Allow Contributors To Upload Images In WordPress

Are you running a WordPress website with bunch of contributors who are willing to post on your website? If yes then this article contains a great tip for you.

As I mention on previous articles, every post on your blog must contain at least one image related to the article. It's really great for SEO and other things.

This code will help us to allow users with contributor role to upload images on your WordPress site.

Add this code to your functions.php file:

if ( current_user_can('contributor') && !current_user_can('upload_files') )
     add_action('admin_init', 'allow_contributor_uploads');
    
     function allow_contributor_uploads() {
          $contributor = get_role('contributor');
          $contributor->add_cap('upload_files');
     }

How To Disable Smart/Curly Quotes In WordPress

There are lot of word processor programs which itself converts all yours simple quotes to curly quotes (aka s mart quotes). It looks like small figures six and nine raised above the baseline (like 6...9 and 66...99).

It's a huge problem if you're writing codes in your posts as WordPress automatically converts all quote symbols to smart quotes. So if anyone is copying a snippet from your blog post would have problems with running to code in their own text file.

You can easily disable this feature with a small snippet. Just add following snippet to your functions.php file:

<?php
remove_filter('the_content', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('comment_text', 'wptexturize');
remove_filter('the_excerpt', 'wptexturize');
?>

That's it!

Send Email Notifications When User Submit A Post In WordPress

Are you running a multi-author WordPress blog or a blog with guest posters with contributor role to submit the post directly from the WordPress dashboard? Then you must be looking for a way to get email notification when someone submit a post or when you publish or reject their post.

We previously shares some great scripts to get email notifications for a couple of events, but this time it's a plugin.

WP Status Notifier is all you're looking for!

The plugin sends an email to the admin (or selected user) when ever some one submit a post for review and when you publish or reject their post, author will get instant emails. After installing the plugin, you can access it’s setting under Settings > Post Status Change Notifications.

WP Status Notifier's interface is not much complicated, as you can check it below:

It's a great plugin, but if you want some advance options, then you can also use Post Status Notifier Lite.

Personal Note: First of all, Eid-Mubharakh to all my Muslim readers. I'm going out on a small seven day trip tomorrow, so don't expect me to post any articles here on BWidgets. Thanks for all your support!

Prevent Directory Browsing With .htaccess

I recently shared several articles about .htaccess file, and as you may know by now, it's a great file if you're working on the security of your site. Today we'll disable the directory browsing in our website with some editing in .htaccess file.

You know how you can change a few characters in a URL and continue browsing the website. Sometimes, it could be very dangerous for our website, so it's time to prevent directory browsing.

Add following snippet to your .htaccess file:

# directory browsing
Options All -Indexes

Save the file, and that's it!

How To Remove Footer Credits From Jetpack Mobile Theme In WordPress

Jetpack is a great plugin for WordPress to connect your blog to WordPress.com. It also gives us dozens of crappy great plugins for our blog, such as mobile module, social share, wp.me short links, and more.

Jetpack's Mobile module is great plugin to create a mobile version of your website for mobile users, but it comes with a footer credit: Proudly powered by WordPress.

Giving WordPress their credit for their hard work is not bad, but if you're interested then you can easily remove the Jetpack.

In your file manager, edit footer.php file which can be found inside public_html/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/modules/minileven/theme/pub/minileven

Just remove this code from line #27:

<a href="<?php echo esc_url( __( 'http://wordpress.org/', 'jetpack' ) ); ?>" title="<?php esc_attr_e( 'Semantic Personal Publishing Platform', 'minileven' , 'jetpack'); ?>" rel="generator"><?php printf( __( 'Proudly powered by %s', 'minileven' , 'jetpack'), 'WordPress' ); ?></a>

That's it.

Protect Your wp-config.php File With .htaccess

As a webmaster, it's our duty to take care of our website. And security is our #1 priority when it comes to take care of a blog. As we know, there are millions of security issues with WordPress, which can be solved with some simple things, such as security plugins, configuring our .htaccess file, etc.

