WPcademy

In this tutorial, we will show you how to limit comment length in WordPress, so you can set both minimum and maximum comment length limit for your WordPress site.

Why limit comment length in WordPress?

In our experience of moderating online discussions for the past decade, we have found that most helpful comments are above 60 characters and below 5000 characters in length.

When a person writes a one-word comment, it usually is not very helpful. In most cases, it is spam because the author is simply trying to earn a back link from your site.

However when a person writes a comment above 5000 characters, its usually a rant / complaint that in most cases is not relevant to that particular article.

By setting comment length limits in WordPress, you can improve the quality of your comments.

There are two methods to limit comment length in WordPress. The first method requires you to install a plugin. The second method uses a simple code snippet that you can add to your site.

Method 1: Limiting Comment Lenght Using a Plugin

First thing you need to do is install and activate Control Comment Lengthplugin. Upon activation, simply go to Settings » Control Comment Length to configure the plugin settings.

The plugin’s user interface is in German with English. You can set both minimum and maximum number of characters a comment can have. We recommend using 60 for minimum and 5000 for maximum character count.

You can also add messages that will be visible to users when there comments are either too short or too long. The plugin only provides these messages in the German language. You can replace it with your own message.

Method 2: Limit Comment Length Using Code Snippet

The second method is for users who don’t mind dealing with code code. We will add a filter hook to preprocess_comment. This filter is run before WordPress saves any comments to database or runs any other pre-processing on submitted comments. We will use it to check the comment length. If it is above or below the set comment length parameters, then we will show users an error message.

Simply add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

add_filter( 'preprocess_comment', 'wpb_preprocess_comment' );
 
function wpb_preprocess_comment($comment) {
    if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) > 5000 ) {
        wp_die('Comment is too long. Please keep your comment under 5000 characters.');
    }
if ( strlen( $comment['comment_content'] ) < 60 ) {
        wp_die('Comment is too short. Please use at least 60 characters.');
    }
    return $comment;
}

We hope this tutorial helped you limit comment length in WordPress.

Adding Border Around iframe Videos in WordPress

First thing you need to do is to open a post or page containing your iframe video embed code. A typical iframe embed code should looks something like this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg&w=560&h=315]

You can add a border around it by adding inline style to the code like this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg&w=560&h=315]

Simply change the width of the border as well as the color, and you’re done.

While adding an iframe border works, there is actually a better way to add a border around videos in WordPress. That’s by using oEmbed.

Adding Border Around oEmbed Videos in WordPress

WordPress comes with built-in oEmbed support. Basically WordPress allows you to paste the link of the video, and it will automatically get the embed code for them. Now this only works for oEmbed enabled sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Hulu, etc. (See: how to easily add videos in WordPress using oEmbed)

Now that you know how to add a video with oEmbed, here is how you can add a border around oEmbed videos in WordPress.

When adding a video using oEmbed, simply wrap the URL in span tag with inline style parameters, like this:

<span style="border:3px solid #EEE;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg</span>

If you want to add a same border around all video iframes, then it would be best to add a CSS class to your theme’s stylesheet.

.frame-border { 
border:3px solid #EEE; 
}

Now you can use the CSS class in your iframe embed code like this:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg&w=560&h=315]

You can also use the same CSS class in the span tag around your oEmbed video URLs, like this:

<span class="frame-border">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOOy1tWBCg</span>

The benefit of using a single CSS class is that if you change themes later, then you can easily change the colors with one click vs going back and editing each video individually.

We hope this tutorial helped you add an iframe border around a video embed in WordPress.

In this tutorial, we will cover how to show recent posts by category in your WordPress sidebar.

Display Recent Posts by Category (Plugin Method)

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Category Posts Widgetplugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Appearance » Widgets, there you will notice the new Category Posts widget in the list of available widgets.

Simply drag and drop Category Posts widget to a sidebar where you want to display recent posts by category.

The widget options are quite self explanatory. First you need to provide a title for the category posts section and choose a category. After that you can choose other display options like number of posts, excerpts, featured image, etc.

Once you are done, click the save button to store your widget settings. You can now visit your site to see recent posts by category in action.

