My Kansas Library on the Web

Back only a week and already fixing stuff!

As promised, the functionality for uploading themes and plugins has been restored. To use this functionality:

1. Log into the admin interface
   1.  ONE TIME ONLY: Click Plugins and scroll down until  you see OneClick, and click Activate, this turns theme and plugin uploading functionality on.
2. On your dashboard, you will see a link for OneClick Install, click it
3. Click the Browse button below “Install from local .zip file” and find the theme or plugin you would like to upload. (I am assuming that you have already downloaded whatever theme or plugin you would like to install, and that it is in a zip file somewhere on your computer, and that you know where it is.)
4. Change the Type depending on what you are uploading (Theme if you are uploading a theme, plugin if you are uploading a plugin)
5. Click Go.  Your theme or plugin should now be available to you in the appropriate section of the site.

Please feel free to holler my way if you have questions or problems with this, good luck, and happy uploading!

We discovered an exploit in the version of Wordpress we were running, so to keep you all safe we decided to go ahead and upgrade you to a newer version that did not have the problem.

Due to the customizations you all have done on your sites, I can’t guarantee you won’t experience problems, but I can guarantee that I’ll work to see that any issues you are having are resolved as quickly as possible.

You can submit issues here: http://www.mykansaslibrary.org/i-need-help

Please be sure to explain as thoroughly as possible what your issue is, what is missing or additional, and “how it used to look.”

That said, if you’re seeing one of the following issues, try these instructions before getting in touch. May just save us all a ton of time.

ISSUE: My widgets have gone funny or my site doesn’t look right!

Not seeing the usual sidebars? The widget interface looks right but the widgets aren’t being displayed? Try this:

1. Log in to the admin panel
2. Click on Plugins
3. Deactivate the “Activate All” plugin, if it is activated (green)
4. Deactivate the “Wordpress Widgets” plugin if it is activated (green)
5. Check your site, the widgets/sidebars should be back to normal.

This happens because some of the sites were on a version that still required the widgets plugin, which the newer version has built in. Deactivating the Widgets plugin usually fixes the problem.

ISSUE: Database error that references Subscribe2 when posting.

If you see a problem that references subscribe2, like the following:

WordPress database error: [Table 'frankfort.wp_subscribe2' doesn't exist]
SELECT email FROM wp_subscribe2 WHERE active='1'

Do the following:

1. Log into the admin interface
2. Click on the plugins menu
3. Deactivate “activate all” (it will be green if active, white if inactive)
4. Deactivage “subscribe2″ (it will be green if active, white if inactive)
5. Drop me an email or submit a request through this site that you want to have the new version.

ISSUE: You have permalinks enabled, but you are getting numbered urls (or, your pages don’t work)

1. Log into your admin interface.
2. Click on Options.
3. Click on Permalinks.
4. If you have your pages listed as http://your.url.org/pagename, the bottom radio button should be checked.
5. Click “Update Permalink Structure”

ISSUE: I can no longer upload plugins or themes.

In the course of the events that precipitated this update, we discovered that it was actually a couple of the plugins that were allowing the bad people to deface our sites. In order to mitigate this threat (in addition to bringing the sites up to date on their Wordpress version) we have removed this functionality. As a work around, you can download the theme and email it to lrea at nekls.org, including which site you would like to add the theme to (your URL, i.e. yourtown.mykansaslibrary.org or www.yourtown.org) and she will upload it to your site for you.

We intend to put this functionality back in at some point, but it is going to require us to write or procure a plugin that does not allow the kind of security breaches that were allowed by the previous plugin. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Additionally, watch this post for any other frequently asked questions about this particular upgrade.

Tired of your boring old theme? Check some of these out:

100 Excellent Wordpress Themes

Due to the fact that the administrator of the KLOW server is going on maternity leave, new requests for KLOW sites will be put in the queue to be created when the admin returns.

We expect the hiatus to begin the week of the 14th of January 2008 and end April 1, 2008.

Please feel free to continue submitting your requests for help with existing KLOW sites, but be aware that response times may be a bit longer than you are used to.

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Liz Rea

KLOW Administrator

Since the upgrade for everyone we’ve seen a couple of incompatibilities pop up. Nothing major, and certainly nothing that can’t be fixed, but in the interest of transparency, here’s what they are and what’s being done about it:

Incompatibility: Subscribe2 plugin

Apparently this version of the subscribe2 plugin is incompatible with Wordpress 2.1.3. There is an updated version that I’ll be pushing out as soon as I can.

In the meantime, if you see a problem that references subscribe2, go into the plugins menu and deactivate “activate all” and “subscribe2″ and drop me an email that you want to have the new version.

