Can I use this PHP code with my WordPress blog? - php

My site, which is hand-coded, has a members area coded in PHP. All pages with some members-only content start out like this:
<?
require_once('system/conf.php');
?>
Then comes the doctype and the html tag. Within the body of the page, the members-only content is designated like this:
<? if (Auth::checkMembership()) { ?>
// members-only content goes here
<? } else { ?>
// content shown to others goes here
<? } ?>
If it is the entire page that is only to be available to members, the page instead simply starts out like this:
<?
require_once("system/conf.php");
Auth::requireMembership();
?>
Now, I also have a WordPress blog installed on my domain, and I'd like to start making posts there for which access is only granted to my members. I have not managed to figure out how to edit the part before the doctype and html tag in pages made in WordPress, and also I do not know if the above code would conflict with WordPress in some way. So my question is whether it is possible to use the above code with WordPress, and if so, how?
(I do realize I can install a WordPress membership plugin and manually add my members one by one (effectively operating with two membership systems going forward), but I would prefer to integrate my existing membership system with WordPress if possible to save myself the trouble and also so that new members will not have to wait for me to manually activate their access to the WordPress content.)
I eagerly hope someone will be so kind as to help me out!
Edit per request by John WHS:
This is what I added to header.php before the doctype:
<?
require_once('../system/conf.php');
?>

Wordpress allows you to edit PHP files corresponding to templates. In your administration panel, go to Appearance > Editor, and open header.php. This file is included for every page of your blog... so all PHP code placed at its beggining will be executed everywhere.
Now, you can include your conf.php in header.php, and then perform your usual checks for membership. It might require some arrangements though.
On my Wordpress blog, I do something similar, but not for membership. See :
<?php
if(preg_match("#Mozilla#i", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']) &&
preg_match("#MSIE#i", $_SE RVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
// Browser is IE...
?>
Given the fact that you don't want to use plugins, that's the first solution that came to my mind. Keep in mind that it's definitely not the cleanest.
Edit : Talked to the author through email to keep comments clear. There was no additional issue with this last piece of code. Just make sure it doesn't create a conflict with a theme or a plugin. Including instead of Requiring seems to be more productive as well.

Related

Include pages to index.php or create top and bottom part of page and include to all content pages?

I haven't't created a webpage in a long time but I decided to create on now, and probably like everyone else I wanna learn the best way of doing this. But I've stumbled upon a little dilemma on how to process my pages. My first idea was to create one main page with all the CSS and everything needed, then 1 part of the site dedicated to each page's content. Then by using a page variable showing all the content for each site, example.
I have index.php as homepage, then visiting index.php?page=aboutme would make index.php include the aboutme.php in the part dedicated to each page's content. And only having text and some pictures etc in the aboutme.php. However I believe this will be a pain when people google my site and finds interest in the aboutme.php so they get linked to example, mypage.com/pages/aboutme.php and only sees the text and pictures but no CSS and not "the front page". The pros of this is of course that editing pages will be easy, I can create links etc in php loops by just checking contents of maps on my page.
The second example is that I take everything in my index.php above the part dedicated to page content, create a separate file for this, calling it top.php. Take all thee parts under the page and call it bottom.php. Then for each new page I create I include the top and the bottom parts. Making the link mypage.com/aboutme.php include the CSS and "the frontpage". Pros being that you actually can google subpages. This seems like the best idea to me, but like I said, I haven't created a lot of webpages lately and I've seen plenty use of both methods.
I've seen both types of webpages so I kinda wondered which one is the best practice?
I recommend just using php includes for the header, nav, and footer elements and then placing a class (home, about me, contact, etc.) on the body tag (for highlighting nav elements and such). This way the content is on separate pages and gives you more freedom, but saves you from having to retype all of the navigation and stuff each time.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
<title>
Hello World
</title>
<meta name="description" content="Use this area to provide a description of this page.">
<?php include '_php/_includes/head.php'; ?>
</head>
<body class="home">
<?php include '_php/_includes/header.php'; ?>
<!--
Content Goes Here
Remember: 'div' elements should only be used for non-semantic styling purposes. Content should
be placed in either a 'section' or an 'article' tag.
-->
<?php include '_php/_includes/footer.php'; ?>
</body>
</html>
I would prefer the second option with top and bottom part php files. However, this can become complicate when you need to process context information within them.
For example imagine a top.php containing a table of contents including navigation and highlighting of the currently shown page. I guess, in this situation it would be more appropriate to use your first proposed approach. To alter the table of contents depending on your current page variable (e.g. 'aboutme').
I personally like a 3rd approach which is templating. Here are two options for PHP listed in order of my preference:
http://templatepower.codocad.com/manual/index.php
http://www.smarty.net/
Using template, I suggest you create a layout template which contains all the style and "header" and "footer" of your page. Then dynamically generate the "content" using one template per page. This allows you to use your url scheme of "index.php?page=aboutme". Also, by doing this you actually don't expose the bare naked content page to google.
I've found this is the most simple and maintainable way to build dynamic PHP pages with a shared header/footer.

