<?php
function filemtime_remote($uri)
{
    $uri = parse_url($uri);
    $handle = @fsockopen($uri['host'],80);
    if(!$handle)
        return 0;
    fputs($handle,"GET $uri[path] HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $uri[host]\r\n\r\n");
    $result = 0;
    while(!feof($handle))
    {
        $line = fgets($handle,1024);
        if(!trim($line))
            break;
        $col = strpos($line,':');
        if($col !== false)
        {
            $header = trim(substr($line,0,$col));
            $value = trim(substr($line,$col+1));
            if(strtolower($header) == 'last-modified')
            {
                $result = strtotime($value);
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    fclose($handle);
    return $result;
}
?>

You can display the result using the PHP date parameters. For example:

<?php
echo date('g:ia',filemtime_remote('FILEURL')); 
?>

/**
 * Disable Feeds
 */
function disable_our_feeds() {
	wp_die( __('No RSS Feed Available, 
Please visit our <a href="'. get_bloginfo('url') .'">homepage</a>.') );
}

add_action('do_feed', 'disable_our_feeds', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rdf', 'disable_our_feeds', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rss', 'disable_our_feeds', 1);
add_action('do_feed_rss2', 'disable_our_feeds', 1);
add_action('do_feed_atom', 'disable_our_feeds', 1);

Just open up the main plugin file  wp-cycle.php and search for this line: foreach((array)$wp_cycle_images as $image => $data) { and paste shuffle($wp_cycle_images); immediately before the foreach line.

If you need an image rotator within a post Wordcycle is a more flexible solution. It uses the images from the post gallery and provides a very comprehensive selection of shortcode options.

add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
set_post_thumbnail_size( 266, 999 );

Once it’s enabled you can add the image very easily anywhere in the loop using <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>.

Mark Jaquith has written a nice article explaining how you can set up different images sizes and there’s a very useful plugin called Multiple Post Thumbnails that allows the addition of multiple featured images.

It’s not obvious how you can add a caption to a featured image. The trick lies in calling the associated attachment post. You can show the image caption using the following code:

<?php the_post_thumbnail();
echo get_post(get_post_thumbnail_id())->post_excerpt; ?>

Similarly you can show the full description or the image title if you prefer:

<?php the_post_thumbnail();
echo get_post(get_post_thumbnail_id())->post_content; ?>
<?php the_post_thumbnail();
echo get_post(get_post_thumbnail_id())->post_title; ?>

You can add any classes you need in order to style the results.

I recently wanted to show events from a series of event categories and style the output differently for each category. This turned out to be a bit beyond the scope of the HTML parameters but Florian very kindly came up with a modified loop that did the job. I’ve reproduced the loop below in case it’s helpful to other users. It’s in use at constantinecornwall.com. I’m sure it could be further adapted to provide many other ways of showing events.

<?php 
/* get IDs of event-posts and store them in an array */
$rs_ids = array();
	$rs_ids = rs_event_id(); 

foreach($rs_ids as $rs_id) {
	 /* define query and start Loop */
	$args = array(
		'p'  => $rs_id
		);
 	$rs_id_query = new WP_Query($args);
 while ($rs_id_query->have_posts()) : $rs_id_query->the_post();
 	?>

<div class="eventlist <?php
/* give div a category id for styling and echo category name as title*/
foreach((get_the_category()) as $category) {
     echo 'cat' . $category->cat_ID . ' ';
 } ?>">
	<h3><?php
 		foreach((get_the_category()) as $category) {
 		echo $category->cat_name . ' ';
 		}
 	?></h3>

<?php
/* do some stuff with html and php, e.g. use rs_event_post() */
		$args = array(
			'html_post_v1' 	=>
			'<h4>%DATE% %TIME% <span>%LOCATION%</span></h4>',
 			'html_post_v2' 	=>
			'<h4>%DATE% <span>%LOCATION%</span></h4>',
 			'html_post_v3' 	=>
			'<h4>%DATE% to %ENDDATE%<span>%LOCATION%</span></h4>',
			'html_post_v4' 	=>
			'<h4>%DATE% (multi-day)<span>%LOCATION%</span></h4>',
			'date_format_1'	=> 'l jS F',
			'date_format_2'	=> 'l jS F',
 			'time_format'	=> 'g:ia',
		);
 		rs_event_post($args) ?>

 		 	<h5><?php the_title(); ?></h5>
	<?php the_content(); ?>
 <div style="clear:both"></div>
</div>
	 <?php
/* end Loop */
	endwhile;
/* end foreach */
 	} ?>

<?php global $switched; switch_to_blog(1);?>
//call posts from blog 1 as required //
<?php restore_current_blog();?>

http://jackplug.co.uk/using-jquery-tools-to-show-posts/

The first example is a movie trailer: Unstoppable, based on the true story of a runaway train and starring Denzil Washington. Or maybe you’d prefer the remake of True Grit with Jeff Bridges.

I’m using the beta version of FV WordPress Flowplayer combined with the jQuery video overlay tool described on the Flowplayer website. The integration within WordPress is a bit clunky relying on links with a unique rel attribute and a template with the appropriate video within a matching div. I suppose I could have put the code from the template into the post as well, but I wanted to be able to trigger various videos from different places in the site and this seemed the best approach. I’m sure someone out there can point me at a more elegant way to achieve this, but in the meantime this seems to work.