The NextGen Gallery plug-in is so comprehensive, I’ve set my husband’s photography site up with it, and I’ll be setting my site up with it shortly.

It gives you complete control of what page you’d like your gallery images to appear, the title and description of the images and it’s easy to move images from gallery to gallery. (if, for instance you would like to share your newer images on your home page, then be able to move them into their respective final gallery spot.)

You even have complete control over the order in which your images are viewed – and so much more.

One thing I was particularly impressed with – and it is something I’ve been searching for for a LONG time as a solution for a client of mine who went with a very rigid flash gallery because he wanted to have different background songs depending on which gallery people were viewing.

The NextGen gallery plug-in absolutely comes through. I’ll be sharing this information with my client so he can actually enjoy working with his online galleries rather than feel constrained by the rigid constraints of the gallery he’s using right now.

With regards to having different songs play on each slideshow, the NextGen people said it much better than I could recount it here, so here’s a link!

Also, here’s a link to download the plug-in, if you have a WordPress driven site.

Have fun!

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Thanks to the Slightlymore site – I was able to add the following parameter within my placed .swf code & it immediately was layered properly! Thank you, Slightlymore!

<param name="wmode" value="opaque" />

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If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be trying to figure it out as well!

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Discover the value and benefit of using WordPress to create your website. In this class, you will follow along with an example site as it’s being built. Handouts will be given as a guide for your future reference.

This class is a “build from the ground” – no experience necessary, class. I’ll be discussing concepts and giving out step-by-step instructions so you can feel confident you can do it on your own!

(A certificate of attendance will be given, for business funded reimbursement purposes.)

Presented by: Jean Egan

Where: Spirit of Light Wellness Studio, Wallingford, CT
(Click here for map/directions)

When: Thursday, June 10th, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Cost: $35

