Please Link 2 Me WordPress Plugin
Introducing my next WordPress plugin: Please Link 2 Me
I’ve personally wanted this for quite a while, and I’ve seen it on other blogs before, but when I looked for it, I just couldn’t find it.
So i created it myself… That’s the beauty of WordPress
What does this plugin do?
This plugin adds a little text box below each post on your WordPress blog containing the code required for somebody to just copy and paste it to their blog or website, and create a link back to your article.
This means the reader doesn’t have to know how to get the URL of the article, or even have to know how to make a link out of it.
An example?
Here is a screen shot of this plugin in action (just in case I’ve disabled it on this site for whatever reason, like testing something):
And, here’s a screenshot of the admin page (in WordPress 2.8.5). Click on it to see the full shot…
Where can I get it and what do I do?
You can just go to the plugin repository to download this plugin. Here’s the link: “Please Link 2 Me Download”
Then, just upload the zip file into your “plugins” directory, unzip it, and activate it…
Then all that’s left is to enter the settings in the plugin’s admin page.
Updates?
To get notified of updates, just subscribe to the comments feed of this specific blog post. If there are other comments here as well and you decide to unsubscribe, then you’ll still be able to see the update requirements via your admin “Plugins” page…
49 Responses to “Please Link 2 Me WordPress Plugin”
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logicalnot on April 27th, 2008
Great idea!
Unfortunaly, the plug dosn’t display anything. I have no clue why (no alertes, nothing).
WP2.5.1 + Hemingway international theme.
james on April 29th, 2008
Hi logicalnot. Did you place the required code in your template? Here’s the code you need to place where you want the box to display:
<?php if(function_exists(‘pl2mAddLinkBox’)) {pl2mAddLinkBox();} ?>
For more info on how to install it, you can take a look at the instructions in the readme.txt file, or on this page:
Please Link 2 Me Installation
james on May 26th, 2008
Hi,
just a note to anybody subscribed to this page: I’ve updated the plugin. It now looks a little friendlier and doesn’t require you to edit your theme…
Gonzague on May 26th, 2008
Hi,
Awesome plugin though it wasn’t able to find ‘the_title();’ so I had to specify the first line of $theHTMLCode manually
G
james on May 26th, 2008
hmmm… that is strange. I have an idea of what went wrong, so I’ll work on fixing it.
Good thing my “New version of this plugin” functionality isn’t working
james on May 27th, 2008
Ok, just in case you want the latest version, I did upload a new one that SHOULD fix this. If it doesn’t, please let me know…
Shasta McLaughlin on July 3rd, 2008
The Please link 2 Me box is too big extending into the second column of my 2 column layout. Can someone help me fix it?
Thanks,
Shasta
james on July 3rd, 2008
Hmmm… I guess I’ve made it too wide. I will have to see about adding the ability to change the text area’s width and height via settings.
But, in the meantime, if you open up the “pleaselink2me.php” file and scan for cols=”60″, (around line 260) you can change the number to something like 40…
Shasta McLaughlin on July 4th, 2008
Thank you that fixed it.
Shasta
Morgan on July 18th, 2008
Hi james!
it’s possible to choose where to put the link2me box?
I have a multilanguage blog… how do I use the “” to translate the description text function?
thanks,
Morgan
james on July 18th, 2008
Hi Morgan.
Yes it is possible to choose where to put the box, but only if you edit your theme. If you take a look at the plugin options page, there’s an option to “Show below the post?:”. Leave this blank, and then manually place the appropriate code (just above the “More Info” title on the options page) anywhere you like in the theme.
Let me know how it goes.
