This is the second article in the WordPress tips series and it deals with permalinks. Permalinks in WordPress refer to the permanent URL for posts. By default, WordPress uses question marks and alphanumerics in permalinks making them ugly, non-memorable and not search engine friendly. For example, the default URL for this post would be http://www.kuzzuk.net/?p=36.

However, WordPress provides a way to customize permalinks that are search engine friendly and memorable. This page has a number of tags with examples on how you can customize your permalinks. Here are the steps to customize your permalinks.

1. Log into your WordPress administrator account and click the “Permalinks” link under “Settings” on the left panel.
2. As shown below, there are a number of “Common settings” to chose from including 1) Default, 2) Day and name, 3) Month and name, 4) Numeric and 5) Custom. You can chose any of the options, I would recommend you chose any option other than the default option with the custom option being the most flexible. In my case, I have set the custom option as /%postname%.html which makes my URL like http://www.kuzzuk.net/how-to-create-pretty-permalinks-in-wordpress.html.
   
   
   

   Wordpress Permalinks Settings

3. After choosing the desired setting, click the “Save Changes” button.

What If the Permalinks Do Not Work?

If the permalink doesn’t work then it is most likely because of the .htaccess file permission issues (assuming the server is Apache). Open the .htaccess file and add the following code (if WordPress is installed in the root directory):

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Open the .htaccess file and add the following code (if WordPress is installed in a directory called ‘blog‘):

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /blog/index.php [L]

# END WordPress

In most cases, the permalinks settings should work without having to mess with the .htaccess files. Please leave a comment, if you have questions or feedback.

Recently, I started WordPress tips to answer basic questions I get about WordPress and in a similar vein, this set of tips caters for Joomla and how to improve its design and functionality. The first Joomla tip deals with displaying two or more columns in your Joomla frontpage.

1. Log into your Joomla administrator account and click the “Menus -> Main Menu” option from the administrator menu. Then click the “Home” link.
2. On the right panel, under “Parameters (Basic)” there are four settings (highlighted in red below) 1) #Leading: denotes the number of articles that are displayed in full width and use 0 if you do not want any article to be displayed in full width on the homepage, 2) #Intro: denotes the number of articles to display with their intro text, 3) Columns: denotes the number of columns per row used to display the intro text and 4) #Links: denotes the number of items to display as links.
   
   
   

   Joomla Frontpage Column Layout Settings

3. Click “Save” to save and exit this screen or “Apply” to save the changes and remain within the setting screen. Pressing “Close” will exit this setting screen without applying any changes.

That’s all, if you have any questions or suggestions for Joomla tips then please leave a comment.

I usually get many simple WordPress questions but I’m not able to reply to all queries. So this is my attempt to answer those questions via a series of simple WordPress tips for an average user starting with how to change the header image of the WordPress default theme.

1. Log into your WordPress administrator account and click the “Appearance” option on the left panel.
2. Click the “Header” option and you’ll see the following screen that allows you to either upload a header or choose a different header from a set of default images. The current default theme for WordPress versions above 2.9 is TwentyTen.
   
   
   

   WordPress custom header for TwentyTen

3. Create an image file with width and height dimensions of 940 and 198 pixels respectively on your local computer and save it in a desired location. Upload this image by clicking the “Choose File” button followed by the “Upload” button under “Upload Image” option. This will change the header to the uploaded picture.
4. If you do not know have a custom header image then you can also change the header image by choosing an appropriate image from the list of headers. There are options to remove or restore images but use these with caution as you will lose your customizations.

Changing WordPress Headers For Version 2.9 & Below And Non Default Themes

If your WordPress version is 2.9 or below then the above set of instructions do not apply to you because the default theme in those WordPress versions is Kubrick. I strongly recommend you to upgrade your WordPress especially for security reasons but if you are unable to upgrade your WordPress version then follow the steps below to change your header.

1. Find out the dimensions of your current header by right-clicking the header and checking out its Properties.
2. Find the location of the header image, example, wp-content/themes/default/images/ as well as the name of the image, for example, kubrickheader.jpg.
3. Create a custom image with the same dimensions and rename it to the header image name. Overwrite the current image with the new image by uploading the new image to the correct location. It is advisable to save the current image under a different name in case anything goes wrong.

That’s it, the above steps also work for any version of WordPress where the default theme is not being used. If you have any questions or suggestions for WordPress tips then please leave a comment.