Optional Necessity - Serendipity - Tutorials

Custom meta details for Serendipity static pages

nospam@example.com (Don Chambers) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:35:00 -0700

Your site's content can rank higher in search engine results through the use of page-specific title element, meta descriptions and meta keywords. The Serendipity HTML META-tags plugin simplifies this task for entries, as I discussed in Better search results with meta details.

Unfortunately, the current version of the HTML META-tag plugin cannot emit meta details for static pages, but static pages can have custom properties. We can use these custom static page properties to emit unique meta details for each static page, just like the HTML META-tag plugin does for entries.

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New AddThis button code for Serendipity Templates

nospam@example.com (Don Chambers) — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:57:13 -0700

Social bookmarking has long been popular on nearly any type of website, especially with sites featuring regularly updated content such as news sites and blogs. Social bookmarking allows visitors to remember, rate and recommend content through a number of channels, including Facebook, Delicious, Digg and many others. While many sites prefer to use numerous icons and links to each service available, I prefer to use the single point of service through AddThis.

Launched in 2006, addthis has become the #1 bookmarking and sharing button on the Internet. Many serendipity developers and website owners have incorporated the addthis code, or "widget", into their serendipity templates. I personally added it to a number of my own templates, and this code has been a part of the current serendipity default template Bulletproof since its initial release. Addthis has maintained compatibility with older versions of their scripts, but I decided it was time to update the script, especially since they just released a new version today.

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Additional sidebars for Serendipity templates

nospam@example.com (Don Chambers) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:15:00 -0700

Serendipity templates utilize a page structure that includes a main content pane and sidebar containers, often positioned left and/or right of the main content. But what if you want a top or bottom "sidebar"? How about more than two?

How do you code that information into your template, and present - and secure - it to other users of your custom serendipity templates if they are publically distributed? Template configuration and Smarty code can easily provide the solution for any of your custom serendipity templates.
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Better search results with meta details

nospam@example.com (Don Chambers) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:24:01 -0700

Effective use of a page title element, meta description and meta keyword tags can lead to significantly better search results for your site's content. Achieving better results in any Serendipity blog is easy thanks to the Serendipity "HTML Meta-Tags" plugin.

I have recently completed modifications to version 0.8 of this plugin with the assistance of the Serendipity user and developer community. These new and modified features unleash the hidden power of a plugin that may make the difference between an entire Serendipity weblog, or specific blog entry, being found by the masses and one that is rarely, if ever, viewed by anyone other than its author.

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