Add WordPress blog to site while keeping my existing header and scripts

The Problem
My website has some JavaScript and PHP that I include on each page to allow login and cookie processing for persistent login, using a header that changes if the user is logged in, and these work successfully. I would like to add a pages that contain WordPress blogs/forums, while keeping my header and all its processing at the top. Is there any way to do this? My understanding is that WordPress controls the entire page with its own <head> and <body> tags and info. The backup plan is to have the blog/forum pages be somewhat rogue pages with a separate header that links back to the main site.
What I've Tried
Figure out where WordPress sends the HTML and modify that page: They use a network of include() statements to decide what to show, and I'd be concerned that a change in the WordPress admin panel would overwrite changes I make, or that the WordPress control panel code makes changes by adding code before/after a certain line, and I'd somehow break that.
Put the blog pages in an iframe: Prevents blog permalinks and seems to undercut the SEO benefit of a blog. Even if I could get around this with some kind of .htaccess hackery, I'm concerned having the page in an iframe could cause browsers to block some WordPress functions for security reasons.
Code I Want To Include
session_start(), cookie handling and database connect in PHP at the top
A header just after <body> that I include using <?php include('header.php')?>
headerProcessing.js script that I include in the head tag (along with jquery)
CSS file for header styling
I'm stumped and can't seem to find anything with Google - any help appreciated. Thanks!
You'd be better off to join WordPress as opposed to fighting it.
WordPress provides dozens of ways to access and manipulate page content. The easiest of which is to add hooks to wp_head and wp_footer in your theme's function.php.
I'd also encourage you to read about WordPress Theme Development.

Test custom header in Drupal before publishing

I'm quite new to Drupal and want do some editing of the header. I want a custom toolbar to appear on every page. I've already created that toolbar in a file called toolbar.php. It has a layer which is fixed and will appear on top of every page.
How do I include the toolbar.php in the header template of drupal?
The toolbar refers to $user which is a global Drupal variable and I want to test toolbar.php before publishing it to the site. Is there anyway I can do that?
Regards,
Dasith
Of the two methods above the first is easier if you understand the basic idea of html and CMS templates, the second will be easier if you are a programmer.
First thing to check is that you really need to do this! Can't you restyle one of the existing menus (Primary or secondary) to do this - will make your life (and anyone who works on the site in the future) a lot easier.
The other thing you can do is look into adding an output region, basically something where you put the php into a drupal friendly format and then effectively do a 'drupal print'. This is how the toolbar, search box etc are done. You still need to alter the templates as above.
Yes for sure. If you want to have the html produced by your function/file appear on every page of the site then you will need to over-ride the page.tpl.php file in the theme you are using and essentually add the html to that file.
To gain access to the $user variable, just declare it in your script.
global $user;
open page.tpl.php file in a code editor and save as page-front.tpl.php (with two dashes if you are using Drupal 7.. one dash with Drupal 6) and upload it to your theme's directory. Clear your cache by going to configuration->Performance->Clear All Cache. Then referesh the page. Now your homepage is using page-front.tpl.php as it's template file. Every page will need its own template file. The page machine name comes after the hyphen so the user page template uses page-user.tpl.php. You can edit it as you want. The proper way to really do this is to use hook_theme() to pass variables to the template file. One variable could be the html which creates your custom header.
See also http://drupal.org/node/457740 Beginners Guide to over riding theme output

