The Biergarten

Your new plog comes with a number of plug-ins that add more functions, as well as a variety of sidebar widgets that expand what is shown on your pages. We have tried to briefly describe most below. Have fun playing with the options and making your plog something unique.

Plug-ins

All of the plug-ins supplied are not active by default when your new Biergarten Plog is set up. On the Plug-in page in the Admin area, you can choose which plug-ins to activate and use (and you can deactivate them anytime you don’t want them). The following plug-ins are available:

Wordbook

Add a notice about your latest plog entry to the Wall on your Facebook profile. Keep your Facebook fans up-to-date on what’s happening in your Biergarten Plog.

How to do it: First activate the plug-in. You will find the WordBook plug-in on your Settings menu in the Toolbar. On the WordBook page you will first need to follow the set-up procedure to get your link code to enter. Once you have obtained this code and entered it as requested, a small notice about new plog posts will be added to your Wall and archives.

Flickr Tag

Lets you import photo groups or individual photos from your Flickr account to be included in your plog. But leaves all of the discussion and comments on the Flickr site.

How to do it: First activate the plug-in. You will find the Flickr plug-in listed on your Plug-in menu in the Toolbar. You first need to follow Step1 & Step2 to activate the plug-in to work with your Flickr account. Then once that is complete, you can set the image sizes for various uses. We suggest sticking with the defaults, but you can experiment. On most themes offered, the width is limited to about 500 pixels, so selecting an image size bigger than this will result in overlap and an ugly page.

TweetMe

Posts a Twitter to your account whenever you make a entry in your Biergarten plog.

How to do it: First activate the plug-in. The TweetMe plug-in is listed on your Plug-in menu in the Toolbar. Set-up is simple, decide how you want your Tweet to appear on your twitter account. And enter your log-in details for Twitter. Please note that neither other users nor the website administrator have access to your log-in details.

MobilePress

Creates a cell phone friendly version of your plog.

How to do it: Just activate it and you are ready. No configuration required.

Page Lists Plus

Allows you to choose which of your Pages appears in the main menus on your plog.

How to do it: Just activate it and you are ready. The current version of this plug-in does not allow you to edit the choices, we are hoping that the author of the plug-in will have it update soon. The plug-in will add three options to the write page, an option to change the title of the page, an option to unlink it (kind of silly function) and an option for it not to appear in your main menu.

Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form

For creating a “contact me” page on your plog.

How to do it: First activate the plug-in. Create a new page and name is something recognizable, such as “Contact Me” or “Got a Question” etc. In the copy area, use the HTML tab and then enter <!–gb_contact_form–> (copy only the blue characters). Do not add anything else to the copy page, just publish the page. On your Admin Toolbar (at top of the admin area) you should have a Contact Form menu, go to Configuration. On the Form Configuration page, fill in all of the applicable blanks in Section 1. You can update anything in the subsequent sections that you feel is appropriate, but the form will run without modifying any of these. Then hit the Save Form Configuration button at the page bottom.

WP-Sticky

Allows you to force a post to remain at the top of your main page, perhaps if you want to have a welcome message.

How to do it: Just activate it and you are ready. The plug-in adds options to classify each post as regular, announcement or sticky. Announcement keeps it on top of the recent posts.

Sidebar Widgets

You have a number of built in Widgets available to use on your plog. These are placed in the sidebar area on ALL pages. When you first start, there will be a few widgets already in your sidebar. They are default ones included in the theme design. BUT as soon as you add anything from the Widgets Page, then all of the default ones disappear and only the ones you specify through the Admin will appear. The widgets are pretty self-explanatory as to their function.

As you add Widgets, they will appear as blue boxes on the rightside of the Widget page. You can arrange the sequence by simply dragging the blue box up or down the list. Most of the Widgets have an Edit link on the bottom right. Clicking this allows you to change the Title of the Widget as it is shown on your plog and many have options such as the number of items to show.

Have Fun !!