AT Flying change Webs & Graphics, we often work with organizations that offer information for staff or membership only. WordPress has some nice password protection functions that are easy to use. However, the problem comes when using PDF files that need to be password protected as well as unseen on search engines. Sure, you can password protect a page, which protects the link. But if someone has the direct link to the pdf file, there is nothing to “stop” this direct link from seeing the document.

Surprisingly, this is a function that is lacking in wordpress and I have yet to find a plugin that will protect actually protect the pdf from both direct links from non-members and search engine indexing.

The search engine indexing problem was taken care of by adding a robot.txt file that excluded the upload folder.

The password protecting the pdfs were a little more difficult. Since I couldn’t find a wordpress plugin to do the trick, I think I have come up with a suitable workaround. It takes two easy steps:

1. Using the Media File Manager plugin to create a members only directory in  my upload folder and used their basic instructions to move the client’s pdf files into the special folder.
2. Logging into the host control panel, I could navigate to the special folder and password protect the entire folder – just like I would for a non-wordpress website.

Voila! Password protected and search engine safe!

Having been involved in designing websites since 2000, there are many times when I’ll make a change on a website, load it live, let the client know the changes have been made, only to receive an email moments later in a panic “the changes are there”!

What’s happening here is that the browser has cached (saved) a copy of the page … the old version of the page … and isn’t actually viewing the live version. The fact is, it might only be a few minutes before your browser has recached updates form any website that may have made changes since your last visit.

The Solution: Refresh Your Browser

A simple refresh may be all your browser needs. This is accomplished by hitting the reload button (the button that often looks like a recycle image).

If this doesn’t work, try deleting the cache. This is done differently on each browser. For instance, in Firefox (Mac) it’s done by clicking on Tools > Clear Recent History > Check Cache > Click “Clear Now”.

If all else fails – open the page in a different browser. It might be your internet connection blocking the refresh.

I finally found something that helped me upload from local to live. These area not perfect, but thanks to the “Students of Parsons“, I found this enough to help me.

We have many clients who want photo galleries and for one particular site, I thought the carousel would work. I wanted to put the carousel into the header but couldn’t find ANY documentation other than using the short code [jj-ngg-jquery-carousel html_id="about-jcarousel" gallery="2" visible="6" scroll="1" auto="1"]. That shortcode didn’t work in the header php.
FINALLLY I found someplace that stated that I needed this phrase to make the jj nextgen jquery carousel to appear:

<?php echo do_shortcode(‘[jj-ngg-jquery-carousel html_id="about-jcarousel" gallery="2" visible="6" scroll="1" auto="1"]‘); ?>

In general, to use shortcode within the php files, see this documentation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/do_shortcode

As we were working on tranfering an old, out-of-date website into wordpress, we felt the burning need to have a computer-generated (instead of hand-configured) sitemap of the old version. We found that beginning with Dreamweaver CS4 the automatic site-mapper was “disabled” – but not gone. Quickly, we googled and found plenty on making  quick and easy change to enable that feature on the mac (for Debbie). It took longer, however, to find the info for the pc (for Amy). Thanks to 386 Solutions, we found just what we were looking for! In case you need it, here is their link: http://386solutions.com/enable-siteMap_dreamweaver.html.