Often it seems that the images load before the script producing an unattractive stack of images before the script kicks in and the rotation starts. The easiest way to prevent this is to use css to set the dimensions of the enclosing div and hide overflow. For example:

.wordcycle {
position: relative;
width: 500px;
height: 300px;
overflow: hidden;
}

The first step was to add a function to identify the grandchildren.  The easiest way to do this turned out to be via a plugin: WP Extra Template Tags.  This very handy collection of additional functions includes _is_grandchild() which was exactly what I needed.

Here’s the php code that provided the third level page navigation scheme at Helford River Sailing Club:

<?php if ( _is_grandchild() ) { ?>
<?php
if($post->post_parent) {
$children = wp_list_pages("title_li=&depth=1&child_of=".$post->post_parent."&echo=0");
$titlenamer = get_the_title($post->post_parent);
} else {
$children = wp_list_pages("title_li=&depth=1&child_of=".$post->ID."&echo=0");
$titlenamer = get_the_title($post->ID);
} if ($children) { 
?>
<h2> <? echo $titlenamer ?> </h2>
<ul> <?php echo $children; ?> </ul>

<?php
global $post;
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=10&offset=0&category=17,18,19');
foreach($myposts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
foreach((get_the_category()) as $category) { echo $category->cat_name . ' '; }
?>
<li class="cat-post-item">
<a class="post-title" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a><br />
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>">
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Fasthosts are pretty strict about security and their system seems to block emails sent via php. This might not be such a bad thing if their support staff were able to suggest an effective solution. They will send you a line of php script which might solve the problem if they could tell you where to put it, but when you’re using a plugin – Contact Form 7 in my case – it’s not that easy.

The simplest way to deal with this issue is to switch to SMTP mail sending.   The WP Mail SMTP plugin worked perfectly for me.  Just install the plugin and set it it send to emails from a Fasthosts email account via SMTP using smtp.fasthosts.co.uk.  Why can’t Fasthosts suggest this solution to their WordPress users?

Make a copy of single.php and call it, for example, single-default.php.  This will be your default single template.  Make as many extra copies as you need and call them single-2.php, single-3.php etc where 2 and 3 are the IDs of the category you want to treat specially. Modify these to achieve  the display options you need.  Finally remove the contents of single.php and replace them by something like this:

<?php
if (in_category('2')) {include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/single-2.php');
}
elseif (in_category('3')) {include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/single-3.php');
}
else { include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/single-default.php');
}
?>

You can add as many ‘elseif’ statements as you need.

#BEGIN Flash Image Upload Fix
<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>
#END Flash Image Upload Fix

If a suitable query_posts statement is added just before the loop in category-php, the category page will show a single sticky post.  Here’s the code that should be added just before the loop:

<?php $sticky=get_option('sticky_posts') ;
query_posts('p=' . $sticky[0]); ?>

The technique described in Posts in Current Category can be used in the sidebar to allow the selection of all the other posts in the category.

WordPress 2.8 added a really useful body class function.  This can be invoked just by adding <?php body_class(); ?> to the body tag. This opens up all sorts of styling opportunities but single posts still don’t get a category tag.  You can usually get around this by adding <?php post_class(); ?> to a suitable div outside the loop.

If all else fails you can add the following new function to the functions.php file:

function the_category_unlinked($separator = ' ') {$categories = (array) get_the_category();
$thelist = '';
foreach($categories as $category) { // concate
$thelist .= $separator . $category->category_nicename;
}
echo $thelist;
}

Then add an id to the body tag and style it appropriately. Something like this:

id="cat<?php the_category_unlinked('-'); ?>"

This should result in a category id being added to the body tag and that can then be used to turn on the appropriate menu tab when single posts are being displayed.  For example on this site the css for ‘hover’ and ‘on’ styles looks like this:

div#menu ul li a:hover, div#menu ul li.current_page_item a,
div#menu ul li.current-cat a, #cat-wordpress div#menu ul li.cat-item-4 a  {
background: #eff;
}

• is_frontpage()

• is_page('name') or is_page('id')

• is_category('name') or is_category('id')

• in_category('name') or in_category('id')

You can see the full range of conditional tags here: codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags

You can add multiple tags by separating them with a double pipe like this:

• is_frontpage() || is_page('name')

One useful tag not yet available in the WordPress codex is is_subpage_of.  This tag can be added using the Is Subpage Of Plugin.