Create WordPress Page that redirects to another URL

I wanted to create a new WordPress page that is actually a link to another site. The goal is to have the page show up in a list of my pages, but actually send the web user to the target URL.
For example, say I want to include a page that indicates "My Photos" but actually redirects them to Flickr.
I'm guessing one way to accomplish this is by using a custom template page with a redirect instruction in PHP, but unfortunately I am a newbie to PHP and am not familiar with the way to accomplish this...
You can accomplish this two ways, both of which need to be done through editing your template files.
The first one is just to add an html link to your navigation where ever you want it to show up.
The second (and my guess, the one you're looking for) is to create a new page template, which isn't too difficult if you have the ability to create a new .php file in your theme/template directory. Something like the below code should do:
<?php /*
Template Name: Page Redirect
*/
header('Location: http://www.nameofnewsite.com');
exit();
?>
Where the template name is whatever you want to set it too and the url in the header function is the new url you want to direct a user to. After you modify the above code to meet your needs, save it in a php file in your active theme folder to the template name. So, if you leave the name of your template "Page Redirect" name the php file page-redirect.php.
After that's been saved, log into your WordPress backend, and create a new page. You can add a title and content to the body if you'd like, but the important thing to note is that on the right hand side, there should be a drop down option for you to choose which page template to use, with default showing first. In that drop down list, there should be the name of the new template file to use. Select the new template, publish the page, and you should be golden.
Also, you can do this dynamically as well by using the Custom Fields section below the body editor. If you're interested, let me know and I can paste the code for that guy in a new response.
I've found that these problems are often best solved at the server layer. Do you have access to an .htaccess file where you could place a redirect rule? If so:
RedirectPermanent /path/to/page http://uri.com
This redirect will also serve a "301 Moved Permanently" response to indicate that the Flickr page (for example) is the permanent URI for the old page.
If this is not possible, you can create a custom page template for each page in question, and add the following PHP code to the top of the page template (actually, this is all you need in the template:
header('Location: http://uri.com, true, 301');
More information about PHP headers.
Alternately, use a filter.
Create an empty page in your WordPress blog, named appropriately to what you need it to be. Take note of the post_id. Then create a filter that alters its permalink.
add_filter('get_the_permalink','my_permalink_redirect');
function my_permalink_redirect($permalink) {
global $post;
if ($post->ID == your_post_id_here) {
$permalink = 'http://new-url.com/pagename';
}
return $permalink;
}
This way the url will show up correctly in the page no funny redirects are required.
If you need to do this a lot, then think about using the custom postmeta fields to define a postmeta value for "offsite_url" or something like that, then you can create pages as needed, enter the "offsite_url" value and then use a filter like the one above to instead of checking the post_id you check to see if it has the postmeta required and alter the permalink as needed.
I'm not familiar with Wordpress templates, but I'm assuming that headers are sent to the browser by WP before your template is even loaded. Because of that, the common redirection method of:
header("Location: new_url");
won't work. Unless there's a way to force sending headers through a template before WP does anything, you'll need to use some Javascript like so:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
document.location = "new_url";
</script>
Put that in the section and it'll be run when the page loads. This method won't be instant, and it also won't work for people with Javascript disabled.
Use the "raw" plugin https://wordpress.org/plugins/raw-html/
Then it's as simple as:
[raw]
<script>
window.location = "http://www.site.com/new_location";
</script>
[/raw]
There are 3 ways of doing this:
By changing your 404.php code.
By using wordpress plugins.
By editing your .htaccess file.
Complete tutorial given at http://bornvirtual.com/wordpress/redirect-404-error-in-wordpress/906/
I found a plugin that helped me do this within seconds without editing code:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/quick-pagepost-redirect-plugin/
I found it here: http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/wordpress-link-title-external-url/
There is a much simpler way in wordpress to create a redirection by using wordpress plugins. So here i found a better way through the plugin Redirection and also you can find other as well on this site Create Url redirect in wordpress through Plugin
(This is for posts, not pages - the principle is same. The permalink hook is different by exact use case)
I just had the same issue and created a more convenient way to do that - where you don't have to re-edit your functions.php all the time, or fiddle around with your server settings on each addition (I do not like both).
TLTR
You can add a filter on the actual WP permalink function you need (for me it was post_link, because I needed that page alias in an archive/category list), and dynamically read the referenced ID from the alias post itself.
This is ok, because the post is an alias, so you won't need the content anyways.
First step is to open the alias post and put the ID of the referenced post as content
(and nothing else):
Next, open your functions.php and add:
function prefix_filter_post_permalink($url, $post) {
// if the content of the post to get the permalink for is just a number...
if (is_numeric($post->post_content)) {
// instead, return the permalink for the post that has this ID
return get_the_permalink((int)$post->post_content);
}
return $url;
}
add_filter('post_link', 'prefix_filter_post_permalink', 10, 2 );
That's it
Now, each time you need to create an alias post, just put the ID of the referenced post as the content, and you're done.
This will just change the permalink. Title, excerpt and so on will be shown as-is, which is usually desired. More tweaking to your needs is on you, also, the "is it a number" part in the PHP code is far from ideal, but like this for making the point readable.