Today we'll secure our wp-config.php file with some basic .htaccess editing. Add following code to your .htaccess file:

<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

This code should be placed in an .htaccess file located in the directory that contains your wp-config.php file.

Optimize And Repair WordPress Database

In WordPress 2.9, WordPress gave us a new automatic database repair feature. This feature enables you to repair and optimize your database. You should use this feature time to time to take care of your website's home.

You can use this feature even when you're not logged in to your website. This is because its main intent is to repair a corrupted database, Users can often not login to their WordPress when the database is corrupt.

Just add following snippet to your wp-config.php file to activate this feature:

define( 'WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true );

Once activated, you can see the settings on this page: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/maint/repair.php

Once you are done repairing and optimizing your database, make sure to remove this from your wp-config.php.

Send Email Notifications When User Role Changes In WordPress

Yesterday I shared a code which sends an email to the user when the user updates their profile. Today I have something similar, but a bit different. This code sends an email the user when the user's role has changed.

It's a great way to let a member know about the role changes that you'll make. It's also a great trick if you're running a WordPress site with bbPress forum or multiple wirters & contributors.

Just add following to your functions.php:

function user_role_update( $user_id, $new_role ) {
        $site_url = get_bloginfo('wpurl');
        $user_info = get_userdata( $user_id );
        $to = $user_info->user_email;
        $subject = "Role changed: ".$site_url."";
        $message = "Hello " .$user_info->display_name . " your role has changed on ".$site_url.", congratulations you are now an " . $new_role;
        wp_mail($to, $subject, $message);
}
add_action( 'set_user_role', 'user_role_update', 10, 2);

That's it.

Increase Maximum Upload File Size Limit In WordPress

Sometimes, you need to upload a large file to your site. If you run a WordPress site with audio podcasts, videos, and .zip files, then you may need to increase WordPress' default 32mb limit.

There are lot of ways around the internet to increase your WordPress max upload file size, but most of them are not much hardy. But a little snippet by Word Impressed can solve your problem. You can easily increase or decrease your maximum upload file size limit.

Create a php.ini file (using notepad document) and upload it into your /wp-admin/ folder and add following snippet into the file:

memory_limit = 32M
upload_max_filesize = 32M
post_max_size = 32M
file_uploads = On

You can change 32m in the above code to whatever max file size you want.

Send Email Notifications When User Profile Updates In WordPress

Adding this snippet to your functions.php file will send an email to the user when the user updates their profile. It's really great way to provide more security to your users. It's also a great trick if you're running a WordPress site with BuddyPress or bbPress. It makes your website look more advance, and keeps your user secure from hackers.

Just add following to your functions.php:

function user_profile_update( $user_id ) {
        $site_url = get_bloginfo('wpurl');
        $user_info = get_userdata( $user_id );
        $to = $user_info->user_email;
        $subject = "Profile Updated: ".$site_url."";
        $message = "Hello " .$user_info->display_name . "\nYour profile has been updated!\n\nThank you for visiting\n ".$site_url."";
        wp_mail( $to, $subject, $message);
}
add_action( 'profile_update', 'user_profile_update', 10, 2);

Restrict Access To WordPress Media Uploads

Ever wanted to restrict access WordPress media upload mime/format? Yes, that's why you guys are reading this post. You can perform this trick with directories such as /uploads/, /upgrade/, and /backups/. All you need a .htaccess file for the directory.

Create an .htaccess file for your /uploads/ directory (or use existing file if present). Add following code to the .htaccess file:

# restrict access to uploads directory
<Files ~ ".*\..*">
    Order Allow,Deny
    Deny from all
</Files>
<FilesMatch "\.(jpg|jpeg|jpe|gif|png|tif|tiff)$">
    Order Deny,Allow
    Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

The above code denies access to all files but only to the specified types of mime in the 6th line. You can also add more file types to the code such as .zip, .mp3, .mov, or anything.

You can also use same technique in other directories such as /upgrade/, /backup/, and more. Just create an .htaccess file in the directory and add the above code.

