Don’t Let Your WordPress Customizations Get the Best of You
Sometimes when we do a lot of customizations to our WordPress themes we can forget that they are there and then have trouble with something and be stumped as to what the problem is.
I did this recently with one of my scheduled posts and an excluded category.
Here’s what happened.
The problem
I always schedule my articles to post at 12:01am on the day that I want to publish it. Since 99% of the time I am asleep at that time, I check on the article when I get up in the morning. I got up and the article wasn’t on the front page of my site. I went into the admin area and saw that the article had published. I was confused – how it can be published but also be invisible. Also, I had just gotten up. I am a morning person but I don’t wake up completely alert and do need some caffeine to kick in before I am fully functional.
The Troubleshooting Thought Process
My next thought was that since there were code examples in the article maybe something in the code was keeping the article from displaying. In the back of my mind, however, I knew I was grasping for a solution because it had displayed fine in the preview while working on it and a code error would have shown up at that time. I removed all of the content from the article except for the first paragraph and it still didn’t show up. So, it wasn’t the code but I needed to eliminate that being the cause of the problem.
Still stumped, I decided to walk away from the computer for a couple of minutes. I’ve learned over the years that stepping away from a problem really does help in solving it rather that stubbornly beating my head against it.
And then it came to me. Check which categories the article was listed in. And sure enough I had placed the article in a couple of articles and one of them was one that I excluded from showing up anywhere except on my portfolio page (and since I recently changed the portfolio to use pages rather than posts I didn’t even need to be excluding or even using that category anymore).
So, in trying to be all fancy pants with my code, excluding categories, displaying items in one location and not in others, I kept a published post from showing up anywhere on my site. And when I was writing the article I completely forgot that I didn’t want to use that particular category because it would keep the post from showing up on the front page, archives, rss feed,etc. I removed the category from the post and it immediately displayed on the front page and throughout the site.
And you?
Have you ever had any of your customizations trip you up? Have you forgotten about them and how they work? I suppose I could list mine somewhere but until the other day, I never had a problem remembering them.
photo credit: metz79
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December 28, 2009 at 6:51 am
Your example is a great one. Various customization similar to this one have happened to me, and I haven’t had time to fix them all yet.
But thankfully, a few of them are only really noticeable to me.
Working with WordPress is often a love/hate relationship. :)
.-= LisaNewton´s last blog ..25 things to do and places to go in LA for Children (and Adults too) =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:20 am
Hi Lisa – That’s a good point – most visitors wouldn’t even know there was a problem. They wouldn’t know that there was supposed to be a new post on the front page ;-)
December 28, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I installed the WordPress Firewall plugin a while back when it first came out. The plugin author never mentioned how you could have issues editing your widgets or theme files while the plugin was active, even with your IP whitelisted.
I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t edit my widgets one day. Unlike you, I sat there and beat my head into my keyboard for about 30 minutes until I came to that “disabling plugins step”.
Sure enough, I had to disable the plugin, do my edits, and then reactivate it.
Would of been nice for the plugin’s notes to say something, ya know.
My hardest time is with other people’s sites. Sometimes I transfer sites from one host over to our hosting and some WP installs are so highly customized it makes transferring 100% of their blog almost impossible.
.-= John Hoff – WP Blog Host´s last blog ..Aside From A Blogger, What Are You Really? =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:22 am
Hi John – Other people’s sites are MUCH harder. When I’m working on one it usually takes me longer to figure out how things are set up and customized than to actually do the work ;-)
Somehow, it’s good to know I’m not the only one. ;-)
I need a good way to keep track of what I’ve done – it doesn’t help either that I frequently test different things in order to write about them.
December 28, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Interesting! i did one major customization a while ago and the main problem is, I can’t remember how I did it so if a problem ever arises, I’ll probably be clueless as to how to handle it.
