Zack Design

See your Wordpress.org Plugin updates for the latest and greatest code! This plugin should now work correctly with:

• All-in-One SEO Pack
• WP Smart Sort
• sCategory Permalink
• …and any other plugin that has anything to do with categories

I’ve gone through and isolated what I believed to be the problem with the previous implementation and rewritten the plugin accordingly. Don’t forget to donate!

Addendum: Because this gets asked so much, here’s your answer for embedding a widget into your non-sidebar theme:

The Wordpress widget area is awesome and allows you to set up a linear layout of different useful items in unordered lists. Wordpress really needs to call their sidebars ‘blocks’ because all people seem to think is that they use them as sidebars. I use ’sidebars’ as ‘blocks’ all over my themes and set up multiple blocks with different widgets for different occasions or needs.

If your theme doesn’t have sidebars or ‘blocks’ installed, may I direct you to this excellent blog post. Simply place the sidebar code anywhere you want it to appear in your template and fire away. Even add some page logic so it only shows up on a certain page! Much cleaner, more accessible, and more easy to manipulate.

If you can’t do this on your own I can help you – just visit my contact form and I’ll provide you with support. Please don’t put support requests in the comments.

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ThemeParkNewsDirect.com was a recently-created Drupal website I was commissioned to skin. One of my graphic artists created the graphics and I then proceeded to use the following Drupal modules:

• Chaos Tool Suite
• Panels
• The new Admin module for Drupal which mimics Drupal 7
• Image module (With the advanced ImageMagick module)
• Views
• Nice Menus – this required a significant amount of fluffing around with the CSS – I just wish there was a good Suckerfish module!

We ended up using the most complicated panel layout and many, many different kinds of views to get the right feel for the front page. The Zen starterkit for Drupal is also a magnificent way to start off a theme, but I’ve often found that one of the biggest problems with Drupal theming is that you have to start with the Drupal ids and classes rather than your own otherwise there’s so much more work involved.

Still, I think you’ll agree that the end result is quite good!

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QuickShop has come a long way from its 1.0 days, as you will see when you begin to use this new version!

For all those people wondering why there was such a low level of support, I can tell you:

• We are NOT being paid to develop this plugin for you – any money we do make and any donations we receive are a mere fraction of the development cost required to put 2.0 up for you
• Support for any free plugin is a bottom-of-the-heap priority. We provide all plugins with the best of intentions and a sincere desire to help other people out. We are not philanthropic gods though and never aspire to be.
• We refuse to answer any questions that are answerable A) by the readme or  B) clearly answerable by a quick look in the Wordpress admin section
• Lastly, if the request is phrased in such a way as to appear like it was sent without at least some thought and/or willingness to pay for support or upgrades, it will be ignored.

That being said, Zack Design does read all your bug reports and requests wherever possible and does endeavour to reply or collate them for later. Just remember that courtesy works both ways!

Now that we have all that out of the way, it is time to talk about v2.0!

QuickShop is completely re-written. It has a better inventory manager (everything all in the one place!), a better shipping calculator which addresses the issues previously had, a better product listing and form with better product options, an actual checkout page, extensible payment options (with Authorize.NET to be added ASAP), use of Wordpress shortcodes and an auto-tag updater to change all your tags from the old V1 tags to the new V2 tags!

There will be more updates in the near future with QuickShop 3.0 planned with AJAX implementation, internationalization, shopping cart usage improvements, more payment types, and much, much more. Please consider donating if this plugin is good for you, and remember that if you want something, sponsor its development!

A quick update to let everyone know to upgrade their CSS dropdown menu!

After a LONG period of waiting, it now comes with IE8 support, a completely extensible multi-level drop-down system courtesy of a recursive menu generating function, bugfixes, and more!

Get it while it’s hot!

This is merely the first major update in my line of Wordpress plugins. QuickShop 2.0 is well on its way with a revamped system and an inventory (among other things). And the multiple category selection widget is about to receive some love too.

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I was commissioned to create the RadioRNR website and had a massive set of challenges.

• SSL encryption on the Paypal API subscription form and the Wordpress admin
• FeedWordpress plugin used to syndicate a feed
• Custom functions which filter out videos and create the player automatically inside the posts
• Paypal API plugin for subscriptions
• Virtual private server administration – Ubuntu server, SSH, Apache, DNS, PHP, MySQL
• Huge amounts of theme customization and Wordpress hacks…

After completing the website it’s safe to say it’s the single largest Wordpress site I’ve ever done. Not based on page or post count, but on the sheer level of customization…!

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First of all – sorry to everybody who has been waiting so long. I have been completely snowed under with other work, not all of it Wordpress-related. However, here is a list of the exciting things to come:

New QuickShop with the following:

• Use of the shortcodes API that come with Wordpress. This will unfortunately mean another change to the way things are laid out for those who already have shops. To make it easier on you guys I’ll release a version 1.3.12 to make it bug-free without forcing you to massively change the way you work. The new shortcodes version will be 1.4, so stay on 1.3.x if you don’t want things to break.
• Bugfixes galore! I’ve been following the forums, don’t worry!
• Anything else I can fit in. I’ve been planning a LOT, but not all of it will make it in.

New plugin updates for the CSS Drop-downs, and the multi-category search plugin. All coming down the pipes in the next month or two.

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Turn your Wordpress post categories into a search powerhouse! This plugin gives you the ability to provide your users with a widget full of dropdowns based upon parent categories and their sub-categories.

Multiple subcategories spanning multiple parent categories (though multiple categories inside a single parent cannot be chosen) are chosen and intelligently filter your posts.

NEW: URL Rewrites, visible URL, AND pagination. It is now version 1.0

Sample Application:

Real Estate – set up parent categories such as ‘Bedrooms’, ‘Bathrooms’, ‘Price Range’, etc. Then put sub-categories beneath them.

Create a new post and tick all applicable sub-categories. Users should now be able to search for your post under all those categories!

Download it now

Comments are off. Please visit the forum for any requests, or use the contact form if you would like to donate or request a quote.

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I have created a three-level drop-down menu plugin for Wordpress.

It uses Stu Nicholl’s final drop-down code which is a complete CSS solution – no Javascript required!! With the plugin I’ve included his CSS but not imported it directly as it’s best that you modify it to suit your theme, and you also need to read Stu’s copyright notice on the page I’ve linked to (a donation to his fund would also be good).

Download the plugin from here.

If you want me to modify the CSS for you simply contact me and I will do it easily and quickly for you for a moderate sum.

Want a demo of this menu?

InTuneforLife

Skopelos Topos

OBCEvents

Comments are off! Visit the Forum to get support, request features, and more.

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I’ve just created a new widget as a plugin using the Simplepie Wordpress plugin for the RSS feed logic.

You can specify how many images you want to display, and a sample template is provided to get you started, though it should be more than good enough for what you need.

It comes with the latest version of PHPThumb to generate good-looking thumbnails. You can see the value 150 in the sample template – this sets the width – a value you may change yourself.

Download – RSS Image Widget:

RSS Image Widget – download here.

SimplePie Core

SimplePie by Itself:

SimplePie Wordpress Plugin (Required for this widget to work)

Comments are off! Visit the Forum to get support, request features, and more.

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Cath Crowley’s new site has just been completed using Wordpress, the All-in-one-SEO plugin pack, and a contact form plugin. It is the first one to be released sporting the latest in graphical design that Zack Design can offer thanks to a partnership with Chocolate Chip Multimedia.

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