This post is sort of an add on to a previous post about the problem of displaying thumbnails and pictures in the slideshow for certain articles in the Studiopress Lifestyle theme, 4.0.

It never ceases to amaze me that no matter how long I do it, and how many blogs I build, there always seems to be something new to learn. It definitely keeps it interesting.

Anyway, in my post about the glitch when you input a “Custom Field” to place a thumbnail next to the excerpt of your posts on the main page, I told you that you can’t enter the entire URL of the image, you can only enter the directory and filename.

So, when I tried doing this for the images that show up in the slide show using the “Featured Content Gallery” I found that the opposite is true.

After installing and activating the “Featured Content Gallery” plugin, you’d normally go into the posts that you want to show up in the slide show and create a custom field called “articleimg.”

If you find yourself getting errors, like the images not showing up, go back and check your custom field within the post. If the entire url isn’t there, that could be your problem.

Example:

Wrong: /images/graphic.jpg
Right: http://www.yourdomainname.com/images/graphic.jpg

It can be confusing to remember that each of these custom fields need to be entered differently. The way I remember it is a bit simplistic, but it works.

The term “articleimg” is longer than the term “thumb.” So, I know to add the “longer” url to the longer term, “articleimg” and the shorter url to the shorter term, “thumb.”

Hope this helps. See you on the web!

Plugins are my favorite part of a blog. Some of them are so incredible, they’re like adding nitrous to your blog.

For those who may not know, a “plugin” is a small program that you “plug in” to your blog. Each plugin does something different. But basically, they add more functionality to your blog.

I’ve been building blogs for a long time and have been using the same plugins for a while. I had my list and just mindlessly uploaded them to each blog.

But recently I had a client send me a list of plugins she wanted and it made me open my eyes to more of the thousands of plugins available.

So, here is a list of some cool plugins that you may not know about:

Contact Form 7 – Automatically creates a page with a contact form for your visitors to email you with.

Link Cloaking Plugin – Once you activate it and set the options, it automatically cloaks any and all affiliate links on your blog.

MaxBlogPress Favicon – Actually, MaxBlogPress offers many cool plugins, but this is one of my favorites.

Privacy-Policy – Automatically creates a pre-written privacy policy and creates a page for it.

Sexy Bookmarks – I used Sociable for a long time, but I like this one better. It offers more social bookmarking sites for your visitors and it looks a lot nicer.

WP-Cumulus – Creates the coolest tag list I’ve ever seen.

WP Robot – This one isn’t free, but it is worth just about any price, especially for a blog flipper like myself. It turns your blog into an “Autoblog.” It automatically posts articles, posts from Amazon, Clickbank and eBay with your affiliate links, YouTube videos and more. With no work from me! I rarely build a blog without it since I found it.

It’s been so much fun, finding these new plugins, I’d love it if you would leave a comment and tell me what your favorite plugin is.

Okay, I didn’t have to go postal this time. Whew! If you read my last post you know that I was having a heck of a time getting my thumbnails to show up on the blog I was building with my new copy of the Studiopress Lifestyle 4.0 Theme.  I was ready to go back to 2.0!

Anyway, after I posted last night, I continued my search for the answer. I watched video after video teach me how to place thumbnails on my home page next to the excerpts of my posts.

Then, I found it. This videos’ narrator mentioned, in the most off-handed way, that there is some glitch in the Lifestyle 4.0 theme. That if you enter the entire URL of the image nothing will show up except a repeat of your post title.

That was exactly what had been happening to me. She said to just input the directory and file name where I had the file stored.

So, instead of entering;

http://www.yourdomain.com/images/thumbnail.jpg

you would enter;

/images/thumbnail.jpg

Well, I can’t tell you the relief I felt when I tried it and refreshed the blog.

So, if you’ve been having this same problem, try this trick.

This post may be a bit premature, but I am just full of something today and I need to hear from you about it. Besides, it’s been a long time coming anyway.

Anyone who knows about building blogs and has seen any of the blogs I’ve built will not be surprised to hear that the Studiopress Lifestyle theme is my favorite. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve been using the same version for over a year. And, even though two new versions have come out since I stared, because I’m not a huge fan of change, I’ve stuck with the 2.0 version.

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