Well, one problem here is that WordPress pages (at least as of this writing – with WordPress in version 2.8.5) do not have excerpts for pages. Only for posts. The way around this is to use the <!-- more --> tag where you want your break. So that works fine – but what about stripping out the images? I'm still working on my reg-ex knowledge, but I found this one from here and it worked for me. So this is what I'm doing when I'm pulling in my page excerpt:

<?php
$posts = query_posts('page_id=1234');
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
//this makes the more work...
global $more; $more = 0;
?>
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<?php
$content = get_the_content('');
$content = preg_replace('/<img[^>]+>/is', '', $content);
echo $content;
?>
<p><a href="<?php the_permalink(1234); ?>"><img src="/images/more.gif" /></a></p>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

*we're assuming "1234" is the ID of my page in the example above…

You'll also notice I manually added my "more" button image…

To read more about the more tag (and see where I got that global $more; $more = 0; from, you can see the WordPress codex here on the subject. (Scroll to the very bottom of the page – to the section title "How to use Read More in Pages")

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Previously, my way around this had included the use of various plugins that had you wrap certain areas in your post with specific comments that would tell WordPress to leave that block alone and not insert those paragraph tags. There was still some issues doing it this way – as it required you to view these posts in the HTML view. Viewing them in the visual editor would mess everything up.

So, keeping in line with what seems to be a current trend at the moment of solving all my problems with shortcodes, that's how I've decided to solve this problem as of late.

First – (you'll only need to do this once) – add the PHP code so that you can do the shortcode. If you don't already have a functions.php file in your theme directory, create one and add the following code:

function scriptysAddHTML_func($atts) {
global $post;
$id = $atts['id'];
if (empty($id)) return;
return get_post_meta($post->ID, $id, true);
}
add_shortcode('html', 'scriptysAddHTML_func');

Then, in your post when you want to add some custom HTML, paste your block of HTML into the value of a new custom field. For the name of this custom field, give it a unique name with no spaces. (For example: My_HTML_Block)

In your WordPress post, where you want this block to appear, add the shortcode like this:

[html id=My_HTML_Block]

You would add it exactly like the above, except instead of My_HTML_Block, you would change that to be the name you gave your custom field.

Extra Tip If for some reason, you're using more than one shortcode in your post and it doesn't seem like they're working… if you're using them one right after the other, make sure there is a space between them. ie. If you're using my linebreak shortcode, and you were adding more than one linebreak… it might not work if you do this:

[br][br][br]

You my have to do this:

[br] [br] [br]

Little minor thing, but something you might not have thought of… figured I'd mention it.

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A few problems:
I needed to use TinyMCE for one of the textareas, (There's some good information here on how to do that) because the client doesn't know and doesn't want to know HTML. Trying to apply TinyMCE to the textarea in a widget presented all kind of problems.

Also – just simply dragging and dropping the widgets onto the correct sidebar was excruciating slow.

The solution to both of these problems was solved in the 2.8 FAQ – specifically – turning on "Accessibility Mode" in the screen options for the widgets page. It's not as snazzy as it was before – but being excruciatingly slow and TinyMCE not working isn't snazzy either. So I'll take "functional" over "Snazzy but not functional".

Anyway – just putting this out there for anyone else running into similar problems.

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I know there can be more than one thing that causes that "open_basedir restriction in effect" error – but in my case it was because:

1) I was moving a wordpress site to another location (usually a subdomain of a live site so I could set it up as a "test area")
2) In the settings page, I had specified a different path for uploads (this is done on the "miscellaneous" settings page). This directory was actually OUTSIDE of the wordpress directory, which means I had to use the full server path to point to my custom uploads directory…

So I copied over the files to the test area, copied the database to the test database, changed the domain to the test domain using this method. But if you've specified a path for uploads on that miscellaneous page – you'll need to log in once everything is all set up and change the path there too to the new one pointed at the new location.

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I know this may or may not apply to many people – but having just lost a bunch of changes on a site I was working on (had been tweaking the default theme to test out some stuff) I didn't realize that 1-click upgrade feature would do that.

Other than that – the new upgrade thing is awesome. Easily upgraded a bunch of other sites (that thankfully used custom named themes!) without issue and because it just a one-click upgrade – I did it much sooner than I would have if I had to download and manually upload everything.

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<?php
$i=0; // Initialize to Zero;
if (have_posts()) :
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
if ($i==0) {$recentpostid = $post->ID; $i=$i+1;}
endwhile;
endif;
//get only the latest post
$posts = query_posts( 'p='.$recentpostid."'");
?>

and then you start your loop like you normally would…

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Worked for me!

Update As Danny pointed out in the comments – there's a simpler way to do this. Put the following code on the page (I put it before the loop and it worked)
<?php $wp_query->is_single = true; ?>
Much simpler

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1) When I ran the upgrade, it sort of died before finishing… I refreshed and it told me it was all set. Checked on the main page, and everything seemed to be okay – but when I logged in to start tinkering around with the settings, I couldn't log in completely. I got the dashboard with no navigation and then I clicked on something and all it wanted to do was send me to the profile page – but with nothing showing except "You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page". Googled for a solution and found one on Mark's site. Ran his script, and all was well again.

