Weblog Tools Collection

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Here at WeblogToolsCollection, we see quite a bit of WordPress theme releases coming through our inbox and I’ve noticed a trend. Hardly any of them include printing support. The question I’d like to have answered is why? Is adding printer support to WordPress themes too hard? Does adding this feature take up time? Or is it that this feature is barely any use to anyone?

For those wanting to add this type of support to your theme, you can install WP-Print. WP-Print picks up where most theme authors have left off by providing printing support in such a way that end users can print either articles or comments, depending on how you have configured the plugin.

In fact, doing a search on the plugin database for the keyword of “print” brought up two pages worth of search results. Another solution for you theme authors out there is called Bunny’s Print CSS. This plugin provides two files, print-css.php which is the plugin file and print.css which is the print stylesheet.

A link to the print stylesheet will be placed in your theme’s header, providing it uses the wp_head() function/hook. An admin panel is added to the Presentations menu and it will allow you to edit the stylesheet if you make print.css writeable. You probably want to edit the stylesheet provided to your liking, though it will hopefully do most of the job if your theme is sandbox-based.

This method takes most of the hard work out of creating a print.css file, even though theme authors would most likely have to modify the stylesheet to make it compatible with their theme.

For those who would like to manually create the style sheet, there is an article on the Codex entitled “Styling For Print” which covers all of the basics necessary to make a pretty, yet functional print stylesheet to include with your theme/themes.

I hope that by linking to the Codex article and bringing this issue to light, we will start to see more themes being released with built in printing support. It’s not a deal breaker for me, but I’d rather see themes that support this feature than those that don’t. My personal opinion is that, printing support is a nice finishing touch to round off any theme, and having it built in allows me and a number of other users to stop using another plugin.

Now it’s time for you to sound off. Is this a trivial issue, or is there anyone else out there that would like to see this feature in more themes?

Here at WeblogToolsCollection.com, we have already discussed how you can change the color scheme in the WordPress 2.5 administration panel from Classic to Fresh. We have also highlighted an awesome plugin that was written by Kaspars which gives users up to 8 different color schemes to choose from. However, what if you want to create your own color scheme? Thanks to a plugin written by James Dimick called Easy Admin Color Schemes, users can now create their own flavor of the WordPress 2.5 back end.

After downloading and installing the plugin, you can access it by browsing to SETTINGS-COLOR SCHEMES. There are three color schemes to start you off, Classic, Fresh and Washedout. The plugin does not allow you to delete nor edit the Classic and Fresh color schemes. This makes sense as you wouldn’t want to screw up a default skin only to have to reinstall WordPress to fix the issue. However, you can edit the Washedout color scheme which introduces you to the plugins functionality.

The plugin starts off by giving you the chance to name your color scheme. Next, give your color scheme four primary colors. If you don’t know of a six digit color code, there is a small arrow to the right of the text field that will open up a color picker. Opening the color picker and then selecting a color will automatically place the corresponding color code into the text field.

Once you have your four primary colors in order, the next step which is the longest of them all is to go through all of the CSS specific code and change the color code values to something else you prefer. There at least 10 different CSS files which make up the styling of the administration panel. There are more if you want to include support for RIGHT TO LEFT text. This plugin takes all of those CSS files and puts them in one place for you to edit, which makes things so much easier. Also, for those who have javascript enabled in their browser, you can view a live preview of what the changes will look like on an active WordPress administration page. Very handy as it cuts down on the browser refreshes.

One thing that I think this plugin is missing is an easy way for users to share their creations. If a download or save link could be added to the color schemes which would automatically package the necessary files together which could then be saved to my desktop for distribution, this would make the plugin a home run.

If you are looking at adding some spice to your WordPress back end, give this plugin a try. I don’t think it could be any easier than this plugin. The only problem with creating a color scheme is figuring out where each CSS class or DIV is defined. That’s where FireBug comes in.

Good luck and if you happen to create a color scheme using this plugin, be sure to say so in the comments.

Readability and High Contrast Designs Roger takes on the light text on dark background folks and opns up a can of worms. However, the reasoning is sounds and though the dislike and readability impairment might be limited, the bookmarklet and valuable discussion is worth the read. Do you like dark on light designs as much as light on dark?

For those who are not completely happy with the usability or the look and feel of the back office in their blog, there are a few plugins around, compatible with or made for Wordpress 2.0, that rework or enhance the admin area. I’ll name :

• Paged Comment Editing
  By default, “Manage Comments” only list the 20 last comments. What if you were on offline holidays for a month and have a blog that receives quite a few feedback ? This plugin allows browsing of older comments with paging through them.
• Cat 2 Tag
  If you create a lot of categories, this plugin makes selection easier when writing a post : a handy “tag cloud” avoids cumbersome scrolling through a long category list. There is also a fancy “suggest category” feature that proposes categories as you type them.
• Wordpress Admin Drop Down Menu
  The lazy and the productive will love it : you can go from any to any admin page without having to stop by the “top level” page first. For instance, no more loading “Manage” first , and then “Comments”, since all admin links are available in a CSS driven drop down menu (demo). Admin menu the way it was meant to be (and even compatible with Tiger Admin)
• Tiger Admin
  While adding no particular feature, this plugin completely revamp the admin part of your blog by heavily tweaking the CSS, giving your admin pages a brand new look (for Safari, Camino and Firefox only)

If you are using a plugin that adds functionnalities or redesigns the admin interface, feel free to pimp it in the comments. Also, I advise plugin authors to update their plugin descriptions over at WP-Plugins.net once the administration pages will include “Wordpress 2.0″ in the compatibility check list.