Display Recent Posts by Category without a Plugin (Code Snippet)

In this method, we will use a code snippet to display recent posts from a category.

First you need to add this code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

function wpb_postsbycategory() {
// the query
$the_query = new WP_Query( array( 'category_name' => 'announcements', 'posts_per_page' => 10 ) ); 
 
// The Loop
if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) {
    $string .= '

Make sure that you replace 'announcements' with your own category slug.

This code simply queries WordPress to retrieve 10 posts from a specified category. It then displays the posts in a bulleted list. If a post has a featured image (post thumbnail), then it will show the featured image as well.

In the end, we created a shortcode 'categoryposts' and enabled shortcode in text widgets.

There are three ways of displaying the recent posts by category using this code snippet.

First, you can simply paste the following code anywhere in your desired template file location (such as footer.php, single.php, etc).

Second and third method relies on using the shortcode in the widget area or inside your posts / pages.

Simply visit Appearance » Widgets and add a text widget to your sidebar. Next add [categoryposts] shortcode in the text widget and save it. You can now preview your website to see recent posts by category in the sidebar.

If you want to show recent posts by categories on specific post or pages, then simply paste the shortcode in the post content area.

By default, your list may not look very good. You will need to use CSS to style the category posts list. You can use the code below as an starting point in your theme or child theme’s stylesheet.

ul.postsbycategory {
list-style-type: none;
}
 
.postsbycategory img {
float:left; 
padding:3px;
margin:3px;
border: 3px solid #EEE;
}

That’s all, we hope this tutorial helped you display recent posts by category in WordPress sidebar.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to import and export custom post types in WordPress. We will also show you how to import any custom taxonomies associated with your post types.

There are two steps involved in exporting and importing a custom post type in WordPress. First step involves migrating the actual custom post type and taxonomies. The second step is to import the post type data.

Often custom post types in WordPress are associated with their own custom taxonomies. We will show you how to export/import your custom taxonomies along with your post type.

Exporting Custom Post Types and Taxonomies in WordPress

Some users prefer to create their custom post types and taxonomies by adding code in their theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin. In that case, all you need to do is copy that code and paste it on the site where you want to import them.

However, in some cases you may not be able to locate the code. Don’t worry you can still create the same custom post type on the new site.

All you need to know is the post key value. This is the name used for the post type in your WordPress database. You can find it by simply visiting the post type in your WordPress admin area.

Once you have the post key, visit the site where you want to import the post type and use Custom Post Types UI plugin to create your custom post type.

You can also get custom taxonomy key by simply viewing the custom taxonomy in the admin area.

Use CPT UI plugin to create the same taxonomy on the target site where you want to import the taxonomy.

Repeat the process for all custom post types and taxonomies that you want to import.

Bonus Tip: If you used the CPT UI plugin to create your post type, then you can also use it to migrate them. But this only works if the original custom post type was created using this plugin. Visit the Import / Export section in the plugin settings and follow onscreen instructions.

Custom Post Types & Taxonomies Created by Plugins

Many popular WordPress plugins use custom post types and taxonomies to handle custom content types. For example, Soliloquy uses them to create sliders, eCommere plugins use them to create products, etc.

If you want to keep using those plugins, then you don’t need to import CPTs. Simply install the plugin on the target site, and you will have the custom post types and taxonomies ready on your site.

Many such plugins come with their own import/export features but if a plugin does not have that feature you can still export the data.

Exporting / Importing Custom Post Type and Taxonomies Data in WordPress

WordPress comes with a powerful import/export tool which allows you to export and import WordPress data. Simply go to Tools » Export.

You will see all your post types listed there. Select the post types you want to export and press the Download Export File button.

WordPress will now prepare an XML export file and your browser will start downloading it.

Now switch to your target site where you want to import this data. Go to Tools » Import. You will see a number of options, click on WordPress.

This will bring up a popup asking you to install WordPress importer plugin. Click on the install button and then click on Activate Plugin & Run importerlink.

On the importer screen, you need to click on the choose file button and then select the XML file you downloaded earlier. Next, click on the upload file and export button.

WordPress will now import your custom post type data. All the custom post types you selected earlier will be imported. WordPress will also automatically add terms to the custom taxonomies.