Month: August 2008

Easy Custom WordPress Login Page

Without too much code hacking or any plugins.

(For 2.5 up to 2.6.5. Not for WordPress 2.7)
I really wanted to change one website’s login page but I didn’t want to install a plugin.

I’d done so for another site which was awesome but it really hooked it’s little self into that site and it was hard to get rid of even after I deleted it and deactivated it.

I just wanted to change a few little things and thought installing a plugin was overkill.

So I stopped Googling and just thought for a second.

What if I just make a simple alteration to the login.css?

You find it in wp-admin/css/.

I had a logo that was roughly the size of the wordpress header image and I just replaced the WordPress logo with my client’s.

Line 41 in login.css
background: url(path to the image you want to use) no-repeat;
Just put in the path to the logo: i. e. : /wp-content/themes/your theme/images/logo.jpg

Change the link embedded in the header: wp-login.php
[php]<div id="login"><h1><a href="<?php echo apply_filters(‘login_headerurl’, ‘http://yourwebaddress’); ?>" title="<?php echo apply_filters(‘login_headertitle’, __(‘your title text’)); ?>"><?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?></a></h1>[/php]

Replace http://yourwebaddress with your url that you want to use.

Replace ‘your title text” with what you want the title text to read when you hover your mouse over it.

Optional
Line 270 is where you can change the are “you lost question” text.

Upgrading
You’ll have to repeat this each time you upgrade automatically. If you upgrade manually please check the revision log to see if the files mentioned here have been changed and so need to be overwritten and then re patched with your changes.

WordPress 2.6 and Custom Fonts

After waiting a bit of time to see if the world would end after WP 2.6 was released and seeing that it did not end I decided to upgrade my test site. Well, I meant to upgrade my test site, I instead upgraded my main site. Nothing bad happened and my main site could just suck it anyway if it had exploded.

It’s my client’s sites I give a fig about which is why I am such a cautious old so and so when it comes to upgrading. For myself, if a plugin turns out to be non compat I just say see yis to that plugin and move on.

But some of my clients have tastes that can only be satisfied with certain plugins,like Custom Fontswhich is a great plugin but doesn’t look like it’s compatible with WP 2.6. Having it activated seems to get rid of the media upload buttons in the editor page.
I’m being diplomatic when I say seems but I’m almost certain that it is the culprit.When I de-activate it the media buttons come back.When I activate it they go away. I’ve tested it with the visual editor on and off and with that option completely disabled in my user profile.I’m sure it’s an easily fixed problem,though.

I may just go ahead and try to convince my client that it might be more important to have the latest version of WordPress as her website’s engine than it is to have fancy page titles.In her case sifr-replaced page titles was a branding choice and one that I was not able to talk her out of but it was better than the other option which was using images to replace text.

If it’s a popular plugin, the author will get so bombarded with emails and forum posts and etc and will probably make it compatible out of sheer exasperation with the demands of the (usually) non paying/donating public. What a thankless task. I salute all you who do this for free and deal day in and day out with kibuttzers who think you owe them something.

The best news so far is WP Ecommerce seems to chug along just fine on WP 2.6.