Wordpress MU: get posts/pages from different blogs under same installation

How can you create a loop to get posts/pages from different blogs under same MU installation?

1) you can use switch_to_blog function
http://codex.wordpress.org/WPMU_Functions/switch_to_blog

2) create wordpress loop (this will get posts from the blog you just switched)

3) do whatever you want with data

4) restore current blog you are on so everything runs after this code go to the blog it supposed to
http://codex.wordpress.org/WPMU_Functions/restore_current_blog

switch_to_blog(1); // we are switching to blog id # 1
query_posts('showposts=5'); //this would get top 5 posts from blog id # 1. you can change the loop to the get posts from x category
if (have_posts()) :
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
//do whatever you want with data here...
endwhile;
endif;
restore_current_blog();

No Comments | December 11th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Secure Your Wordpress Installation

Very nice presentation @ Wordcamp NYC this year on Wordpress Security.

Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/williamsba/wordpress-security-updated

Video on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/7685380

Also upgrade your blog as soon as new version comes out.

Can we say now “Hack it if you can!”?

No Comments | December 8th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

I'm attending WordCampNYC!

WordCampNYC – Nov 14-15

No Comments | November 3rd, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Wordpress MU Site Upgrade Bug: Your server may not be able to connect to blogs running on it

I was upgrading mu site to 2.8.4. I went to Site Admin -> Upgrade and hit Upgrade Site button. It worked for first 25 – 30 blogs and then died with message

Warning! Problem upgrading . Your server may not be able to connect to blogs running on it.
Error message: 200: Operation timed out after 3 seconds with 0 bytes received

This is what I did to fix my problem

I opened wp-admin/wpmu-upgrade-site.php and wp-includes/http.php

function &_getTransport( $args = array() ) {

on line number 94 of wp-includes/http.php, wordpress tests different http request methods exist on your server during upgrade.

1st test was the culprit on my server which uses http_request method built into PHP. I guess this method was taking long time to resolve DNS and so it was timing out.

if ( true === WP_Http_ExtHttp::test($args) ) {
$working_transport['exthttp'] = new WP_Http_ExtHttp();
$blocking_transport[] = &$working_transport['exthttp'];
}

I did comment out this test and let Wordpress start with next one.

if ( true === WP_Http_Curl::test($args) ) {
$working_transport['curl'] = new WP_Http_Curl();
$blocking_transport[] = &$working_transport['curl'];
}

And guess what? All 150 blogs were updated in a few minutes without any problem.

If even curl does not work for you, you can comment it out and move on to the next until WP upgrade site works for you.

Good Luck!

1 Comment | October 8th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Wordpress: Calculate font-size in Tag Cloud

$fontSizeUnits = "px";
$fontSizeMin = 15;
$fontSizeMax = 50;
$maxValue = 12;
$minValue = 1;

where $results is MySQL result set.

foreach ($results as $result) {
$tag = $result->name;
$tagURI = get_option('home') . '/' . $result->taxonomy . '/' . $result->slug . '/';
$count = $result->count;
$weight = ( $count - $minValue ) / ( $maxValue - $minValue );
$fontSize = $fontSizeMin + round( ($fontSizeMax - $fontSizeMin) * $weight );
echo "<li style='display: inline-block; font-size:". $fontSize. $fontSizeUnits."'><a href=".$tagURI." title='(".$count." posts)'>".$tag."</a></li>";
}

No Comments | August 25th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Parent Child Theme – Easiest Way!

This solution will work for you if you want your child theme have fewer templates and if any template is missing, it should not break your blog but should go to parent theme and load it.

And a few important things to set,
1) parent theme folder name
2) child theme folder name
3) Template set in child theme style.css must match parent theme folder name

Because child theme name and Template set in child theme style.css are stored in options table.
read more »

No Comments | August 7th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Date archive for a category

There are a few ideas out there How to build date archive for a category. I am joining the race now.

Some of us, wordpress developers, may think this is hacky but I bet a few will like it this way because this works!.
read more »

10 Comments | June 16th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

JSON and Wordpress

If you want to encode/decode JSON within/using wordpress, you can take a look at

/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/spellchecker/classes/utils/JSON.php

This file has Moxiecode_JSON class which can do that for you.
read more »

3 Comments | March 17th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Back in USA

Hi Everyone. I’m back in the business!

I decided I will write about my trip the same day I was landed in USA but I was caught up checking 1,000 emails and work load.

It’s always great going back home and meeting your people. I enjoyed a lot this time in India. Hanging out with friends, family regroup, my grandmother and a lot! This year I relaxed a bit as well and some days were so busy. Kite Fastival, Uttarayana or Makarsakranti was too good. I fly kites after 2 years.
read more »

No Comments | February 4th, 2009 | by Jaymin Patel

Automatically adjust for daylight saving time

I have been googling for this and again come up with my own solution.


function my_set_gmt_offset($offset) {
$timezone = date("T");
if($timezone == 'EDT') {
$offset = '-4';
}
else if($timezone == 'EST') {
$offset = '-5';
}
return $offset;
}
if(function_exists('add_filter')) {
add_filter('option_gmt_offset', 'my_set_gmt_offset');
}

Share your feedback via comments.

1 Comment | November 12th, 2008 | by Jaymin Patel

« Older Entries