Add QR Code For Posts And Pages In WordPress

QR Code (Quick Response Code) is a great way to promote your content, and is very easy for users to use them. They can visit a webpage without even typing the entire web address. Just scan the QR Code and that's it.

The QR code system was invented in 1994 by Toyota's subsidiary, Denso Wave. Its purpose was to track vehicles during manufacture; it was designed to allow high-speed component scanning.[

Would you like to add a QR Code to your posts and pages in WordPress? It's easy just add the following snippet to your single.php file of your WordPress theme in the location you wish to display the QR.

<img src="http://api.qrserver.com/v1/create-qr-code/?size=100x100&data=<?php the_permalink(); ?>" alt="QR:  <?php the_title(); ?>"/>

To adjust the size of the QR Code just change the following within the src size=100×100.

How To Hide Post View And Post Preview Buttons From WordPress Post Editor

Ever wanted to remove "preview post" & "view post" option from the WordPress' post editor? Here is the solution how to do this. Just add following snippet to your theme's functions.php file and don't forget to update the post type array in the following code:

function posttype_admin_css() {
    global $post_type;
    $post_types = array(
                        /* set post types */
                        'post_type_name',
                        'post',
                        'page',
                  );
    if(in_array($post_type, $post_types))
    echo '<style type="text/css">#post-preview, #view-post-btn{display: none;}</style>';
}
add_action( 'admin_head-post-new.php', 'posttype_admin_css' );
add_action( 'admin_head-post.php', 'posttype_admin_css' );

How To Remove URL Field From WordPress Comment Form

For some WordPress sites, such as themes, review, and all, you may want to remove Website URL field from the WordPress' comment form. Removing the field could be used for product reviews or if they created a support tickets theme that does not require a url field.

It's not much hard to remove/unset the website url from the comment form. Just add following snippet to your functions.php file and it's done:

add_filter('comment_form_default_fields', 'unset_url_field');
function unset_url_field($fields){
    if(isset($fields['url']))
       unset($fields['url']);
       return $fields;
}

Change Post Color By Status In WordPress Admin Panel

It's a great trick if you manage a WordPress site with multiple writers/contributors.It's a great trick if you manage a WordPress site with multiple writers/contributors.

Adding this snippet to your theme's functions.php file will change the background colors of the post / page within the admin based on the current status. Draft, Pending, Published, Future, Private.

add_action('admin_footer','posts_status_color');
function posts_status_color(){
?>
<style>
.status-draft{background: #FCE3F2 !important;}
.status-pending{background: #87C5D6 !important;}
.status-publish{/* no background keep wp alternating colors */}
.status-future{background: #C6EBF5 !important;}
.status-private{background:#F2D46F;}
</style>
<?php
}

How To Login To WordPress Using Your Username Or Email Address

By default, WordPress only allows us to login to WordPress powered sites only with our username. But most of us prefer to enter our email address to login because remembering your email is more simple than usernames.

C. Bavota from bavotasan.com found a great way to allow your users to use either their username or email address to log into WordPress without any plugin. Just add following code to your functions.php file:

function login_with_email_address($username) {
    $user = get_user_by_email($username);
    if(!empty($user->user_login))
        $username = $user->user_login;
    return $username;
}
add_action('wp_authenticate','login_with_email_address');

Kevin Chard improved this trick by adding a snippet to it, which will change the text on the login page from “username” to “username / email.” Add following snippet to your functions.php just below the first code:

function change_username_wps_text($text){
       if(in_array($GLOBALS['pagenow'], array('wp-login.php'))){
         if ($text == 'Username'){$text = 'Username / Email';}
            }
                return $text;
         }
add_filter( 'gettext', 'change_username_wps_text' );

How To Change WordPress Author URL Slug

In WordPress, an author's profile is by default accessible by using the yoursite.com/author/name. But it's really easy to change the default author url slug/base. All be just need is a simple snippet.

