Here's a sample snippet of JSON -

To parse JSON data in PHP you can make use of the custom functions already available to you.

Here's an example of how to do it-

If you need more information try visiting one of the links below.

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Remove the admin bar for all Users

Paste the below lines into your functions.php within your theme (or child-theme) folder.

The post Remove the Admin Bar from WordPress appeared first on WebCrate.

When you install Wordress you will most likely choose and install a particular theme that suits your content. This is a quick and easy way of getting some brilliant designs applied to your website.

But what happens when the theme's author publishes an update? Do you apply the update at the risk of losing all of your changes? The answer is to use child themes.

So how do they work?

You can think of child themes as a clone of a parent theme, within which you can make customisations that will not get overwritten when the parent theme is updated. For example, you may decide that you don't like the width of the page, or the colour of the background. Instead of editing the parent theme, and risk losing all of your changes when the theme gets updated, you can simply create a child theme which contains all of your customisations.

Sounds great, how do I do it?

It's easy! Just following our step by step guide below.

• Open your FTP client, or use the file manager of your hosting control panel, and navigate to the home directory of your WordPress install.
• Navigate to the directory in which your themes are installed. This is normally at a path similar to /public_html/wp-content/themes.
• Create a new directory in the themes directory. This is where your child theme will live. You can name the directory whatever you like, however avoid spaces or any special characters.
• This new directory will contain your amended content, and will be safe from any updates to the parent theme.
• style.css is the only file you have to include in a child theme. Within this you specify which parent the child theme relates to. Here's a sample css file, note the line starting with Template:, which is where we specify the parent theme.
/*
Theme Name: WebCrate Custom Child
Description: WebCrate Child Demo
Author: WebCrate Design Team
Template: parenttheme
*/

@import url("../parenttheme/style.css");

.site-title a {
color: #0000FF;
}

• You can see that we have also used an import to include the parents style sheet in our child theme.
• When you have made all of your changes, all that is left is to browse to your WordPress admin area and activate the child theme!
• See, we said it was easy

The post Using Child Themes in WordPress appeared first on WebCrate.

http://wpcandy.com

http://rachmadin.com

http://www.destinyislands.com/

http://www.lucianosimas.com.br/

http://www.wpcookies.com/

http://www.lalunemauve.fr/

http://www.web2feel.com

The post Showcase of WordPress Custom Login Pages appeared first on WebCrate.

So this is what we start with:

You should never have to change the core WordPress files, everything can be modified using themes and plugins. The login page is covered by the theme you use, so this is what we will be editing. If you are using a theme that you downloaded or that came with WordPress, you should not modify the theme directly. This would lead to your changes being overwritten when the author issues an update. Instead, you should be using a child theme. A child theme is a theme which extends another theme. I won't be covering child themes here, but you can find more information in the WordPress documentation.

Changing the Logo

Add the following code to the end of your theme's functions.php file. This will apply your theme's stylesheet to the login page. After adding this code, check it does not do odd things to the login page. This is possible if your theme's styles also apply to the elements on the login page. If things don't look right, then you can use a separate stylesheet for the login page by changing the $stylesheet_uri variable.

Now that your stylesheet is being applied we can override the style for the logo. Put your logo file in your theme directory. I've called mine logo.png and put it inside a folder called images. Add this code to the end of your theme's style.css file and change the height to match the height of your logo image.

That gives us this:

But the link still points to WordPress.org and if you hover the mouse over the logo it will show 'Powered by WordPress'. The following code added to your theme's functions.php file will change the link to point to your home page and show the site title.

Other Styles

Changing the logo is probably the most important thing, but you might feel the need to customise the whole page. Now you have added your theme's stylesheet to the page you can restyle anything you wish. Here's some examples. Sometimes you may need to use !important to override the currently set styles.

Link colours:

Login button:

Login form:

Page background:

Our final customised login page looks like this:

We have barely scratched the surface of what you can do with this. Take a look at our showcase of the best WordPress custom login pages.

The post Customise the WordPress Login Page appeared first on WebCrate.

1. Register a domain name

Obviously, if you have already registered a domain name then you can skip this step. Otherwise you need to choose a domain name to register. You can check the availability of a domain and register at WebCrate, or another domain registrar. It is important that the registrar allows you to edit the DNS settings of your domain, so make sure to check this is supported.

2. Point the domain at tumblr

This is the trickiest step. But don't fear, just follow the instructions as precisely as you can.