Why Can't I Include A Blog?

I commonly run into a scenario where "the powers that be" want an exact copy of a page in multiple places on a website. Rather than actually duplicate the content, all I do is override the section in the nav that is highlighted, and then include the page. The final page looks something like this:
<?php
$top_nav_item_id = 'teen';
include('../interests/teacher-resources.php');
?>
This typically works. I am trying to duplicate this for a blog category, done in wordpress. All I seem to get is a blank page, no matter what I do. I've tried all of the following lines:
<?php
include('../blog/index.php');
include('../blog/type/teen/index.php');
include('../blog/type/teen/');
include('../blog/');
?>
Does anyone have any ideas? Is this a URL rewriting thing? Do I have to include the template file for that particular category?
Any help is appreciated.
PHP include expects files, not URLs, so it doesn't have access to the URL namespace exposed by WordPress. Those files don't exist on-disk; mod_rewrite first turns the pretty URLs into an internal request to index.php, WordPress figures out what you really wanted based on the original URL, fetches a bunch of stuff from the database, then produces the page.
This is a pretty complicated topic, and one that isn't very apparent from the start. This page should help you get started. The key is to include the WordPress blog header - explained on the linked page. You'll probably also want to check out the WordPress Codex for resources on using the WordPress engine's API.
ini_set('display_errors', true);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
No idea what's going wrong, but it does. Maybe Wordpress can't find it's environment, maybe some variables are being overrided... Actually it's a bad idea to include solutions like wordpress, because you never know, what global variables, functions, classes will intersect.
PS: And, by the way, include uses file system paths but not URLs.
For similar issues I use iframes to include the copy of the content. You can write the original page to look for an "?embed=1" flag in the url, and only include the embeddable content in the main page when the embed flag is present (so you can leave out toolbars and frames that would be redundant.) So the iframe src url would use the ?embed=1 tag to embed the content.
This solution is a bit of a hack, but then, the problem is a bit of a hack to begin with.
I received a good explanation of why I couldn't include the blog page, but not any alternatives that would work for me.
My final solution was to modify the category template for that page directly. As stated originally, I use $top_nav_item_id to control which menu item is highlighted in the nav, to give the appearance of the page belonging to that section. Rather than override this, I simply made it conditional on a query string. As long as the user is following legit links on my site, they will get the correct query string and have no problems.
$_POST is disabled in Wordpress. $query_string (built into WP) uses some sort of caching, and would always display as it was first loaded.
Final solution:
if(strtolower($_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'])=='display=teen') {
$top_nav_item_id = 'teen';
} else {
$top_nav_item_id = 'programs';
}
Thanks to all who tried to help.

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