Setting up Zo’C PowerBlogRoll

UPDATE 11/16/2015: I think this is all gone now… cannot locate the web site any longer, and do not see the plugin on the WP site anymore.) I am using this pretty cool plug in to create a BlogRoll page. Called “powerblogroll and written by Zo’C. I had used it as a widget using the “widgetize anything” plugin, but decided to move it to a “links” page after it outgrew the sidebar. (Link to web site removed 11/16/2015 no longer worked and I could not locate web site any longer.)

I have seen quite a few questions on the authors web page about setting it up, and while there is some help, it seems there are still quite a few questions. I am certainly no programmer, but with several hours (!) was able to make a page work. Here is my quick guide in case anyone googles for help and happens to find this.

1. You need a “links.php” template. The template I am currently using did not have one included. So I used the Theme Editor in WordPress to look at the other templates I had downloaded to try out before. I found one with a “Links” page. (The “WordPress Default” theme has a “Links” page.)

2. I used FTP to make a copy of that “Links” page into the current theme I wanted to use.

3. I opened the new “links.php” page with the WP Theme Editor. I do not think I removed any code from the original template, only added four lines. The total contents of this page is now:

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<?php
/*
Template Name: Links (Whatever you put here is what appears in your theme template list.)
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<h2>Recommended Links:</h2>
<ul class=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<?php wp_zoc_powerblogroll(); ?>
</ul>
</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>
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In mine I only added the four lines lines in bold above which are:

<div id=”zoc_powerblogroll”>

<ul class=”zoc_powerblogroll”>
<?php wp_zoc_powerblogroll(); ?>

</ul>

in the code above.

Check the “Template Name: Links” line also. You can name this anything you want. This is the name that will show up in the WP Page Editor when you select the template to use.

Then I had to add the CSS to the StyleSheet page, again using the WP Theme Editor.

I just found a spot in the existing code and stuck this in:

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/* This section begins the formatting for the BlogRoll Links Page */
.zoc_powerblogroll { list-style: none; }
.zoc_powerblogroll ul{ list-style: none; }
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Actually this is not necessary if you do not mind the default “List” bullets (created by the “ul” code) in front of each entry. (assuming the template you are using has them.) In powerblogroll I use the setting to show the favicons and found also showing the extra “ul” bullet was distracting. This actually is what took me the longest to figure out.

That was it. I just used WP Editor, created a new Page, used the “Links” template, left the contents of the blank and it puts in the BlogRoll automatically. If you want to add text into the blogrollpage you probably have to add more CSS for something like “contents”… but that is all dependent on how the theme author wrote the CSS.

Now I am pretty sure that someone that really knows what is going on will say “you don’t need this in the code”, or “you don’t need that in the code”, or there are 32 better ways to do this. But I wasn’t getting much help from the web site, and so just experimented until I got it to work. If there is a better way I am happy to revise this, but until then you can try it this way.

Good Luck!

If any “real” plug in editors read this. What I would *really* like is to combine this plugin with another that would also order the links the way I want them. I do not like seeing “Ardvarks R Us” first in the blogroll just because it starts with “A”. There is another plugin that does this called “mylinkorder” which has manual sorting options. This can be found at . Unfortunately the two do not work together right now.

If you didn’t already know PowerBlogRoll can (Could) be found here: “z-oc.com/blog/powerblogroll” UPDATE: 12/14/2015 this is no longer working so I removed the link. You can try searching for this ULR though.

Since getting this working I have found another issue, which I think is unrelated to the changes above. I use another plugin to format the blog for mobile users. It is now showing the first page, as opposed to post, and it also reveals text in the BlogRollPage which is not visible when viewed with a normal browser.

Until the final WP PlugIn loses power,