queryable” post types in your theme. (more…)

If you use WordPress (especially as a content management system) and you haven’t heard of Mark Jaquith’s “Page Links To” plugin, you should definitely check it out. Basically, the plugin allows you to set up a WordPress page or post to redirect to a different URL. It can be very handy for setting up redirects, adding menu items for pages that wouldn’t normally appear in those menus, etc.

One issue with the plugin, however, is that it does not (as of version 2.4.1) support custom post types. It only supports WordPress posts and pages. If you want to set a custom post type to redirect to a URL other than its permalink, you can’t do so with this plugin.

However, there is a pretty simple way to add support for custom post types to this plugin; and the changes do not require you to edit the plugin itself. Instead, you can make all of the necessary changes in your theme’s functions.php file. (more…)