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Right Click the following file and save as archives.php
archives.php

Upload the archives.php file to your Theme Folder normally located /wp-content/themes/the_folder/archives.php

Once you upload the file, create a New Page and on the Right Hand Column Select Archives for the Template.

Now publish the Page and when you visit the link create by the page you will have an Archives Page with Month Year links to posts create during that time period.

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In the Loop: (Results for Posts within the Loop)

get_post_meta($post->ID, 'key name', true); //single result returned in a string

get_post_meta($post->ID, 'key name', flase); //all results returned in an array

Outside the Loop: (Result for Identified Post anywhere outside the loop ie. sidebar, header, footer)

global $wp_query;
$postid = $wp_query->post->ID;
echo get_post_meta($postid, 'customField', true);

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If you create a wp-config.php file you may see the following error.
“Problem in wp-config.php – $base is set to BASE when it should be the path like “/” or “/blogs/”! Please fix it!”

if you fix that error in your config file, it may follow up with this next error.
Warning! VHOST must be ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in wp-config.php

Once you are past that error you may see the following
Error establishing a database connection

To fix this do the following:

1. 1. Go to your root Wordpress installation (or the one in the directory above it) and temporarily rename the wp-config.php file (i use wp-config-working.php).
2. 2. If you created a wp-config file in your the sub directory for your new install remove it.
3. 3. Then load the page for your new installation and you should get the simple configuration interface.
4. 4. Once the installation is complete return to your root install and rename your config file back to wp-config.php.

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Inside the loop:
This is a Wordpress function for use in the Loop:

the_ID()

or, You can build a function and put in in functions.php

function getthe_loop_postID() {
     global $post;
     $thePostID = $post->ID;
}

In single.php outside of the loop:
You can build a function and put it in functions.php with

function getthe_single_postID() {
     global $wp_query;
     $thePostID = $wp_query->post->ID;
}

or you can use post->ID within the single.php template

If you are going to use post->ID within the header or the footer but want it to display on the single post page. You can use:

if is_single() {
     echo post-ID;
}

or what ever it is you want to do with it.

You can use other SQL commands with the post->ID query as well.

For Example:
If you want to see if the post is a particular post use:

post->ID WHERE ID = 17

For the most recent post use:

$post->ID ORDER BY post_date ASC LIMIT 1

For the oldest post use:

$post->ID ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT 1

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The function below will unregister all of your widgets. Use the following code in your functions.php file and refresh or load a page from your site, after that remove the function from functions.php and your finished.

<?php
     update_option( 'sidebars_widgets', $null );
?>

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To determine the database version you will need to view your database contents. Navigate to the wp_options table (the prefix wp_ may differ in your database) and locate the field for db_version.

Here’s the list for up to version 2.8.4:

2.8.4 = 11548
2.8.3 = 11548
2.8.2 = 11548
2.8.1 = 11548
2.8 = 11548
2.7.1 = 9872
2.7 = 9872
2.6.5 = 8204
2.6.3 = 8204
2.6.2 = 8204
2.6.1 = 8204
2.6 = 8201
2.5.1 = 7796
2.5 = 7558
2.3.3 = 6124
2.3.2 = 6124
2.3.1 = 6124
2.3 = 6124
2.2.3 = 5183
2.2.x = 5183
2.2 = 5183
2.1.3 = 4773
2.1.x = 4773
2.1 = 4772
2.0.11 = 3441
2.0.x = 3441
2.0 = 3441
1.5.x = 2541
1.x = 2540

See the Installation FAQ on Wordpress.com for further information.

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So my search began and my choice was to use the method mentioned on tanfa with an article titled “CSS Drop Down Menu Tutorial Code”.

See a demo of the horizontal menu I used here – Horizontal Demo Page

There are 3 steps to accomplish the CSS drop down menu.

1. Get the HTML
2. Download the whatever:hover file
3. Implement the CSS – see the section “To The CSS” for details

If any of this info is no longer available please let me know and I will try to provide it here.

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This was a 2 part problem. Some how a widget ended up broken and was causing the page to not completely display all of the widgets nor the sidebars and their content widgets on the right side of the control panel. The second part of the problem came from the screen option on the widget control page. Some how the option was deactivated and this made the page work like the java script was disabled in the browser or just not loading correctly.

I do recall clicking on the screen option while the page was broken and nothing changing, I’m not completely sure if this caused the option to be deactivated, but none the less this problem was a headache and is now resolved.

So to fix a messed up widget control panels. Disable any widgets that are ran by plugins or any custom widgets that may cause any issue of the page not completely loading. Second check to make sure your screen option is active.

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So not knowing how to get the sidebars back under control from the dashboard. I dove into the database to figure out how the active widgets are stored in the database. It didn’t take long for me to find that the Options Table has a record for all of the widgets and which ones are active and which sidebar they belong to.

Record number 82 in the Options Table is where this data is stored in my database. Here is an image of that record:

Once I found the record I clicked on the pencil to edit that record. In there I found all the data I needed to disable the widgets I needed. Here is the data that was in the options_value field of record 82.

a:4:s:19:”wp_inactive_widgets”;a:9:{i:0;s:7:”pages-2″;i:1;s:10:”calendar-2″;i:2;s:10:”archives-2″;i:3;s:7:”links-2″;i:4;s:6:”meta-2″;i:5;s:6:”text-2″;i:6;s:17:”recent-comments-2″;i:7;s:5:”rss-2″;i:8;s:11:”tag_cloud-2″;}s:9:”sidebar-1″;a:2:{i:0;s:20:”categories-436616501″;i:1;s:14:”recent-posts-2″;}s:9:”sidebar-2″;a:2:{i:0;s:11:”adsense-ad2″;i:1;s:11:”adsense-ad1″;}s:13:”array_version”;i:3;}

The registered sidebars are identified by sidebar-1 and sidebar-2. Immediately following the sidebar identifier is an a:2 for both of my sidebars. The number 2 identifies how many widgets are in that sidebar. The widgets that are in the sidebar are contained between the {}, brackets.

So to remove all of the widgets make the widget count to 0 and remove all data between the {}, brackets:
“sidebar-1″;a:0:{}

To remove only one widget from the sidebar, reduce the widget count by 1 and remove all of the data for the preceding i all the way to the ;
“sidebar-1″;a:1:{i:1;s:14:”recent-posts-2″;}
*notice I changed the widget count from 2 to a 1 and I removed the categories widget from inside the brackets

The complete code for the options_value field with no active widgets for both registered sidebars would look like this:

a:4:{s:19:”wp_inactive_widgets”;a:9:{i:0;s:7:”pages-2″;i:1;s:10:”calendar-2″;i:2;s:10:”archives-2″;i:3;s:7:”links-2″;i:4;s:6:”meta-2″;i:5;s:6:”text-2″;i:6;s:17:”recent-comments-2″;i:7;s:5:”rss-2″;i:8;s:11:”tag_cloud-2″;}s:9:“sidebar-1″;a:0:{}s:9:“sidebar-2″;a:0:{}s:13:”array_version”;i:3;}

I made some mistakes when editing the data in this record and when I did so. Wordpress created a new sidebars_widgets record. This will cause you to not see any further changes to the original record. You will need to navigate to the last record in the options table and remove the new sidebars_widgets record then make the proper corrections to the original record.

The problem with the Admin Control of the widgets is not resolved at the moment. And the solution is unknown. All I was able to do for my client was remove the unwanted widget which surfaced this problem in the first place. I now have a better understanding of how the widget control is stored in the database and I hope to sort this issue out soon.

Look for a future post on the resolution of this problem or drop me a line if you have any info or feedback.

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