I have mentioned previously that I have been doing some work with the Constructor Theme for WordPress. Unfortunately there is little helpful documentation out there in the form of ‘how to’ tutorials in relation to the Constructor Theme.
A common question appears to be how to get the slideshow option in the Constructor Theme to work. Here is a quick guide using the NextGen-Gallery Plugin.
Install and activate the Constructor Theme (i.e. Constructor must be your WordPress ‘Current’ theme).
Install and activate the NextGEN-Gallery WordPress plugin.
Copy imagerotator.swf from the unzipped ‘JW Image Rotator’ to the nextgen-gallery folder on your WordPress install/server (this will be under the ‘plugins’ folder).
Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
Click the Slideshow tab.
Click Search now>> to the right of the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field.
Wait until the path is filled for you in the ‘Path to the Imagerotator (URL):’ field. and click Save Changes at the bottom of the Window.
Create/Add a Gallery with some images/photos (David Potter has a handy guide).
Go to Appearance – Customize then the Slideshow tab
Ensure the following:
Enable Slideshow is checked
At least one of the Options is checked (i.e. either/bothand/or Show on single post).
You click/select the Gallery you created in NextGen at the end of the Window to the right of Slideshow
You ‘Save Changes’
Your slideshow will now appear on pages and/or posts (depending which you selected in the Constructor Theme Slideshow options.
Click the image below to enlarge and see an example of the Options used to enable a NextGen-Gallery to be used as the Constructor Theme Slideshow:
WordPress is awesome (yes, I am a big WordPress CMS fan). One of the huge advantages of GPL software (e.g. Moodle) is that a huge community often contributes code to the core software. In WordPress, the most common form of community contribution is in the form of Plugins and Themes.
I have been ‘playing’ recently with the Constructor theme by Anton Shevchuk. Although there are many good (and some great) WordPress themes (e.g. Theme Hybrid), the Constructor theme has immediately become one of my favorites for it’s vast array of options and ease of use/configuration.
One question about the Constructor theme that I have noticed on a few Sites is how to change the default Constructor Footer text which looks like this:
There is so much software out there, some good and some really not great at all. I am however continually amazed that people are prepared to pay for software when there is a better free alternative available. Below is my favourite software that is free to use and provides exceptional productivity gains:
Notepad++
Category: Text Editor, Source Code editor and Notepad replacement
Alternative: Windows Notepad
Getting roughly 500,000 downloads a month this is GPL software at its very best. This notepad replacement is excellent as a basic Word processor as well as having some advanced source code editor features and is available in many languages. Notepad++ is extensible through its multitude of plugins and should be used as a notepad replacement by all Windows users (instructions are given on how to use Notepad++ as a notepad replacement).
FeedReader is a free, powerful and reliable RSS reader and manager. FeedReader loads when the PC starts and collects new articles in feeds on a set schedule. A little notification icon lights up when a new article is available to read. FeedReader articles may be read Offline and the application includes some clever and useful functionality such as OPML import and export, simple ‘search to RSS’ from Google Blogs, Bing Search, Delicious tags and so on.
Category: Content Management System (also Blogging Software)
Alternative: Drupal, Joomla
WordPress originated as Blogging software however has evolved into a powerful and extensible Content Management System (CMS). WordPress has been successful in maintaining its reliability and ease of use whilst extending the possibilities of the software through the availability of thousands of themes and WordPress Plugins. WordPress is used by very large Sites such as CNN as well as small personal Blogs. WordPress.com provides free hosted WordPress implementations similar to Blogger for those who don’t want to host their own WordPress implementation.
Moodle is from Australia and is the most popular of the GPL (free) Learning Management Systems. Moodle is simple to implement however takes a fair amount of configuration (this is because of the extensive capabilities of the software and the differing needs of training organizations). Moodle, like WordPress, is equally capable for large Universities and organizations as well as small limited training providers.
FileZilla is an extensively used FTP Client. The advantage of FileZilla over many other FTP clients is its ease of use, such as the ‘drag and drop’ file functionality and ease of setup. FileZilla is also often far quicker to use than using Java based and other FTP Clients (e.g. for GoDaddy hosting it is much quicker to transfer files to and from a GoDaddy hosting account than using the GoDaddy file transfer Tools). FileZilla is one of the ten most downloaded SourceForge project applications ever.
An FTP Server is also available which is called FileZilla Server.
Alternative: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Apple Safari
Mozilla Firefox is the choice of Online Content and Web Page creators. Firefox subscribes to Web Standards and best-practice and is enhanced through its 3rd party add-ons. Firefox is also the second most popular of the Web Browsers after Internet Explorer and is considered the most secure browser (Firefox has integration with Internet Site blacklists by StopBadWare.org). The latest version of Firefox includes Google-based location-aware browsing (geolocation).
Alternative: Paint.net, Windows Live Photo Gallery
Picasa is a free Google digital photo organizer and editor. Some cool features in Picasa are the face recognition and tagging which make searching very quick and the ability to upload photos for remote printing (e.g. Snapfish) from Picasa itself. Picasa does not create duplicate copies of photos as some software does but rather updates the original photos with tags or other amendments made.
XAMPP is a simple to install and use Apache, MYSQL, PHP and Perl package. Within minutes it is possible to have a fully functioning Web Server which may host the likes of WordPress and Moodle or any other Web application reliant on Apache. Many people have an XAMPP install on their PC or Mac as their test or demonstration Server and then host the live Website or Application at a dedicated host. The days of battling to install Apache, PHP and MYSQL are over thanks to XAMPP.
As far as free Email readers with Online calendaring goes, few can beat Windows Live Mail from Microsoft. Windows Live Mail is a small application which is able to send and receive from multiple Email accounts including Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and a multitude of other free and paid email accounts. This application is simple to use and has a great Graphical User Interface (GUI). Mail is available when offline and calendars may be shared.
Free anti-virus and malware protection is now just as good, if not better, than the paid-for alternatives. Microsoft Security Essentials leads the pack in terms of free Online security software with AVG Anti-virus Free coming in a very close second. Either of these two software products are highly recommended.
WordPress 2.9 was recently released. There are some great new features in the latest release of WordPress including the ability to update multiple Plugins at the same time. Back in the ‘old days’ one would manually have to download each Plugin requiring upgrading, uncompress then upload to the appropriate file on the Webserver. In later versions came the ability for a ‘one click’ update for each Plugin from within WordPress itself. And now, with the newest WordPress release it is possible, as previously stated, to update all Plugins requiring an update simultaneously (this saves a lot of time and needs far fewer clicks than previously).
There is one small ‘problem’ with the new ‘update all’ functionality; it is not entirely logical where it is placed so can cause some angst in trying to find and use the new functionality. Here is how to upgrade multiple Plugins at the same time in WordPress 2.9:
1. Login to WordPress Admin (i.e. www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin)
2. In the left sidebar click Tools (if not already expanded):
3. Click Upgrade:
4. Click the ‘check box’ next to ‘Select All’ to select all Plugins:
5. Click ‘Upgrade Plugins’:
That’s it! Your Plugins should all now be up to date.
As a note there appear to be a few issues with some Plugins not being updated via the method above. For those unhappy Plugins it will be necessary to go into the Plugins menu and update the particular Plugin.
Go to Options in the Gallery menu of WordPress.
Click the Slideshow tab.