Problematic Theme: Tarski 1.1.2

This theme causes a problem where when you save a post with the visual editor (the default post editor) it always gives the “Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?” dialog box. This is caused by a javascript convention used both in Wordpress and in this theme that don’t play nicely together (the wordpress support post where I found the solution, for the nerds) . I have modified the theme to be compatible, but not everyone has it yet. If you are using it, or think you might want to, please drop me a line. I hope to get it pushed out when I push out the new Subscribe2 plugin.

Any other mysterious problems floating around out there?

In lieu of actually moving your training sites, would it be alright to just create them fresh on the production server so they are completely up to date and ready for fresh new training?

Your comments welcome and appreciated.

Thanks!

You know you want to add events to your calendar, it’s easy as pie with the now built-in Event Calendar plugin. Let’s take a look at how it works!

The very first time you use it, you will need to set up the category you want to put your event posts in, and set a few settings depending on your preference.

Create the event category:

1. Log into the administration console of your website (the Dashboard)
2. Click “Manage”
3. Click “Categories”
4. Click “Add New”
5. Enter the name of the category (Events, Library Events, Fun Events, whatever you like), don’t worry about the other fields.
6. Click “Add Category”

The rest of the instructions after the jump!

[Read more →]

In the year since we started the KLOW project, there have been many changes and discoveries in the Wordpress suite of tools. The newer sites are much, much more fully functional than the first, “beta” sites. To that end, while I’m moving everyone to the new server, I’m also trying to bring everyone up to the newest, latest, greatest incarnation of KLOW.

Some changes you might notice:

• Wordpress has been upgraded to 2.1.3 from 2.0-2.1 for security and functionality reasons.
• Links has turned into “Blogroll.” The functionality is the same.
• You now have stats. - on the Dashboard, you will see a menu called ShortStat. This contains information on unique hits and what pages are getting hits in your website.
• Organizer is back, and it allows for resizing of images. Just click Organizer, then Resize.
• You can upload themes and plugins (but be warned, plugins can break your site to the point you will have to call me to have it fixed, so be cautious. We’ll do a post on this later.) - See the “Upload themes” page under Presentation and the “Upload Plugins” page under Options.
• Improved protection from comment spam - Everyone now has Akismet spam protection.
• There is an Event Calendar functionality - When writing a post you can set a category to be “events” that will allow you to set the date/time of the event, and it will show up on the calendar. You can choose to have these posts as part of the blog chronology or not. This may require further explanation, in a post to come later.
• There is a “Paste from Word” function - Click this button to expand the toolbar (lots of new functionality there, incidentally) copy your text from word, then click this button to paste it into your KLOW site. This should work better than it used to.
• There is also an “Undo” function, under the expanded toolbar. All of the new icons have tooltips, so you can just mouse over them to see what they are and what they do. We encourage you to click around.
• You can change the colors of text in posts and pages - Again, click the button to expand the toolbar, then pick the color with the button.

• You can backup the content of your site - Just click “Manage” and the “Backup,” check all of the boxes, and click “Backup.” You will want to save the file to your computer. Should you have a problem, we can re-create the content of your site easily from this backup. You’ll probably want to do this once a month or so (less if you’re an infrequent updater).
• You can set a Favicon for your site - click Options -> Favicons to upload your icon. (JPG format, please)

Please feel free to get in touch with us for information regarding these changes. Not all sites will have all of these functions right away, it will take some time to get everyone migrated, upgraded, and freshened up.

Jane Purcell, senior vice president of Advanced Access, a Web design and hosting firm in Anaheim Hills, California, says “I equate (having a good website) to a car. If you don’t put gas in it and get regular oil changes, it won’t perform for you. The same goes for the Web, where sites that aren’t useful or current do little good for their owners.”

That said, how do you make your site “pop?”

Here are a few ideas:

1. Use strong headlines - Write engaging headlines that speak to the essential needs of your patrons, such as “Got Kids? Need a peaceful moment? Come to storytime!”
2. Keep it up to date - there’s no point for your patrons to come to your website if there’s nothing new for them to look at. Keeping it updated at least every couple of weeks keeps your site fresh and interesting for patrons.
3. Keep your information accurate - There’s nothing more frustrating than out of date content or bad links. Check your content every now and then, your patrons will thank you.
4. Write patron centered copy - It’s their library, let them know that! Use you and your, instead of I and we.
5. Write in an inverted-pyramid style - list what essential services your library provides first (the basics), and keep the details at the bottom. They’ll read down to the nitty gritty if they are really interested.
6. Use small, context sensitive pictures in your posts - Not every post needs a photo or a graphic, but it can make your site look and feel a lot more fun. KLOW makes this easy as you can upload a photo to place on any post. You don’t have to use only photos, you can use royalty-free clip art as well (see the post below) to make a point or draw attention to a particular post.

I’m sure you have many ideas on what makes websites pop… what are your ideas?

I’m currently in the longish process of moving everyone over to the nice fast production server. You shouldn’t notice more than 5 minutes of site downtime when I do this, and it will happen only once.

Please let us know if you experience any problems!