Tutorials – WPSpeak

Tutorials

Adding Custom Smileys to WordPress Templates

WordPress comes with 22 default smileys that can be used in your post/page and comments section. Smileys, or also known as emoticons are glyphs to convey emotions in your writing. Here are some examples of smileys:

Complete list of smileys can be seen from the table below:

How to Enable or Disable Smileys

Smileys are turned on by default. However, if you decided to turn it off, you can do so from the settings page. Go to Settings > Writing.

Replacing Default Smileys

WordPress already has a filter to replace the default smileys to custom smileys.

1. Put the code below in the functions.php file of your current theme, or even better in functionality plugin.

add_filter('smilies_src','my_custom_smilies_src', 1, 10);
function my_custom_smilies_src($img_src, $img, $siteurl){
 return $siteurl.'/wp-content/images/smilies/'.$img;
}

2. Upload the images you want to be used and rename it to the same name (It should be in wp-content/images/smilies).

Use Custom Smileys

If you’re afraid of coding anything, there are bunch of plugins that will allow you to do so. However, I personally recommend Smilies Themer plugin. There are few packs or styles you can choose from.

If you wish to use it, I also recommend to install an add-on to the plugin, Smilies Themer Toolbar plugin. The add-on will add a toolbar to the comments section and in post editor, thus make it easier for you to use any of the custom smileys without having to remember the text.

Plugins, Tutorials

How to Allow or Prevent New User Registration

As admin of your own site, you can decide whether to allow or disallow new user registration. If you’re the only author and user, disabling the new user registration feature is the best option. However, for a membership site, for example, you need to enable new user registration so anyone can register a new account on the site.

For any site that allows new user registration, in the login form, you will see a Register link at the bottom of the form.

In this quick tutorial, I’ll show you how allow or disallow new user registration. To do so, go to Settings > General. You will see a checkbox to allow or disallow new users registration. Untick that. That’s it.

I recommend leaving the new user default role as subscriber or contributor. I believe granting author, editor or administrator role to a user should be done manually since those roles have greater access to the site. For security reason, those three roles should only be given to trusted person. Please read about users roles and capabilities in WordPress Codex for more information about this.

Although this prevent someone from registering an account in your site, if you wish to create an account for someone else (such as guest writers), you can still do so by manually creating an account for them from Users > Add New.

Plugins, Tutorials

How to do Liveblog With WordPress

If you’re a journalist or someone who attend a great event and want to share or broadcast it instantly to your readers, liveblog is one of the great ways to do it. However, with default WordPress system, it isn’t possible.

Introducing Liveblog plugin by Automattic.

Here’s a demo video about the Liveblog plugin.

At first, the plugin was developed for clients at WordPress VIP. However, Automattic decided to release it as a plugin. The plugin will allow author to post updates right from the front-end of your site. It will also make adding pictures much easier by adding a drag-and-drop functionality. Moreover, all the updates through this plugin will be served to the readers instantly without needing to refresh the browser.

This Liveblog plugin is completely free. It is good to know that WordPress already has this kind of functionality with the use of additional plugin. The plugin might not need to be activated all the time, if you do not use it, you can simply deactivate it.

Note: There is difference between live blogging and mobile blogging. If you wish to blog from your mobile phone there are few mobile apps for WordPress for various mobile platform.

Plugins, Tutorials

How To Limit Login Attempts in WordPress

There are many ways to hack your WordPress site. No one likes to be hacked, it is one of the scariest moment for any bloggers out there. In this quick tutorial, I’m going to share how to limit login attempts to your WordPress site.

Before this, I’ve also shown you how to change the default login URL to increase the security of your WordPress site. Be sure to check that out too.

Why It Is Important to Limit Limit Login Attempts

If you’re still new about this and still wondering why we should limit login attempt, please read on. As I mentioned above, there are many ways to break your WordPress site. Besides from known vulnerability from plugins or theme you use, someone might try to break into your dashboard by trying to login by using guess combinations of letters, numbers and keys many times. By many times, I meant hundreds or thousands of times. This kind of attack is also known as

By limiting someone from trying to login many times, you can prevent them hacbrute-force attack.king your website using this kind of attack.

To limit the login attempt to your WordPress site, I recommend installing

To limit the login attempt to your WordPress site, I recommend installing plugin.

1. Install and activate Limit Login Attempts plugin.

2. Configure the plugin. Go to Settings > Limit Login Attempts.

From the settings page, there are number of things you can configure, such the number of attempts before lockout, limit the number of attempts to log in using auth cookies in same way and etc.

I found this plugin to be very useful and must-use plugin for every WordPress site. I’m currently using this plugin on WPSpeak and highly recommend you to do so.