One of the things I recommend readers do on these types of blogs which use WordPress is to adjust the date field to instead show the last modified date.   This way posts that were written two years ago won’t have that date if you’ve updated them more recently!

Here is the code you’ll need to easily accomplish this.   As always, you’ll want to make a backup of your single.php file (or any files you will be changing) before proceeding.

Locate the following code in your template (may not look exactly like this):

Posted on: <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?>

Now replace it with the following code:

Posted on <?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?>
<?php $u_time = get_the_time('U');
$u_modified_time = get_the_modified_time('U');
if ($u_modified_time != $u_time) {
echo "and last modified on ";
the_modified_time('F jS, Y');
echo ". "; } ?>

Now your posts should show the last modified date immediately after the original posting date, rather than just showing the original post date!

• Code: Display Categories and Archives in WordPress
• Code: How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress
• Code: Displaying Updated Posts in WordPress

For those unfamilar with these buttons, they only show up for people who are logged into the admin panel (readers can’t see them).   When clicked, you are routed directly to the post/page or comment within the admin panel so you can edit the post.   It has been my experience that having access to these buttons can save a lot of time when trying to manage and update older posts. 

If you’d like to add an “edit” button on your individual posts or pages, here is the code you will want to place somewhere in your post and/or page template (usually called single.php and page.php) where you want it to display:

<?php edit_post_link(__("**Edit**"), ''); ?>

If you’d like to add an “edit” button to your individual comments, here is the code you need to place somewhere in your comments loop (usually called comments.php) where you want it to display:

<?php edit_comment_link(__("**Edit**"), ''); ?>

Don’t forget that you can also wrap them in a div to control its placement and appearance.

• Code: Add A “Print This” Button
• Code: Add Recent Comments and Top Comments to WordPress

Well, I for one still believe that categories and archives should be displayed on blogs.   If you’d like to do the same for a WordPress blog, here is the code you’ll want to use.   For your convenience, we’ve provided two options for each:  traditional display and drop-down menus.

Simply paste the WordPress code below in your sidebar.php file where you want the category or archives to display:

Display Categories

<h2>Categories</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name'); ?>
</ul>

Display Categories in Drop-Down Box

<form action="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/" method="get">
<?php
$select = wp_dropdown_categories('show_option_none=Select category&show_count=1&orderby=name&echo=0');
$select = preg_replace("#<select([^>]*)>#”, “<select$1 onchange=’return this.form.submit()’>”, $select); echo $select; ?>
<noscript><input type=”submit” value=”View” /></noscript>
</form>

Display Archives

<h2>Archives</h2>
<ul>
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
</ul>

Display Archives in a Drop-Down Box

<select name=\"archive-dropdown\" onChange='document.location.href=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;’>
<option value=\”\”><?php echo attribute_escape(__(’Select Month’)); ?></option>
<?php wp_get_archives(’type=monthly&format=option&show_post_count=1?); ?> </select>

• Code: Add Recent Comments and Top Comments to WordPress
• Code: Displaying Updated Posts in WordPress
• Code: How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress

In this post, we’ll be providing the code for creating both recent comments and top comments to the sidebar of your WordPress blog.

Displaying Recent Comments

<?php
global $wpdb;
$sql = "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title, post_password, comment_ID,
comment_post_ID, comment_author, comment_date_gmt, comment_approved,
comment_type,comment_author_url,
SUBSTRING(comment_content,1,30) AS com_excerpt
FROM $wpdb->comments
LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->posts ON ($wpdb->comments.comment_post_ID =
$wpdb->posts.ID)
WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' AND
post_password = ''
ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC
LIMIT 10";
$comments = $wpdb->get_results($sql);
$output = $pre_HTML;
$output .= "\n<ul>";
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
$output .= "\n<li>".strip_tags($comment->comment_author)
.":" . "<a href=\"" . get_permalink($comment->ID) .
"#comment-" . $comment->comment_ID . "\" title=\"on " .
$comment->post_title . "\">" . strip_tags($comment->com_excerpt)
."</a></li>";
}
$output .= "\n</ul>";
$output .= $post_HTML;
echo $output;?>

