Looks Good Naked Skin – for Thesis 1.6

I keep hearing from Thesis lovers – Can I get the Looks Good Naked Skin for Thesis 1.6?  So to make them all happy – here we go!
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Search Box in Navigation Bar of the Thesis Theme

In this tutorial, we will see how to add the Search Box on the Navigation Bar of the Thesis Theme for WordPress.

Note: This is tested with Thesis Theme version 1.6.  Will not work with the older versions.  Contact me via the Comments section and I will help you!

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Thesis Theme : Setup Pagination on Home Page

In this tutorial, we will see How to Setup Pagination on the Home Page of your Blog or Website running on the Thesis Theme for WordPress.  This will replace the regular “Previous Entries” link that appears at the bottom of your Content Area, just below the Teasers (if you are using them).

What are we trying to create?




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Show your latest Tweet on top of Content Column in Thesis Theme

Thesis Theme makes life a lot simpler, if you are trying to customize your blog.  In this post, I will show you how to display your latest tweets at the top of your content column.  You can either choose to display this only on the Home page or on all pages.

Verified to Work with Thesis Theme 1.8! Enjoy!

What we will Create?

This is what we are trying to create in this tutorial – the latest twitter update on the top of your content column.  There is also a link to your Twitter profile home page.

thesistwittertop_1

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Create a Killer Services and Portfolio Page with Thesis Theme

Thesis Tips Banner

Been a while since I created a Thesis tutorial.  Here you go!  I will show you how to create a “killer” Services and Portfolio Page using Thesis Theme.  In the portfolio section, you can even add the snapshots of the sites you created, testimonials and more.  Read on how to do it!
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Control Home Page Post Excerpt Content in Thesis Theme

Thesis theme provides an option to display only post excerpts in the home page – but the problem I found was it shows very little content that might not entice the reader.  Also the post header images were gone from the home page.

Then I found a very neat option available with Thesis to control the home page post excerpt content.  You can choose to display whatever you want in the Home Page and let the rest go in to the Post Page.  I know many of you may be already using it, but it is just to the benefit for newbies like me.

1.  Disable the Post Excerpt Display

thesispostexcerpt_1

Thesis provides you an option to display only excerpts in the Home Page.  You can navigate to Admin –> Appearance –> Thesis Options and expand the Posts under the Display Options section.

Since this option doesn’t allow you to control the content displayed and also sometimes the hides the Post Header Image, we disable it for our purpose.

You can also customize the clickthrough text. This decides the Text that will be displayed on the Home Page, for the user to click and get on to the post page.

To keep it simple, I have made it “Read More…”, but you can customize it based on the needs.
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Setup a Header Banner Image for your blog using Thesis Theme

Header of a blog is the prominent advertising spot and a banner image here would just make things better.  I will share a very simple tip to setup the header banner image using the powerful Thesis Theme.

I assume that you have setup the Thesis OpenHook plugin.  If not, go grab it here and Thesis is just 50% useful without this!

1.  Create the CSS Style for the Banner Image

Go to Thesis Custom Styling section of your Thesis Administration Panel.  (you can find it just below the Editor link)

Let us now add the following entry into the entry box, which would find its place in the custom.css file.

/* Banner Ad in the Header */
.custom #leaderboard_ad {
  float: right;
  position: absolute;
  width: 468px;
  height: 60px;
  top: 25px;
  left: 675px;
}

width – Value must match the width of the Banner Image (typical value is 468px)
height – Value must match the height of the Banner Image (typical value is 60px)
top – Gap between the top of your blog and the start of the Banner Image
left – From where the Banner Image should start, on the left side of the page.  Higher the value, the image would be shifted on the right

Adjust the top and left values based on the styling and layout of your blog.

2.  Add the HTML code for the Banner Image

Typically the banner images are setup using the Affiliate Code that your affiliate has provided you or the Google Adsense script.

Go to your Thesis OpenHook section in the administration page and add the Banner Image code in the After Title field.

thesisheaderimage

Following is an example Banner Image code, that I used for display.


And that’s it!  You are all set to display the Banner Image on the header section of your blog.  You can also check out how this works on my blog.

One such Banner Image I really liked, is that of ProBlogger.  It is so nicely positioned and fits exactly with rest of the header.

thesisheaderimage_2

Display Feedburner and Twitter Stats in your Thesis Theme

Got bored of the traditional Feedburner Feedcount image?  Stuck with the Twitter Plugins that claim to display the number of followers in your blog? Forget them all.  I will show you how to get the Feedburner and Twitter subscriber stats programmatically (using PHP) in your Thesis powered blog and display them at your convenience.  This can also be used on a WordPress blog running any theme, with ease.

1.  Modify your custom_functions.php file

Let us first create a couple of functions in the custom_functions.php, that would do us the job of fetching the numbers.

You can find the custom_functions.php file under the following directory – Your Blog Theme Directory/custom/custom_functions.php

function get_feedburner_stats() {
  $fbrefreshtime = 43200;  //Refresh Feedburner twice in a day

  $fb = wp_cache_get('fbstats_key');

  if ($fb == false) {
    $yourfeeduri = 'ThoughtsUnlimited'; 
    $feed = 'https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri='.$yourfeeduri;
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $feed);
    $feed = curl_exec($ch); curl_close($ch);
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($feed);
    $fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];

    //Set the Value in Cache
    wp_cache_set('fbstats_key', strval($fb), '', $fbrefreshtime);
  }
  return $fb;
}

function get_twitter_stats() {
  $twitterrefreshtime = 54000;  //Refresh Twitter Stats once every 15 minutes

  $tw = wp_cache_get('twstats_key');

  if ($tw == false) {
    $yourtwitter = 'thotsunlimited';
    $twurl='http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.xml?id='.$yourtwitter.'&count=1';
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $twurl);
    $data = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
    $tw = $xml->status->user->followers_count;

    //Set the Value in Cache
    wp_cache_set('twstats_key', strval($tw), '', $twitterrefreshtime);  //Will expire after the Refresh time you set
  }
  return $tw;
} 

Make sure that you replace the $yourfeeduri and $yourtwitter values, with your own values

Updated on 08/05/2009:

Modified the Code to cache the numbers using WP_Cache, as excessive API calls might be unsuitable for blogs with many page views per hour. Thanks to Christian for pointing this out here.

Enable WP Caching, by adding define(‘WP_CACHE’, true); to your wp-config.php file. Check this out, for information on enabling the WP Cache

Make double sure that you enable the Awareness API for your Feedburner Account

feedburnertwittercount_1

2.  Call the function wherever you need and style the output

So now you have the way to get the numbers.  Call them from anywhere you need and appropriately style the output.  I would recommend using the Thesis OpenHook plug-in to place the output of these functions.

Calling the function is pretty straightforward. One example could be:

 Join the fleet of  Subscribers 

You can look at the sidebar of my blog, to see one other example in action.

Hope you found this useful. Add any useful extensions to this tip, as comments to this post.