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The Advanced WordPress Help Sheet

About a month ago, WPCandy released The WordPress Help Sheet, a PDF packed with PHP snippets, the basic template files, and other extra stuff for WordPress. It became pretty popular around the Blogosphere within a couple of days and was translated into quite a few languages. The WordPress Help Sheet was a great success and allowed WPCandy to become known to the rest of the world.

The WordPress Help Sheet was a good WordPress resource, but it was pretty limited and only had the basics of WordPress. I kept thinking to my self, “What about more advanced WordPress developers? They need something too!”. I felt they were being left out of all the fun. So here’s something for all you WordPress gurus…

I’m proud to announce The Advanced WordPress Help Sheet, another PDF packed with snippets that help extend WordPress’ capabilities. Although the Advanced WordPress Help Sheet is mainly aimed for more advanced WordPress developers, beginning WordPress developers can use it to further their knowledge.

The Advanced WordPress Help Sheet includes snippets from Styling Different Categories to Dynamic Page Titles. This is also only the first of a few I’ll be releasing. I plan on having at least three Advanced WordPress Help Sheets, totaling to around 9 or 10 pages of WordPress goodies.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the Advanced WordPress Help Sheet and it can be of some use to you. If you like it, please consider supporting us by sharing this post, leaving a comment, and subscribing to our RSS Feed.

By: Michael Castilla January 3, 2008 Tutorials 94 Comments

Further Reading...

94 Responses

  1. Adii // January 3rd, 2008 at 8:28 am

    As a WP designer, I must admit that I expected some more advanced code snippets… Some of the snippets included are pretty basic indeed - like the Theme Details & Next/Prev Links. I still think it’s a great release! :) But not advanced enough for me to actually use it…

    Irrespective, keep up the good work and I’m sure this release will bring another glut of traffic to a great WP Resource! :)

  2. Andrew // January 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 am

    I find that it is really difficult to judge what is basic, general, advanced, etc. I think this is a really good start.

  3. bboywicked // January 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am

    Wow, WP is a really tricky system huh. Theres so much things to do with it, well anyways nice post mike. Thanks for sharing!
    Keep it up, WPCandy is doing a great job!

  4. hellyeahdude.com // January 3rd, 2008 at 12:34 pm

    Well I must admit this is a great resource for people looking to get into Wordpress designs. They can print out this sheet and reference it as much as possible. That is the best way to learn web design and code, to memorize the code by referencing it.

    I must say Adii, I think Michael is saying this Wordpress Help Sheet is more advanced than the previous. This doesn’t cut him back from releasing all of these help sheets as a “series.” Just like calling a product organic or calling it fresh. He next release might be advanced enough for your site. Even though, I don’t think your Web site is even using any “advanced” code. Releasing an actual media medium is much better than just blogging about how much traffic you get. Contribute don’t gloat!

  5. Adii // January 3rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    @ Patrick - I’m definitely not gloating and even though my own blog doesn’t neccessarily use “advanced” code, it doesn’t mean that I can’t code it. I’ve actually been in contact with Michael and I’ll be contributing to the next sheet. When I commented, I was just suprised some (what seems to me) like pretty standard snippets, whereas I expected something less well-known - but I definitely wasn’t trying to knock this release.

    I love the initiave and ideas behind it and the WP community can only benefit from blogs such as WPCandy and passionate community members like Michael Castilla.

  6. Ehab // January 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 pm

    Obviously better than the previous one, but not necessarily “advanced” as in Advanced ;)

    Replaces the previous one for good though. Keep up the good work Mike.

  7. Michael Castilla // January 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    Hopefully the next sheet will be more advanced.

    Thanks for the comments guys. I’m glad you like it (for the most part).

  8. Mike Diesel // January 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    You rock man. Thanks for putting together another help sheet.

  9. Michael Castilla // January 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    @Mike Diesel: No problem man.

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  11. CP // January 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    Thanks Michael. This is very helpful.

  12. Ali Salem // January 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    Thanks a lot Michael. Helps a lot!

  13. Michael // January 3rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Just what I needed, Michael. I’m just starting to tinker with some styling on separate pages, and your Help Sheet will be right by my side.
    It really helps to have all that stuff in one easy sheet, rather than scattered through the Codex.

    Happy New Year!

  14. Jake // January 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm

    A great idea and definitely useful.

    One potential pitfall though is that the behaviour of “is_home()” is not as straightforward as might be anticipated: it will only return true when “Front page displays: Your latest posts” is set on the options > reading page - not when “Front page displays: A static page”

    Looking forward to the next installments!

  15. hellyeahdude.com // January 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    @adii -
    If you are a wordpress designer you should know that probably 80% of the people who use wordpress only use it with theme’s and to do personal blogging. Thus, someone even informing others of these code snippets would be considered advanced to many.

  16. Kevin King // January 3rd, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    I wish I would have had something like this when I first started. :)

    Thanks.

  17. Referáty zeměpis // January 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    Thank you for this guide especially for showposts :)

  18. Hannah Warmbier // January 3rd, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    What a great resource! I’m looking forward to more of these in the future.