Displaying Top Comments

<?php $result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count,ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , 10");
foreach ($result as $topten) {
$postid = $topten->ID;
$title = $topten->post_title;
$commentcount = $topten->comment_count;
if ($commentcount != 0) { ?>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($postid); ?>" title="<?php echo $title ?>"><?php echo $title ?></a></li>
<?php } } ?>

• Code: Displaying Updated Posts in WordPress
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• Code: How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress

Here is the code you’ll want to place in your sidebar.php file where you want the updated posts to display:

<?php
$today = current_time('mysql', 1);
$howMany = 5; //Number of posts you want to display
if ( $recentposts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT ID, post_title FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = 'publish' AND post_modified_gmt < '$today' ORDER BY post_modified_gmt DESC LIMIT $howMany")):
?>
<h2><?php _e("Recent Updates"); ?></h2>
<ul>
<?php
foreach ($recentposts as $post) {
if ($post->post_title == '') $post->post_title = sprintf(__('Post #%s'), $post->ID);
echo "<li><a href='".get_permalink($post->ID)."'>";
the_title();
echo '</a></li>';
}
?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>

• Code: Add Recent Comments and Top Comments to WordPress
• Code: How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress
• Code: Display Categories and Archives in WordPress

Here is the code you’ll need to display recent posts.  Simply copy the following code and place it in your sidebar.php file where you want the recent posts to be displayed!

<?php query_posts('showposts=5'); ?>
<ul>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endwhile;?>
</ul>

• Code: Displaying Updated Posts in WordPress
• Code: Display Categories and Archives in WordPress
• Code: Add Recent Comments and Top Comments to WordPress

If you’d like to add a “tweet this” button to your blog, it is extremely easy!   Here is the code you’ll want to use: 

<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Click to send this page to Twitter!" target="_blank">Tweet This!</a>

Simply place that code below the content on your single post file where you want your new tweet this link to appear!

• How-To: Display Most Recent Twitter Entry on Your WordPress Blog
• Code: Add an “Email This” Button

If you’d like to do this on your blog, this is actually pretty easy!   The following code is designed to allow readers to click on the button and have it open up their default email software. It wil even create a subject and link that points to the post the reader is currently visiting!   Here is the javascript code you will need:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- Begin
function isPPC() {
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("PPC") != -1) return true;
else return false;
}
if(isPPC()) {
document.write('<a HREF=\"mailto:\?subject\=Take a look at this page I found, ' + document.title + '?body=You can see this page at: ' + window.location + '\" onMouseOver="window.status=\'Send your friends e-mail about this page\'; return true" TITLE="Send your friends e-mail about this page">Email to a Friend<\/a>');
}
else { document.write('<a HREF=\"mailto:\?body\=Take a look at this page I found titled ' + document.title + '. You can see this page at: ' + window.location + '\" onMouseOver="window.status=\'Send your friends e-mail about this page\'; return true" TITLE="Send your friends e-mail about this page" rel="nofollow">Email This!<\/a>');
}
// End -->
</script>

This code will create an “email this” link on your blog, allowing your readers to simply enter in someone’s email address and click send to share your content with others.

• Code: Add a “Tweet This” Button
• Code: Add A “Print This” Button

If you’d like to add something like this to your blog, first you’ll want to make sure your blog’s theme has a print stylesheet loaded, then simply add the following bit of Javascript code where you want your print button to be:

<a href="javascript:window.print()" rel="nofollow">Print This!</a></span>

You’ll want to make sure you only place this button on your individual post pages, as it prints whichever page it is clicked on.  If you place it on the homepage and a reader uses it, it will print the entire page instead of just that post!

• Code: Add an “Email This” Button
• WordPress Tutorial: Building a Print Stylesheet
• Code: Adding Edit Buttons to WordPress