2) Then I discovered that clicking on the the "previous entries" link at the bottom sent me to a "page can not be found" error page. Google to the rescue – and found one on the Wordpress Codex… (scroll ALLLL the way down to "Paged Navigation doesn't work" – There it will tell you that the error I was getting was due to the .htaccess file that WordPress generates. Delete the contents (or at least the wordpress stuff in there) and manually add the code back in from the Options -> Permalinks page. Again, all was well again.

3) This one was really weird. I had a post that was showing up in Firefox but not IE. It was like it didn't exist at all on IE. Wasn't in the source. Try to pull up the post page, and it gives you a 404 error not found. Turns out – and maybe this was because of the glitch during the upgrade – the post didn't have any status indicated. It wasn't marked as "Published", "Draft", or "Private". (The weird thing is that, then WHY did Firefox show it at all?!?) Anyway, clicking the "Published" box and re-saving the post seemed to fix the problem.

If you find any other broken links or errors, etc. – please let me know!

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(As for the .org – instead of the .com – the squatter "owner" of the .com is willing to sell it… for a mere $7K! heh. I'll be lucky if I sell 5 pairs of earrings this whole year!! LOL! I don't think it's in my budget!)

This may not seem very "scripty" related – but actually it is. When working on my ecommerce site, I briefly looked into some pre-made web-shops, but they were all a little "too big" for what I wanted to do. I wanted to add products easily. I wanted to have "add to cart" buttons automatically generated.. etc. etc. I thought I'd just start writing something on my own – but then realized that I could probably do A LOT of what I wanted with WordPress!! Not sure how many ecommerce sites are WordPress driven – but I did it quite easily. Now that it's up and running, I can see more "ecommerce" type "plugins" I can add – but for now, I'm busy making origami.

But I thought, for those interested, I might share some of my little tricks that make the site run. Many of them are take-offs on what I did for Christine with Pixelog.

First thing – I'm using WP 1.5 (formerly known as 1.3) for the site. Up until now, I hadn't had too much opportunity to play around with it – but I gotta tell you. This version KICKS BUTT!!! I've really been enjoying working with it and can't wait to upgrade my other blogs!

So, now on to the geeky-under-the-hood talk…

Product Setup.
Each product is essentially a post. The "Product Name" is the "Post title". In the "excerpt" field, I put the thumbnail image of the product. In the main post field I first put the full size photo of the product, then the "more" tag – then I put the product's description.

I store the price in a custom field. As well some products may come in gold or silver, so I have another custom field to indicate if it's one of those (and which one). I have another custom field that stores available sizes.

Home Page.
I wanted to show the most recent products that I had added to the store. (Just the thumbnails). To list just the excerpts (there may be another way – if so, please tell me!) I access the raw data from the database. Right BEFORE the WP Loop start I initialize my count variable:
<?php
$count = 0;
?>

After the loop start, here's what I have:
<?php
//each time we loop through - get JUST the post excerpt
$postdata = $wpdb->get_row("SELECT post_excerpt FROM wp_posts WHERE id = $id");
$count++;
if ($count == 1) {
echo '<ul class="itemlisting">';
}
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php echo $postdata->post_excerpt; ?></a><span class="title"><?php the_title(); ?></span><?php edit_post_link(__('Edit This')); ?>
</li>
<?php
if ($count == 4) {
echo "</ul>";
$count = 0;
}
?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php
if ($count < 4 && $count > 0) {
echo "</ul>";
$count = 0;
}
?>
(I'm creating two lists of products – you may ask why I'm not making just one list. I did have it that way at one point – but had some cross browser compatibility issues. This method meant less code than some other options I was working with.)

Categories.
I have my "category" (product type) pages set up very similarly as the home page.

Post Pages.
This is where the fun gets started. My shopping cart is handled through paypal. WordPress itself is generating the product ID numbers. The product names are derived from the "post titles". Prices are grabbed from the custom field. I also display some customized text depending on that "gold silver" option.

So first, I want to extract the full size image – but not the product description.
$content = explode('<!--more-->', $pages[0]);
That breaks up the content into the two pieces. So to echo the first part (the part with just the full size product image) I do this:
echo $content[0];
To display the rest of the product description (formatted as you'd expect with paragraph and "br" tags) I do this:
echo apply_filters('the_content', $content[1]);
To get the custom field values:
$price = get_post_custom_values('price');
$sizes = get_post_custom_values('size');
$goldsilver = get_post_custom_values('goldsilveroption');
To echo the sizes in a drop down menu:
Size: <select name="os0">
<?php
$sizes = get_post_custom_values('size');
foreach ($sizes as $size) {
echo '<option value="'.$size.'">'.$size.'</option>';
}
?>
</select>
To echo the price, simply:
<?php echo $price[0]; ?>
I display the appropriate text for the gold or silver by doing this:
<?php if ($goldsilver && $goldsilver[0] == "gold") { ?>
Earrings are made with 14k gold filled posts and earwire.
<?php } else if ($goldsilver && $goldsilver[0] == "silver") { ?>
Earrings are made with sterling silver posts and earwire.
<?php } ?>

So that's it. I'm not completely done (is anyone EVER done tweaking their site??) I still want to add a few additional features. But at the moment, the site does everything and more that I wanted for a first release.

Sooo….Wanna buy some origami earrings?

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In any case, here is how you fix the problem. It's a very easy fix. If you can search for text on a page, you can fix this problem.

I hesitated posting this, because I don't want to "start a panic" – nor do I want to give instructions on how to hack WP blogs. But I do think it's important that people go ahead and make this change.

[brought to my attention by Christine]

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