How to solve pagination on query_posts()

You can easily solve this problem by adding a $paged function before query_posts() call in your index.php, category.php or any custom template that uses loops.

<?php
  $paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
  query_posts("cat=-9&paged=$paged");
?>

Wordpress Blank Screen

Recently, I dedicated many many hours to detect a problem that –apparently- did not have a quick solution by googling on Internet.

For any reason, Global Translator + Wordpress + Apache combination, caused a strange symptom in my Wordpress installation, that involved MySQL database. Another strange symptom was that no log messages were recorded so that made more difficult to detect the problem.

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Categories hacks for Wordpress Themes

When customizing a Wordpress themes, you need to deal with categories and usually you need to do something like: display category name, display category description or use a category image.

Here are a few category hack snippets that you can use in your own themes:

Display category name

This trick allows you to display category name.

$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->cat_name;

Display category description

This trick shows how to display the category description. Please notice here you need to specify category_description instead of cat_name. In order to see any effect when you use this, do not forget to edit your category description under wp-admin, otherwise you won’t see anything.

$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->category_description;

Display other category information

This trick shows you how to display other category information like parent category, category slug (nicename) or count how many post are inside a given category.

$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->category_parent;
echo $category[0]->category_nicename;
echo $category[0]->category_count;

How to create a Categories page in Wordpress

Usually categories are listed in the sidebar of a Wordpress installation. However,we can do a lot of things with Categories.

In this case we will create a Categories page using Multi Column Category List plugin. By this way, we will create a new page with a custom category template, and then list each category under alphabetic order using 3 columns.

Preparing a custom template

We can create a custom page template very simple. Just create a categories.php file and add the following tag at the top:
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Change the Default Template in Wordpress

Changing the default homepage template with Wordpress is very easy. Just need to log into wp-admin and then choose Settings -> Reading -> Front page displays.

Then, select the static page you want to use or your custom Template page.

Creating a Business Directory using WordPress

WordPress is a powerful tool and it brings the possibility to create any kind of websites: simple blogs, CMS, website showcase, and also a business directory website.

Today we are glad to introduce the Business Directory plugin from Square Compass that we are just evaluating in one of our content websites. You can see an example here.

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