JQuery DataTables

JQuery DataTables with WordPress and Drupal

DataTables is a plug-in for the jQuery Javascript library. DataTables is a very flexible tool for adding advanced interactions to to any HTML table. It adds controls providing searching, sorting and pagination.

DataTables works with most popular CMS and web based CRM systems with plugins available out-of-the-box for many of these, including WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

I’ve recently been using the DataTables JQuery scripts for a couple of tables on a WordPress and a Drupal site, so I’m taking the opportunity to briefly discuss the plugins I’m using, and the differences using DataTables with these 2 content management systems.

WordPress Ajax Problems

WordPress Image Manager Freezes

I’m finding lately the WordPress image manager overlay often freezes when used to insert images in posts or pages. It’s annoying as the only way to get back to the article is to refresh the page – usually losing anything written since the last auto save or manual save.

It seems like an Ajax bug – at least from the number of Ajax errors in the logs. It’s recent as well – I don’t remember this ever happening before the WordPress 3.6 update. I’m getting this on most of the WordPress sites I edit, and have client’s reporting the same problem.

This isn’t a plugin conflict – how can I be so sure. Well, it also happens on WordPress.com – this blog too… And as we all know, we don’t add plugins here, and everything is supposedly tested to work before being rolled out on the platform.

Read the full article at tech.graphicline.co.za/wordpress-image-manager-freezing

Correct Mystique Site Title Header

How to Correct WordPress Mystique Theme Site Title Header Markup

A sharp eyed user of the WordPress Mystique theme noticed duplicate <h1> headers on the front page.

The theme places the site title and tagline inside <h1> markup for the front page and blog page.

And of course, WordPress puts the page title in <h1> markup as well – so you get 2 instances of <h1> on the site front page and the blog.

Not good for SEO. There must only be one H1 on any page.

Funny thing is, the developer has commented the theme file responsible for assigning the title markup, in the code just prior to the offending lines of script:

“only on the front/home page, for seo reasons”

Change the Code to Fix Error

CartPress Sends no-cache Headers

WordPress Plugin News Feed Stops Website Caching

It’s hard to believe a simple news feed from the CartPress e-commerce plugin for WordPress prevents WordPress from caching pages. This is apparently what happened to a website recently.

We received a request for assistance for a WordPress e-commerce site with this problem. The owner read our article; Fastest WordPress Caching System – and asked if we thought it would overcome a problem with his site. We explained this system wasn’t suitable for e-commerce.

Another WP3.5 Site Backdated

One More WordPress 3.5 Series Site Goes Back

I’ve just had to backdate another WordPress 3.5 series (WP3.5.1) site to WP 3.4.2. This time it was for the media manager which the client decided he really couldn’t live with.

“I’ve got peculiar links all over my blog to posts that don’t exist, e.g. mydomain/anotherdomain/post-title/!” “Has my site been hacked?”

After a quick front-end survey of the site, my answer; “No sir, your site hasn’t been hacked. WordPress is adding your domain to incompletely formatted outgoing links in your posts.”

“When you add outgoing links, do you always include the full http: //www etc string?” “It’s easy to fix, just go back to every post with outgoing links and make sure the full http:// is included. “

“But I’ve got hundreds of posts, isn’t there something else we can do? I never had to do that before. I thought WordPress did it for me!”

“Yes sir, you can revert back to the last version of WordPress that didn’t have that feature!”

“I don’t know how to, how much will you charge to do it for me?”

Don’t Update to WordPress 3.5

WordPress 3.5 Causes Problems – Don’t Update

Be very careful before updating to WordPress 3.5, it may break vital systems. A number of plugins and themes are partly or totally incompatible with WordPress 3.5 at this time. If you have advanced features and commercial themes wait until you are certain these are fully WP3.5 compliant before upgrading, or you could lose these functions, and lose business as a result.

If you are starting a new blog or website WordPress 3.5 is fine… If your existing blog uses a default WordPress theme like TwentyEleven, TentyTwelve or TwentyTen, and only default or 3.5 proven plugins, then probably it’s OK to update. If you have extended functions on the front end, be wary, be very wary!

Lots of Faulty Plugins

Faulty Plugin Updates Plague WordPress

Lately there are a surprisingly large number of plugins with faults. I am not talking about new plugins – although there are some of those too – it’s the reliable and generally bug-free ones that have suddenly got bugs in their latest updates.

So what is going on. Are the code changes introduced in WordPress 3.4 the reason. Whatever the reason, suddenly it seems, respected plugin contributors are stumbling.

Mostly the Bugs are Minor

Most plugin bugs seem small, minor issues. They may not even affect every installation. There are however significant increases in the number of bug reports posted on the plugin support forums. One plugin had a small handful of reports since nine months ago, now there’s a page full in the last 2 months – all since WP3.4 it seems.

Google Ranks WPOnlineStore Websites Badly

Googlebot has Problems with WPOnlineStore

There’s a few problems Googlebot (Google’s search engine spider) has with sites using the WPOnlineStore osCommerce plugin for WordPress. These problems result in WPOnlineStore website catalogue listings ranking badly in Google SERP, or not being indexed at all.

One of these only affects a few sites, the another is common to all standard self hosted WordPress sites using the WPOnlineStore plugin for e-commerce websites. Both these problems are extremely serious, but neither is a fault or bug in the plugin. The third problem Google has with WPOnlineStore e-commerce sites is the store XML sitemap – there isn’t one!

Error Message Using Mystique Theme

Warning: Illegal offset type in isset or empty

A WordPress error message displayed publicly is usually caused by a conflict between a theme and a plugin. “Warning: Illegal offset type in isset or empty”.

This error message is seen on a few sites using the Mystique WordPress theme, as well as a few other themes. One of the reasons for the error for sites using Mystique is a conflict when category and tag taxonomy terms are used for PAGES. Ninja Page Categories Plugin used with the Mystique theme results in this error message.

The error has something to do with menu fields, with the plugin installed the theme admin reports a theme field has been disabled as it already exists, and the error messages are displayed wherever a custom menu is in use…

The Page Categories and Tags plugin still does what it’s supposed to, include pages in taxonomy term archive pages.

Solutions to Mystique and Page Categories Error Messages:

The simple answer is change the theme, uninstall the plugin, or only use the basic menu, which is not a solution for those of us who want to make use of Mystique with page categories, or find another solution.