My last article was about creating a Pure CSS Flyout Menu. In this article I want to teach you how you can integrate that concept into your WordPress Theme so that when ever you create Pages or Sub Pages the menu structure will automatically be created. It really is SIMPLE to do.

If you haven’t read the previous article on How To Create the CSS Flyout Navigation Menu then I suggest you read that one first as I am not going to go over how to set it up from scratch.

Ok, so you have a horizontal navigation structure in your WordPress theme and you want to take advantage of the pages and sub pages facility built into WordPress and create a navigation structure to suite that facilitates the sub pages as well as the main pages in a drop down menu format. Here is how we can achieve that using PURE CSS!

First we need to find where in your WordPress Theme the navigation is located. You will usually find it in the header.php or index.php files depending on your theme. In this example mine was in the header.php file. Look for a line of PHP code that looks something like this:

<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>

It may not be exactly the same but it will have wp_list_pages in the line of code. This WordPress Template Tag lists all the WordPress Pages and displays them as links. If you would like to read more about this template tag, you can do so here.

All I did next was copy the CSS Code that I created for the CSS Flyout Menu (see article here.) and paste it at the end of the style.css file of the WordPress Theme and to make it easier on yourself at a later date add some commenting so that you know what that section is all about.

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I was blown away with the responses that I have received regarding the article I published Dreamweaver Tutorial - Create a Contact Form In Dreamweaver. Many people have thanked me for the article via email . For those of you who are using Wordpress as a CMS or for your blog, I thought I would go through a Contact Form Plugin that you can’t live without. If you have a non Wordpress site and have not got a contact form on it then be sure to check out this Dreamweaver Contact Form Tutorial.

Wordpress Plugin CFORMSII

This plugin is Gold!!! and there is no way I could live without it when using WordPress. As I have mentioned before a Contact form on your site is a MUST if you want to interact with visitors and prospective clients. First of all the plugin is ready for Wordpress 2.5, and the best thing about it is that it allows you to have multiple forms throughout your site or even on the same page. It allows you to add as many additional fields to the form as you wish and also allows you to use Simple Text Inputs, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, Drop Down Lists, Captcha Fields etc. It also allows the user a File Upload!

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It’s official, WordPress 2.5 has been released on the world and I got a chance to get my first look and feel of it when I upgraded one of my sites. I thought I would share with you the process of upgrading your site to Wordpress 2.5 and also 5 reasons why I made the switch and why you should do yourself a favor and upgrade.

First thing is first, MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR SITE. If you need a hand with backing up your Wordpress Site then have a read of this.

Next Thing you will need to do is make a note of what plugins you have Activated and then De Activate them all. Then delete these 2 folders wp-admin and wp-includes. Then copy the new files up to your server making sure you overwrite the old ones. The other file that you might want to get a copy of is wp-config.php just in case. This is the file that holds all your database connection settings.

Now that you have upgraded the files it is time to visit the upgrade page that you will find at the following URL http://yourdomain/wp-admin/upgrade.php - That’s It all upgraded. Why should you do all this?

1. New User Administration Interface

This is a massive change from previous versions and I must say I love the new look. Jefferey Zeldman and the team at Happy Cog Studios have done a magnificent job here. Even if this was the only improvement it would be worth the Upgrade.

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photo credit: longhorndave

I have a new favorite Wordpress Plugin. It’s name Photodropper. If you are a blogger and you use Wordpress then this is a must have plugin. Adding photo’s to your blog post is a great way to attract readers to your posts. I have been using Flickr for a while now to source images for a number of blogs by going to the Flickr website and searching that way and then leaving credits manually at the footer of the image.
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