  19. Michael Castilla // January 3rd, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    Your welcome everyone!

    If there are any snippets you think are worthy of being on the next Advanced WordPress Sheet, feel free to send them to me using the contact form.

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  21. Michael Cromarty // January 3rd, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    I’m lovin it pal!

    Lets carry on releasing them!

  22. Gary R. Hess // January 3rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm

    Nice cheat sheet. I’m sure this will come in handy with my never ending quest of editing my template :-P

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  26. Jermayn Parker // January 3rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    Thanks for this and the past “tip/ cheat sheet”, I have downloaded both and will print off soon…

    I also look forward to Adii’s contribution for a ‘more’ advance sheet.

    Could we also put a wish list together of what we would like to see??? I personally would like to see more on editing and changing the admin side of things…

    Thanks :)

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  29. Mark Penix // January 4th, 2008 at 1:59 am

    Nice contribution, however I’d call this intermediate not advanced… these are things you can get from the codex… I’d say advanced are things not necessarily available via the codex.

    P.S. you have a typo under “Unique Templates for Categories” you list in_category 3, cat4.php not cat3.php… just FYI.

    Again nice contribution :)

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  34. Matt Packer // January 4th, 2008 at 6:18 am

    Thanks for putting the time in to create this. As a relatively new WP user this is guaranteed to coming in handy for me.

    Cheers
    Matt

  35. Lifestyle Blog StyleSpion // January 4th, 2008 at 6:47 am

    This is an amazing piece. Thank you so much!

  36. Hafiz Rahman // January 4th, 2008 at 6:57 am

    Thanks for the Help Sheet! Looking at the PDF is definitely much more pleasant than looking around the WordPress Codex for the same info.

  37. Pchere // January 4th, 2008 at 8:36 am

    This is a truly wonderful compilation. A must download for wordpress users.

  38. Vijay Teach Me $$ // January 4th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Hi Mike,
    A nice collection for my wp websites, it is a powerfull combination.

  39. Michael Castilla // January 4th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    Thanks for your kind words everyone.

    I’ve uploaded an updated version with some fixed typos.

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  41. Steve Bruner // January 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    Nice job on the cheat sheet.

    You may want to revise one section: Unique Templates For Categories.

    There is no need to write all that code to provide a unique template for a category.

    Just create a file called: category-3.php if you want a unique template for category 3.

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  43. Michael Castilla // January 4th, 2008 at 3:57 pm

    @Steve: Really? So WordPress would automatically assign category-3.php to Category 3?

  44. Steve Bruner // January 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    Absolutely!

    It’s the Wordpress Template hierarchy:

    “The Template Hierarchy specifies that WordPress will use the first Template file it finds in your current Theme’s directory from the following list:

    1. category-6.php
    2. category.php
    3. archive.php
    4. index.php”

    You can find out more here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Category_Templates

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  49. Bram // January 5th, 2008 at 8:02 am

    A very nice one mate! Quite the valuable thing!

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  54. CP // January 6th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    Michael, I used the “Previous & Next Posts Links” on my site but the previous link doesn’t seem to show on the “next” pages. Any ideas? Thanks.

    http://knoxify.com/

  55. Michael Castilla // January 6th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    Hey CP,

    Try this:

    < ?php previous_posts_link('« Older Entries'); ?>

    If that works, then I’ve made a type in the sheet and I’ll update it. Thanks for asking.

  56. CP // January 6th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    That was it Michael. Thank you.

  57. Michael Castilla // January 6th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    No problem CP. Sorry for messing it up on the sheet. My apologies.

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  59. cjp // January 6th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    Very useful thank you, I will have this pinned up on my wall whilst I write my new theme for my site. Though I would agree with a previous poster that an even more advanced version would be useful, the WP codex can be a little dry so having it is this straight-to-the-point form is ideal.

    Thanks again.

    cjp

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  62. Thássius V. // January 9th, 2008 at 4:30 am

    I enjoyed it a lot. Congrats, Mike!

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    It’s a good resource for beginners but not for advanced users.

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  68. Jason // January 13th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

    This is such a great resource… True, it’s good for beginners… but even for advanced users, it’s great for a quick-reference. Thanks!

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  73. Kiran // January 18th, 2008 at 5:59 pm

    I had been looking for something like this for a long time, thank you! Love the very web2.0′e layout!

  74. Blog and Web // January 19th, 2008 at 1:24 am

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  82. yanuar // February 24th, 2008 at 2:03 am

    thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for

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  88. Mike Roussell // March 26th, 2008 at 12:15 pm

    This is great.

    I wanted to use the customize category template addition but my theme (Revolution) doesn’t have a category.php file

    What do I do?

    These are the files I have:

    * Stylesheet
    * tab.css
    * Archive Page
    * page_section.php
    * Search Results
    * Main Index Template
    * r_sidebar.php
    * s_footer.php
    * Footer
    * Sidebar
    * 404 Template
    * functions.php
    * Comments
    * l_sidebar.php
    * Archives
    * home.php
    * Page Template
    * Header
    * tabber.php

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  90. brad // April 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 am

    This is a great big help! Thanks a lot!

  91. G4HQ Forum // April 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

    Thanks!

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