Regarding translations, currently the plugin doesn’t have the ability to have more than one language at a time (though I’m not sure what the “” in your post comment is).
morgan on July 18th, 2008
hi james…
wich code should i usu to show the link2me box where i want? this one:
i wrote the code I use to translate… i use the qtranslate and the code is:
if I change the plugin php file in the descriptio-text function will it work? how do I do this?
morgan on July 18th, 2008
hi james…
wich code should i usu to show the link2me box where i want? this one:[code][/code]
i wrote the code I use to translate… i use the qtranslate and the code is:[code][/code]
if I change the plugin php file in the descriptio-text function will it work? how do I do this?
thanks
morgan on July 18th, 2008
how do i write the code here?
james on July 18th, 2008
Hi. I don’t think you can write code in here as WP is cleaning it out.
Rather send me a mail directly to james at geniosity dot co dot za
and I will try take a look at what you’re talking about.
Thanks
Baz on August 12th, 2008
Excellent plugin, works perfectly with a little amend to the text area width as stated on the post by Shasta McLaughlin.
james on August 12th, 2008
Thanks for the compliment Baz. I definitely have to get cracking on updating my code to make it easier for people to use…
Mike on August 14th, 2008
Hey… This is a great plugin. Although, installing on WP 2.6 I am not able to get the settings to save. Settings page always comes back blank.
james on August 14th, 2008
Hmmm… I’ll have to take a look at that. If you still have it installed, expect an update very soon
Jezz on September 5th, 2008
I’ve been able to install this, and activate it, and get it to come up in post…..but much of my content is located in pages(90% of my content).Is there a way to get this plugin to work on pages as well.Great plugin by the way!!!
james on September 6th, 2008
Thanks for the compliment.
For now, I’m afraid you’ll have to manually edit the plugin and your theme. In your theme, hopefully you’ve got a template specific to pages, then you can just add the following where you want the box to appear:
<?php if(function_exists(‘pl2mAddLinkBox’)) {pl2mAddLinkBox();} ?>
If you don’t have a template specific to pages, you’ll need to ensure you “uncheck” the option in the plugin options page that will automatically display the box on posts. Otherwise you’ll end up having 2 of these boxes on your posts.
Now, on line 231 of the pleaselink2me.php file (in the wp-content/plugins/please-link-2-me/ folder), change this:
if (is_single()) {
To this:
if (is_single() || is_page()) {
I’ll try update my plugin as soon as I can to put the option on the options page… Let me know how it goes, and thanks for using it.
James on November 2nd, 2009
I’ve just updated this plugin (yes, FINALLY)!
Hopefully your WordPress plugins admin page will start to notify you asap so you can download it.
Let me know if there are any issues with this and if it now has everything you need…
Gene Steinberg on November 2nd, 2009
Neat concept.
OK: I’d like the “link to us” text to be larger. I can get a <strong> code to work. But anything that calls another size, such as is deleted when I save the setting.
Am I missing something?
Peace,
Gene
Gene Steinberg on November 2nd, 2009
One more thing: In my setup, it won’t work when a full post is on the home page in our second linked blog, at http://www.technightowl.com/newsletter. You have to click on the title of the article to bring up the page where the link box shows.
Peace,
Gene
James on November 2nd, 2009
Any chance you can resize the text using CSS modifications? Take a look at the Admin page for more details (under styling). That should be a “quick fix” for now.
Regarding putting this on your front page, that wouldn’t work so well. It would mean putting the link box under every article. So, it might be fine for you if you only have 1 article on your home page, but if you have more, you’d see this under every article, and it “could get ugly”.
Is that what you’re actually looking for? (Not the ugly part, the “putting the box under every post on every page of your site” part). Do you have any ideas?
Gene Steinberg on November 2nd, 2009
Well, the main page of technightowl.com only contains the introduction to the stories, with links to the full post. That’s where the link box appears and it works fine. However, this would be something I’d like to control on a case by case basis.
We have a related blog installation at http://www.technightowl.com/newsletter. There is consists of one announcement block and one traditional posting. We’d like to have the link box at the bottom of the post.
As to CSS: My skills aren’t too good at that. Maybe some more guidance?
