While i am at the topic of WordPress tweaks here is another one. Since i started coding plugins, i keep encouraging people to minimize their plugin needs. They are resource hungry and may cause problems due to security issues on your blog. There are those that agree to that but say that on the other hand there are those people that are not comfortable and familiar with code and cannot do changes on their own. Thus, they need some plugins to do the job, although the task at hand could be coded easily. As i think they are right at that point, i decided to write this small article on how to get rid of the sociable plugins. Those are the ones that add a small segment on the end of each article that have links for digging, stumbling or subscribing. I think that these are the most easy ones to code on your template. That way you can uninstall them making your blog a bit lighter. Here is how.

What you will need is to edit two files on your theme, single.php and style.css. The first one is the script that tells WordPress how to render an article and the second one is the file that tells the browser how to color/place or show each element on your site. Go to “Design -> Theme Editor -> Single Post (single.php)”. Opening that file, locate the line that says:

<?php comments_template(); ?>

There is where your theme inserts the comments and the comment form below your post. Just above that is where you want to add that sociable block. Here is mine:

<div class="liked_article">Did you find this article useful? Did you like it? Why not <a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=<?= the_permalink();?>&title=<?= the_title();?>">Digg</a> it or <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/<?= the_permalink();?>">Stumble</a> it. Maybe you found it to be <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?= the_permalink();?>&title=<?= the_title();?>">Delicious</a>? Even better, why don't you <a href="<?= bloginfo('rss2_url');?>">subscribe</a> to my feed so you can get the latest from this blog. If you prefer you can subscribe to this <?= comments_rss_link('article's comments');?> feed.</div>

As you can see it’s the text that shows up on the bottom, included in the dashed box. if you like, you can change it to whatever you want. Now, it’s time to edit style.css. Go to the bottom of the file and add this block:

div.liked_article {
	background:#FFFFDD;
	border:1px dashed black;
	margin:10px 0;
	padding:10px 5px;
}

What this does is actually tells the browser to make a dashed box around it, that has a 10 pixel spacing from the top and bottom content (this is the margin) and write the text 10 pixels from the top and bottom dashes and 5 pixels from the right and left (that is the padding). That is all! Save the files and visit an article of yours. Be sure to delete the cache, if you have it enabled, so the changes can take effect immediately.

You still can’t do it? Well, if you are willing to add a small link back to my site to your blogroll or ad area then mail me (at the email found in the about us page) these two files and i will do it for you! If you want more changes and require some assistance with your blog then consider hiring me. For any problems do not hesitate to come back with comments!