.-= vered | blogger for hire´s last blog ..Twitter: Where Do You Draw The Line of Privacy? =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:25 am
Hi Vered – Oh, I do that too. I make a change and then when I need to do something with or about it I have to relearn what it was I did the first time.
December 28, 2009 at 3:53 pm
This has happened to me a few times now, and on all occassions, I published the post with a past date. So it shows up in archives but not on the front page.
December 29, 2009 at 7:33 am
Hi Manshu – Were you trying to schedule a post and selected the wrong date? When I’m scheduling I frequently need to look at a calendar because I have no idea where the post should go unless it’s one of my list posts.
December 28, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I had the same problem as John did, but nothing that you’ve mentioned. As puzzling and frustrating as it must have been, at the end of the day, I bet you felt a sweet sense of satisfaction at figuring out the puzzle. Way to go!
.-= Davina´s last blog ..Put the Message in the Box =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:33 am
Hi Davina – I didn’t feel that satisfied ;-) I was more annoyed for creating the problem in the first place.
December 28, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Indeed. I prefer to run scripts in the .htaccess file over installing plugins, if I have a choice; and sometimes forget to edit that file. Or that there are scripts there and rewrite it without intending!
.-= Ari Herzog´s last blog ..Showcase Sunday: From Felicia Day to a Goat =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:34 am
Hi Ari – Ugh … accidentally changing the .htaccess can be a problem. I’ve had issues with that before and it took quite awhile for me to figure that one out.
December 29, 2009 at 12:02 am
It’s interesting how things present themselves sometimes, ain’t it? For instance, another issue you may or may not know you have…
Try to limit the number of categories for each article; limit all the way to ONE if possible, as Google considers more then that to be internal duplicate content. ;)
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Again – Pick My New Domain Names With A chance To Win $10! =-.
December 29, 2009 at 7:41 am
Hi Dennis – I recently learned about the one category thing. But I disallow certain things in my robots.txt to deal with duplicate content issues. Many SEO plugins have options for not indexing archives and categories. Also, I think that only having excerpts helps too – there is an excerpt or the archive or category page but clicking on it goes to the same single post file with the full content.
December 30, 2009 at 1:51 am
Quite true. Snippets on site are good for a multitude of reasons; not so much in feeds, but that’s another article. ;)
December 29, 2009 at 10:35 am
Hi Kim,
As I was reading this, I felt like I was reading a good short story whose conclusion was uncertain. I’ve certainly been there before, mainly with plug in issues.
Unfortunately, I know just enough to get things really goofed up. Which means I’m extra cautious. I open up notepad and copy any code over to that before I make any changes. Saved my bacon once or twice!
George
.-= George Angus´s last blog ..Flash Fiction – Orb Chapter Three =-.
December 29, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Hi George – Thanks!
I also copy the code when making changes. This problem is when it was something I did a long time ago and then I do something else that breaks it and I don’t remember what I originally did ;-)
January 2, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I think I had this same problem on one of my sites… posting in a category that I hid from the homepage. Probably my only other customization snafu was adding code to the main WordPress files, then losing it during the upgrading process. I always think it would be good to make a list of which site, what customization, and exactly where & why I did it. But I never get around to that list, and always end up losing something on a theme change or upgrade. Fortunately, it’s stuff that I can easily find again.
.-= Kikolani´s last blog ..Upgrading WordPress 2.9 and Thesis 1.6 =-.
January 3, 2010 at 8:06 am
Hi Kristi – It’s a relief to hear that someone else does the same things ;-)
There is one file I always need to edit due to memory issues – every time I upgrade I forget about it and have to search again for the information about it. I keep saying I’ll make a list too but I never do.
January 14, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Kim, what was the plugin you used to show or not show articles based on category?
.-= The Digital Tools & Life Blog´s last blog ..LPDs to Replace LCDs and LEDs? =-.
January 14, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Hi – I use in_category continue
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/in_category
There is also a good plugin called Ultimate Category Excluder
http://www.planetmike.com/plugins/ultimate-category-excluder/