The rich text editor that comes default on a standard wordpress install is not really all that bad.

However, I would often find myself doing or adding things to the raw code or in html mode on the editor to get the desired results.. Doing things in the raw code is not a big deal if a person knows html and how to use it well. But we all like to progress and many times people would rather not have to mess around with the raw html code just to make nicely formated and feature rich posts. After all that is what a ‘WYSIWYG’ visual editor is for, right?

This plugin will add all kinds of extra buttons and functions to the default wordpress editor. It makes the Wordpress TinyMCE editor look similar to the image below.

Advanced Editor

Notice the Font size and Font family buttons? Those two alone make this plugin well worth installing. Plus all the other trick features it adds. Things like adding tables to posts, using inline css styles, a spell checker, find and replace words and more cool stuff too. Like adding captions to words in the text like this for example! Hover over the word and see a popup tool tip!

I highly recommend adding this plugin to your wordpress blog editor. The TinyMCE Advanced plugin is found at laptoptips.ca. The developer did a wonderful job making the plugin and also has a great website with other nice plugins to offer as well.

I have to say, the TinyMCE Advanced plugin adds some great functions to the default wordpress rich text editor and makes it more efficient and enjoyable to write posts.

The WP blogging platform can be used for niche websites, static page type web sites, sales copy letters, sales pitch opt in pages, business web sites, affiliate advertisements and more.

One of my favorite ways to use the power of wordpress is to use custom templates to make parts or pages of the web site unique. I will show you today how to use a page template as a custom template to make a page on Wordpress that can be totally custom. It can have its own characteristics and or features which can be totally different from the main front page of the website.

Here are just a few of the likely scenarios that could be made easily possible by using a custom page template with a new blog page.

• Show a different page header on a page.
• Want a custom sidebar to show content relevant to only that page.
• Want no sidebar on the page, make the content full with.
• Use custom css styles on one or more features on a custom page.
• Want to have different fonts, text colors or title sizes on a page.
• Would like to have the page layout or spacing formated different.
• remove post titles and or date stamps from a post or letter on a page.

The first step is to create a template to use for the new custom page.

1. Login to your wordpress admin panel and in the Theme Editor section look for and click to open the Page Template file, this file is generally a ‘page.php’ or ’singlepage.php file.

2. Copy the code from the Page Template file and paste it in Notepad or a text editor on your local computer, place the code snippet below with your desired page name in the snippet at the top of that file and save it as a .php file with a unique name, like ‘custompage.php’ for an example.

<?php /* Template Name: Graphics Page
*/ ?>

3. Now, with the template code in the new file, upload this new file using ftp or cpanel manager to your installed wordpress theme folder.

4. This file should now be accessible and can be customised from inside your wordpress admin panel in the Theme Editor area you will see the new template file there with the name you gave to it in the top code snippet.

5. Assign a new page in wordpress to use this new custom template. Go to Write > Write Page and make a new page with your desired title. Now! In the lower section of the page editor look for a setting field called, “Page Template” and click on that and open the bar to select the new template there. The area and setting in wordpress 2.6 are shown on the image at the left and this is where you would need to select your new custom made template here in this field. Select the new template name and save the page with all your desired content added in to body of the page too of course. This links the new made page to the custom template we made.

6. Now, you can return to the Theme Editor section and select your custom pages templates and make edits to this page by using the custom template file. Sidebars can be removed, header added, page title erased, etc.

When the full capabilities of Wordpress are harnessed, the possibilities are endless. It is not only a good blogging platform, wordpress also makes full scale CMS applications that can serve many different purposes.