WordPress

Before today, I had a vague understanding of what a permalink was. I thought it was some sort of hyperlink that was… well, permanent.

Now I know more about permalinks, and how it’s important in WordPress. A permalink is simply a URL for a WordPress entry/page. The default URL, or permalink, in WordPress look something like this: http://www.billselak.com/?p=153. Pretty ugly. Here is how to fix that in WordPress:

1. Go to Settings > Permalinks.
2. Change the radio button from Default to Numeric.
3. Save Changes.

So now, your URLs that once looked like:

http://www.billselak.com/educ525/?p=153

now look like:

http://www.billselak.com/educ525/weekly/week2

Now, when you write a new blog post or create a new page, there is a little box that lets you type in the URL you want.

If you’ve recently installed WordPress, you are all set! If, however, you already typed in the nasty default URLs, you’ll want to go back and update them. WordPress will automatically forward the old links, but it’s in bad form to leave it that way.

I just installed Hackadelic’s Sliding Notes onto this WordPress blog. Here’s the idea: type something inside a hidden, accordion-style note. Click to reveal more info. Let’s try it in this example…

I think Sliding Notes will be helpful in my EDUC525» class. Do you see how you can click on the word EDUC525. It gives more info if you need it. Very cool. So now that it works on my page, here is how to do it on your Wordpress page:

1. Download <a href=”http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hackadelic-sliding-notes/”>Sliding Notes</a> on wordpress.org.
2. Install the plug-in in wp-content > plugins
3. Add <a href=”http://hackadelic.com/solutions/wordpress/sliding-notes#sample-css”>this css</a> to your style.css sheet.
4. Type this in when you want to add a note (and make sure to add square brackets): slider title="sliderbuttontitle"note here/slider

Very cool tool. Very easy to install.