Peace,
Gene
fwe on November 18th, 2009
Can you please make a widget out of this so I can simply put it into the sidebar?
Thanks
James on November 18th, 2009
That’s not a bad idea.
It would give me something new to learn though.
Now,,,, where did my time for learning go……? I just need a little…
Political News on December 23rd, 2009
When I enable the plugin and select “Show below the post?” in the options it appears just fine, but when I uncheck that and simply place the following code in my single.php file, it doesn’t appear. Any ideas? Thanks!
James on December 23rd, 2009
I see where the issue is. I’m trying to fix it now… Thanks for pointing it out.
James on December 24th, 2009
Ok, I’ve just released a new version of the plugin.
Just make a note of the fact that I changed the code you need to put in your template to make this work.
Let me know if you have any issues.
Political News on December 24th, 2009
It still doesn’t appear to be working. Is the correct code listed under the “Usage” section of the plugin after upgrading?
Political News on December 24th, 2009
Also, one suggestion that I think would be awesome would be to add the following code to make the text area field read only and on click automatically highlight and copy the code in the box. I’ve changed the code slightly (example at the link below), but unfortunately it copies over the changes on upgrade so an option within the plugin for this would be helpful.
readonly=”readonly” onclick=”this.focus();this.select();
White House Emails
James on December 28th, 2009
The template tag definitely works for me. Make sure you’re putting it in the right template (i.e. “single.php if you have one).
I’ve also added your 2 suggestions. I quite like them.
tanya on February 1st, 2010
I can get the text box to show on the page and in preview on the blog post but it wont show up on the blog post..help
James on February 1st, 2010
That is REALLY strange. Maybe send me a screenshot of your settings screen, and a screenshot of your “Preview” where it works.
I’d really like to take a look at that.
(You should be able to reply to the email you get notifying you of new comments, otherwise let me know via the contact form, and I will mail you directly)
tanya on February 1st, 2010
I got it to work on the individual page and post.. I would like to see how it appears on the home page… I know a previous person asked that as well. You mentioned it may look messy but would like to give it a try if you can tell me how. Thanks for the quick response!!
Gene Steinberg on February 1st, 2010
I’m still not seeing the answer. So how do we change the size of the “link to us” label. As I wrote long ago, the standard styling isn’t working.
Peace,
Gene
James on February 2nd, 2010
In response to Tanya, you should be able to edit your template and just put the Template Tag (see the bottom of the settings page for more info how) and it should work for wherever you need it (and wherever you put it).
In response to Gene, you can manage the style of the various parts of the box and labels. For example, for the “link to us” label you can just change the style of the CSS ID “please_link_to_me_title” in your theme’s stylesheet. (You’ll obviously need to add it as it isn’t there by default).
Gene Steinberg on February 2nd, 2010
My css is rather lame.
Suggest something to cut and paste, using, say, h3 head size. I do that well.
Peace,
Gene
Gene Steinberg on February 2nd, 2010
Thought I posted this.
My css is pathetic.
Suggest a way to change the title to use the h3 size/style tag.
I copy/paste well.
Peace,
Gene
Gene Steinberg on February 2nd, 2010
Sorry for the duplicate post. It didn’t seem to post the first time.
Anyway I tried this one in our theme’s CSS file:
please_link_to_me_title {
font-size: 1.4em;
font-weight: bold;
}
Didn’t work. What did I miss?
James on February 3rd, 2010
Almost there, try adding a hash/pound behind the please_link_to_me_title so it looks like:
#please_link_to_me_title {
font-size: 1.4em;
font-weight: bold;
}
Gene Steinberg on February 3rd, 2010
Yes, now we’re talking. Of course, if only you could do this in the WP Dashboard directly.
Peace,
Gene
James on February 4th, 2010
That would be a nice feature, but will take a little time to add, considering how basic or how advanced I’d need to make it.
Would it be a case of having a place there to add CSS code?
Or would it be a case of adding a field for size, color, style, etc…