I build a lot of WordPress websites and it’s great that there are so many plugins available for various functions, but sometimes I run into a situation where the right plugin just doesn’t exist (or if it does I didn’t find it). I needed a widget to display the WordPress recent comments with the comment excerpt and the users gravatar (globally recognized avatar). Here’s what I came up with, modified based on some code from others looking for a similar solution:

Put this into your sidebar template or elsewhere:

<?php $comments = get_comments('status=approve&number=5'); ?>
<h3 class="widget-title">Recent Comments</h3>
<ul class="recomm">
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) { ?>
    <li class="recomm-wrapper"><?php
        $title = get_the_title($comment->comment_post_ID);
        echo get_avatar( $comment, '53' );
        echo '<span class="recommauth">' . ($comment->comment_author) . '</span>';
        ?> said: "<?php
        echo wp_html_excerpt( $comment->comment_content, 72 ); ?>.."
        on <a href="<?php echo get_permalink($comment->comment_post_ID); ?>"
           rel="external nofollow" title="<?php echo $title; ?>">
           <?php echo $title; ?> </a>
    </li>
<?php }  ?> </ul>

Here’s the CSS styling I’m using (you may need to modify it according to your theme):

ul.recomm {
	margin-left: 0;
	margin-bottom: 36px;
	list-style: none;
}
.recomm-wrapper {
   clear:both;
   min-height: 53px;
   margin-bottom: 14px;
}
.recomm .avatar {
   float:left;
   margin-top:5px;
   margin-right:10px;
   border: #d8d8d8 1px solid;
}
.recommauth {
	font-weight: bold;
}

Go to Utah Liberation to see this code in action: utahliberation.com (bottom of the sidebar)

Sometimes when moving a Joomla, WordPress or other website to a different directory or different server you’ll need to change the absolute path for the site to work. In joomla this requires editing the configuration.php file, in WordPress this sometimes requires editing the database or ensuring that you update the settings before moving your files/database over to the new directory/server.

How do I find out what the absolute path is?

The easiest way is to create a file named pathinfo.php and paste only the following code into that file:

<?php
   $path = getcwd();
   echo "Your Absoluthe Path is: ";
   echo $path;
?>

Now, upload pathinfo.php into the root directory of your website and view it in your internet browser ( example: http://www.mysite.com/pathinfo.php )

This will display your absolute path.

As I am creating websites I sometimes come across situations that require a more than basic knowledge and a bit of research to figure out.

Here’s a helpful hint regarding removing blank lines from an html file using dreamweaver, should you ever want to do that without having to manually delete the lines…

1. Click CTRL + F
2. Select “Current document” in “Find in” (You can also select the folder if you have multiple files)
3. Search in “Source code”
4. Tick “Use regular expression”
5. Type “[\r\n]{2,}” (without quotes) in “Find”
6. Type “\n” (without quotes) in “Replace”
7. Press “Replace All”

That’s it. Have fun.