Call 203-641-3371 to speak to Colleen Behan for more information about the Spirit of Light Wellness Studio and 860-881-2346 to speak with Jean Egan for more information about class content.

~~~

If you would like Jean to host this class at your business location, she is available for a group reservation of 10 or more people. Contact for More Information or to Schedule a Class.

Jean is also available for one-on-one instruction as well as for consultation at a reduced hourly rate.

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A client of mine needed to share different (private) content with their clients. He also needed workers of his to be able to view and update all clients pages, but didn’t want to give access to the WordPress admin area for either.

Although I would have loved to dig REALLY deep in the programming and pull the content dynamically from the database, my client and I both opted for the quicker, cheaper route, although this takes more time on his end to add new users and create pages they’ll be redirected to.

I did a quick search for “Client Portal WordPress” and came up with this. I did a few more things than they did, but that’s where I started. I liked what I created for my client’s site, so I set my site up with a client portal as well. This allows me to privately share information with my clients.

Basically, here’s how it works: Install the plugins listed below, set up and assign a new roll called “Clients”, create the actual user (as you would create a subscriber in your WordPress Users area), create the page they’ll be redirected to, then set up the redirection! Clients can correspond to you via their page(s) and an email is sent to every person subscribed to that page.

I’ll go through the steps below in detail. If anything is confusing, feel free to contact me and ask. I spent a bit of time organizing the following information & hope I haven’t forgotten anything! (Plus, it’s a couple weeks after I set it up, so I may have forgotten something.)

I’m still working out the steps below, but have published because I’ve received an inquiry on how to do it! Share the knowledge!

Let’s create a client portal, using mostly WordPress plug-ins – and some specialized code in your template page(s)!

Step 1: Install the following plugins

The list of plugins I used & what they do:

1. BM Custom Login – Use this if you wish to brand the standard “/wp-login.php” page with your own logo, colors, etc. if clients happen to find themselves there. The Sidebar Login plugin below makes this area somewhat obsolete/redundant, but I want to cover all bases & give a professional look.
2. Breadcrumb Nav XT – This helps people understand where they are by showing the current page location & site hierarchy above that page. The default top level breadcrumb is called “Blog” but it’s easily changed to “Home” in the Breadcrumb Nav XT settings.
3. Exclude Pages – If you wish to have your full client list page hidden to non-administrators.
4. IWG Hide Dashboard – This allows you to keep clients from accessing the WordPress Dashboard. Comments from everyone are shown on the Dashboard. I didn’t want clients viewing other clients comments.
5. Role Manager (This plugin doesn’t seem to be offered on WordPress’ site.) – This allows you to create new rolls. It is a little overkill, but it helps to identify rolls and keep yourself sane
6. Sidebar Login – This lets clients log in and log out right from the sidebar. It allows you to post persistant helpful links for yourself, your workers and for clients once they’re logged in.
7. Subpages Widget – This shows subpages in your sidebar widgets. It’s helpful in that you won’t have to post links to sub pages – they’re automatically created as you create your pages.
8. Subscribe to Comments – As administrator, you always receive an email when someone makes a comment to your site. If you wish to have your clients receive an email when you or your worker update their page, install this plugin. They can subscribe to comments of any page they have the ability to make comments on.
9. Peter’s Login Redirect – This will allow you to redirect clients to their own page once they’ve signed in. I’ve set mine up so I won’t have to continually add new redirects. I set one redirect. Everyone is redirected to my main clients page & based on their user level, they either see the full client page (administrators & workers), or are directed to a page that matches their username.

I’ll go through why I used all of these, but list form is easiest to go down and just install.

Step 2: Set up a special role for your clients (and workers, if you wish to assign another level of access)

Once you install the Role Manager plugin, your WordPress admin interface will have additional choices:

I created a roll called “Clients” with a user level of 2, another roll called “Worker” with a user level of 5 and deleted rolls that were superfluous, just to keep things neat. This left me with three rolls – Administrator, Clients & Worker.

This step is a little reverse-intuitive. Once you install the IWG Hide Dashboard plugin you’ll create a capability to take away the capability to go to the WordPress Dashboard. You grant the capability to not grant them access to your Dashboard.

As per their instructions:

First use the Role Manager and create a new capability “hide dashboard”.
Assign the newly created capability “Hide Dashboard” to each role who you don’t want give access to the Dashboard.
From this time on, all users with the capability “Hide Dashboard” have no longer access to the Dashboard.

My clients capabilities:

(Click to view full-size.)

Create a user

Just as you would create a subscriber, create a new user in your WordPress interface. Make sure to set their roll as “Clients”.

Step 3: Create the page your client will be directed to

My client pages are organized with a main “Clients” page, and each client’s page is a child of that page. This keeps my page list organized. Each client’s page can also have children. (Only 1 level deep, the way I have mine set up.)

My client portal uses 2 templates. The first one I called “clientsredirect.php“. My main “Clients” page uses that template. In code, it asks what level the person is, and directs them to the appropriate page. If the user is a worker (Level 5) or greater, it shows the page. If it is a client (level 2), it directs them to their sub-page. Of course it has my formatting, so you can take it and reformat it for yourself.

The second template I called “clients.php“. This is the template I assign to my client pages and their child pages (if any).

This is being worked on. In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to email me.

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1. Across The Universe – The Beatles
2. Continuous KoL – (Radio)
3. Décollage – Les Balayeurs Du Désert
4. Within You Without You – The Beatles
5. Knight of the Woeful Countenance – Man of La Mancha (Pladido Domingo) Soundtrack
6. Universal Traveler – Air
7. Coconut Woman – Harry Belafonte
8. Alpha Beta Gaga – Air
9. Dreams – Cranberries
10. Swami-Plus Strings – The Monkees
11. It’s All The Same – Man of La Mancha (Pladido Domingo) Soundtrack
12. Baby Love Child – Pizzicato Five
13. Outside Violin Solo – Aphex Twin
14. Rainbow Connection – Kermit
15. Love You Madly – Cake
16. My Eyes – Laurie Anderson
17. True Affection – The Blow
18. Land Down Under Remix – Men At Work
19. Big Belly Butterflies – Bel Canto
20. Black Steel – Tricky
21. Be Still thy Soul – Anael
22. Dissapointed – Morrissey
23. Mama Look A Boo Boo – Harry Belafonte
24. Shadow Stabbing – Cake
25. Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight /The End – Paul McCartney

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Even the “big guys” are using it:
autoshows.ford.com

You wouldn’t be able to tell, except it shows in their code in the background. Great job!

I just finished a client site: woodfaeries.com and it considerably brought down the cost the site would have been without WordPress. Plus ~ she now has the ability to update her website herself! Of course, I’m still around for tech support, but she can control her website now. Great stuff.

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Damn. It doesn’t show up in the calendar until that day and time has passed. I guess this is to allow a blogger to post for a specific release time, which can be helpful, but it would be more helpful for me and my clients if it showed up!!! What particularly makes it annoying is that it said “publish”. You would think that would mean “I want this to show”. Oh well. I guess not.

I wonder if I can tweak the code to allow a post from the future to appear? I’ll keep you posted.

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