There are two approaches to point your custom domain name to tumblr, but the best way is by adding a CNAME record. A CNAME record redirects a domain (or subdomain) to another domain. To do this, log in to the control panel for your domain name and locate the DNS settings. There shouldn't be any need to modify or delete any of the existing CNAME (or other) records. You just need to add a CNAME record that goes from www to domains.tumblr.com. Note that the redirect is not directly to your tumblr site, but to a special domains address - this is important.

The following sections show this in a bit more detail for some specific hosts. The process will be similar for other hosts.

WebCrate

Access the DNS settings for your domain by logging in to your account at www.webcrate.co.uk/ctrpnl. Once logged in, click the My Domains link in the Quick Navigation bar on the right and choose the domain you want to redirect. At the bottom of the domain's page, click the DNS Management button and a table like the one below should be shown.

The last row in the table will be blank. Change the entries in this row to exactly match those in the image above and then click the Save Changes button. Now move on to step 3.

Fasthosts

Log in to your fasthosts account. Click the Domain Names tab and choose the domain name you want to redirect. Click the Advanced DNS button. The Advanced DNS page will contain sections to modify different records (A, AAAA, MX, CNAME etc). Click the Add CNAME Record button on the CNAME section.

Enter the details for the CNAME record exactly as shown above and click the Save button.

123-Reg

Log in to your 123-reg account. In the domain names section, select the domain name from the list and click the Manage button. Click the Manage DNS (A, MX, CNAME, TXT) link and then go to the Advanced DNS tab. In the add new entry section, enter the details exactly as shown in the screenshot below, then click the Add new entry button.

3. Configure tumblr to use the domain

Once you have added the CNAME record you will have to wait up to 72 hours for the change to take effect. You will know when it has been completed because entering your domain name in a browser will show the following tumblr error page. Do not proceed with step 3 until you see this page.

Next, log in to your tumblr account and go to Blog Settings. In the URL section, check the Use a custom domain name option. This will expand the section so you can enter your domain details. Enter the full domain name that you are redirecting to tumblr, e.g. www.mydomain.com. Click the Test your domain button and tumblr will check everything has been set up correctly. If you have don't receive any errors at this stage then click the Save button at the bottom of the page and you're done!

If going to your domain continues to show the tumblr error page after this final step, then make sure to clear your browser's cache.

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Stock images are royalty free photos or illustrations that you can use on your website or marketing material. The images can be used for good or evil. You know the ones - those cheesy photos of business men smiling that are supposed to reassure us. When used well, the images can make for a more compelling, visual design and break up those big blocks of text that no one wants to read.

Stock images are generally produced by professional photographers or designers, who sell licenses so the rest of us can use the work. There are hundreds of websites that focus on selling use of these images (there's a list of some at the bottom of this post), and the price varies from a few pence upwards, depending on the size of the image, its format and what the license covers. There are also some free stock providers, which are worth checking out, but are generally of a lower quality.

Shop around

If you have ever used stock images before, then did you shop around? Its important to realise that the artists that produce the works want to reach the maximum number of people. For this reason, they upload the same item to multiple stock sites. So you can find the same image for sale from multiple providers. But it is the stock site that sets the pricing structure, not the artist, so the effective price for the same work varies substantially from one provider to another.

Let me show you an example...

This image is called blue water splash. You can find it on many of the different stock providers.

So how much is it? Well that depends where you buy it from.

On istockphoto the 4277x4086 pixels version of the image will cost you 25 credits. The price for credits varies depending on how many you're buying, but lets assume you're getting the minimum necessary. At £1.18 per credit, that's going to be £29.50. This seems rather steep! Can we get it down?

Let's try shutterstock next. For £29 on shutterstock you can download any 5 large images (including the 4277x4086 pixel version of our image) within a year. So we save 50p on istockphoto and have a bonus of another 4 images for 'free'.

Just one more - dreamstime. They charge 19 credits for the 4277x4086 pixel version of the image. If we buy a 25 credit package that will be £0.72 per credit, or £13.68 for our image with another 6 credits left in our account. That's a pretty big saving!

So is dreamstime always the cheapest? No. Infact dreamstime might not even be the cheapest for this image, there are many more providers that I didn't even try.

This is all slightly complicated by the fact that each site's license covers marginally different things. So make sure you check that the license covers what you need. But the conclusion is - shop around. Don't just stick to your favourite provider. Once you find an image that you like, look around to see if you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

Some popular stock image providers

Just so you know, WebCrate is not affiliated with any of these websites.

• iStockPhoto
• Dreamstime
• Shutterstock
• BigStock
• Getty
• Fotolia

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