I took a look at the PHP code from sidebar.php located in the templates folder (now-reading/templates/sidebar.php) and noticed the following:

<div class="now-reading"><h3>Planned books:</h3>

?php if( have_books('status=unread') ) : ?>

<ul>

<?php while( have_books('status=unread') ) : the_book(); ?>

<li><a href="<?php book_permalink() ?>"><?php book_title() ?></a> by <?php book_author() ?></li>

The class element “now-reading” determines the style of the <div> in the stylesheet which I haven’t defined (yet). I could add it in my stylesheet and adjust the font size and style but it wouldn’t fix the missing box. The plugin isn’t compatible with my WordPress theme which requires a nested lists after the header in the sidebar. A standard object in my sidebar would look like this:

<div id="sidebar">

<h2>Recent Comments</h2>

<ul id="recentcomments">

<li class="recentcomments">

But the plugin opens an unordered list after the first line of PHP is already executed. So I have to change the code in sidebar.php and start with opening an unordered list (I also removed the “Current books” header to better suit my layout):

<ul>

<?php if( have_books('status=reading') ) : ?>

<ul>

<?php while( have_books('status=reading') ) : the_book(); ?>

<li>

After adding the unordered list element the plugin displayed the books correctly.

Up next:

• Fix the other Now Reading pages such as the library which gives an overview of all the books in your database.
• Dive deeper into the hierarchy of plugins and widgets, CSS and themes.

This clean looking gallery and nicely working plugin were brought to my attention by Lorelle’s great and extensive post on WordPress Plugins for Images, Photographs, and Graphics.

I ditched Gallery 2 (way too much hassle to manually remove all the headers, footers, sidebars and navigation tools you don’t want to display) and the WPG2 WordPress plugin (see my previous post on this issue).

I will add more pictures soon.

UPDATE July 2007: I have moved all my photos to Flickr.

The framework itself feels restrictive and I have been looking for tools to accomplish what I want. In the case of WordPress I have been looking for Widgets and Plug ins that can achieve what I want. Or rather, the backend tools that shape and form my blog. Plugins and widgets are solutions to the restrictions in the WordPress software, but are restrictions being reproduced on another level? What kind of constraints are built into the internet on the content level? How does software control meaning (content). These are several questions I am planning to ask myself in my MA thesis.
I recently came across two related posts: Ranting on WordPress Plugin Development by Justin Shattuck and Ranting on WordPress Plugin Development by David at Blogger Pro

Adding tags to my posts was easy, but creating a tagcloud wasn’t. I was able to create a tag archive page which would display a tagcloud (following the instructions), but that wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I wanted to display my tagcloud in my dynamic sidebar which uses widgets. So I put the php code in the (empty) Text1 widget, but it turned up empty. So I tried adding list HTML tags, which didn’t help either. After some googling it turns out that you cannot put php code in your widgets. But of course there is a widget to help me fix this widget problem.

This widget required a framework which generated yet other problem: Fatal error: Call to undefined function king_version_head() in wp-content/plugins/king-includes/king-framework.php on line 118

Whoops! Nothing would show up because of this error. Fortunately the easy solution of deleting the plug-in from my server and uploading it again helped. I encountered another error while installing the King Text Widget but fortunately this was entirely my own fault. I had put the php-file in the plugin folder, but this isn’t a plug-in but a widget so it belongs in the widget folder. But the framework had to be put in the plug-in folder, because the framework is a plug-in and not a widget. Are you still with me?

Then there it was, my tagcloud! But it didn’t quite look alright. The block didn’t show a white background like all my blocks in the sidebar do. So it doesn’t automatically take the CSS, which makes sense, because it’s a dynamic block. After several guesses at where to put my div class code for the block it worked! (Just put the correct CSS around your php, it is logical after all). It pretty much took a whole evening, but here it is… my tagcloud.

PS: I just noticed the tags only display on the front page, not on the individual post page. It’s getting late. Tomorrow.

Update December 1st: added a php line to single.php
Next task: convert the old categories which are now tags to lowercase (simply renaming the categories didn’t work). Any ideas besides a possible CSS solution of text-transform:lowercase ?

Wether WPG2 is “responsible” or not my whole WordPress upload directory is gone! So bare with me while I upload all my photos and papers again…

Note to self: BACKUPS are IMPORTANT!

• Lorelle on WordPress: Backing Up WordPress
• WordPress: Backing Up Your Database