Kevin Chard found a great code to change the default yoursite.com/author/name to yoursite.com/profile/name. Just add following snippet to your functions.php file:

add_action('init', 'cng_author_base');
function cng_author_base() {
    global $wp_rewrite;
    $author_slug = 'profile'; // change slug name
    $wp_rewrite->author_base = $author_slug;
}

Replace profile on line 4 by any slug you want.

Add Short URL Below Posts In WordPress Without Plugins

Previously I shared a post on this blog about adding a Short Link Widget Below Posts In Blogger, which is a great tutorial for Blogger admins. But I never shared anything like that for WordPress blogs. There are a lot of plugins to add this short link widget below your posts, but we're going to do this without any crappy plugin.

Plus, instead of going with one short link service, you can choose between two short links services. Both services are well known, and easy to use. These two short links services are tr.im and TinyURL.

Add Short URL Below Posts In WordPress:

Add one of the following two codes to your functions.php file:

For tr.im:

function getTrimUrl($url) { $tinyurl = file_get_contents("http://api.tr.im/api/trim_simple?url=".$url); return $tinyurl; }

For TinyURL:

function getTinyUrl($url) { $tinyurl = file_get_contents("http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=".$url); return $tinyurl; }

After adding one of the above codes to your functions.php file, add following code in your single.php file, within the loop:

<?php $turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID)); echo 'Tiny Url for this post: <a href="'.$turl.'">'.$turl.'</a>' ?>

Above code is for a hyperlink style short link. You can also add a text box style widget with the following code:

<?php $turl = getTinyUrl(get_permalink($post->ID)); echo 'Tiny Url for this post: <input readonly="true" type="text" value="'.$turl.'"/>' ?>

Save your files, and That's IT!

How To Change WordPress From Name And Email Address

In many actions, such as registration, password request, plugins and more, WordPress sends email to your users and readers. The default sender name is "WordPress" and the default sender email address is wordpress@yoursite.com.

If you're working on a client site, then I guess he wouldn't like WordPress' default sender name and address. However, it's extremely easy to change the default values to your custom ones. Most of us tries to look for the settings in WordPress' wp-mail.php file, but it's not there.

There settings are written in WordPress' pluggable.php file (wp-includes / pluggable.php). Find following code in line #317- #337 of your pluggable.php file:

// From email and name
// If we don't have a name from the input headers
if ( !isset( $from_name ) )
    $from_name = 'WordPress';

/* If we don't have an email from the input headers default to wordpress@$sitename
 * Some hosts will block outgoing mail from this address if it doesn't exist but
 * there's no easy alternative. Defaulting to admin_email might appear to be another
 * option but some hosts may refuse to relay mail from an unknown domain. See
 * http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5007.
 */

if ( !isset( $from_email ) ) {
    // Get the site domain and get rid of www.
    $sitename = strtolower( $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] );
    if ( substr( $sitename, 0, 4 ) == 'www.' ) {
        $sitename = substr( $sitename, 4 );
    }

    $from_email = 'wordpress@' . $sitename;
}

First red colored WordPress in above php code is your "sender name", while second red colored wordpress is the username of your email address. Just change there values with your custom ones and save the file.

How To Disable HTML In WordPress Comments

I really hate spammers. They make me sick with their spam comments with all the bold text and hyperlinks. I know that I'm not the only one with this crappy problem, since spammers are everywhere these days. Some of them should write a book about "The life of a Spammer."

You can easily disable HTML in WordPress Comments.So if someone uses the strong code, it will not bold the text etc. It's really important for a WordPresser to disable HTML comments to prevent spammers from commenting with HTML formatted comments.

Just add following code in your functions.php file:

// This will occur when the comment is posted
function plc_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) {

// convert everything in a comment to display literally
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment['comment_content']);

// the one exception is single quotes, which cannot be #039; because WordPress marks it as spam
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = str_replace( "'", '&apos;', $incoming_comment['comment_content'] );

return( $incoming_comment );
}

// This will occur before a comment is displayed
function plc_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) {

// Put the single quotes back in
$comment_to_display = str_replace( '&apos;', "'", $comment_to_display );

return $comment_to_display;

That's IT!