WordPress always saves the content using the actual domain i.e. the domain you use to write your content.

But sometimes it may cause you issues especially when you want to develop your WordPress site locally using a local host server or blog on one domain and then go live on another. Because then you need to replace all URLs in your database.

This lesson guides you on how you can easily convert all absolute URLs into relative URLs.

Relative URLs is the new WordPress plugin that allows you to move from localhost to a live domain with minimal effort. The plugin doesn’t change the links in the database, so you can develop in the staging area or on a subdomain, or a sub-directory without worrying to replace URLs in your content.

The plugin doesn’t replaces the URLs in the database but:

• It removes the domain name on internal links
• It also removes the domain name on image sources for the images that are located on your server

Using this plugin you can:

• Switch between HTTP and HTTPS sites
• Move from one directory to another with minimal effort
• Go live in one domain and carry on your development in another
• Backup a production site from one domain and restore it for testing process on another domain

One important thing to take note of is the plugin should always be used for local development only. As it may conflict with your server-based cache services such as Nginx or Varnish.

By applying photo effects you can give a new artistic look to images you use in your WordPress posts and produce an enhanced look on your website.

You can do it easily by using the new WordPress plugin called Image Effects. It enables you to add images to your content and apply different effects over them.

Simply start by installing-activating it on your WordPress site and then on your post editor click the ‘Add Block’ button (that small plus icon). This will open the default block editor where you will notice the ‘Image Effects’ option added by this plugin.

Click that ‘Image Effects’ icon, select the image, set your effects and insert it in your post. It is that simple.

It offers you effects for setting the image brightness, blur, contrast, grayscale, hue, and inverts option, etc. For the images, you want to insert simply without giving any effects, just use the default ‘Image Block’ option on your post editor page.

You can show tasks on specific posts and pages on your WordPress site to easily let your users know what else needs to be done to complete the post or to make it better.

Post Descriptions is the new WordPress plugin that enables you to add small descriptions to posts and pages. It lets you do things like adding small to-dos or don’t-forget tasks for your authors or simply for your own remembrance.

How To Add Small Notes On Your Posts?

To start simply install-activate the said plugin on your WordPress site. Now, post descriptions can be added either from the main edit screen of your post or directly from the quick edit option visible on each post via the Posts -> All Posts page.

Where Your Notes Get Visible

The post description written by you or any privileged user can be seen both on all posts page as well as a post-state which is the bold text next to your post or page title. The given screenshot clearly shows how the notes written on posts would be visible to you or any other user on your website.

Enabling & Disabling The Notes

Next, when you find that your post is perfect and you no longer need to show these notes, you can simply remove them and save your post.

In some cases, especially if your admin panel has become a bit cluttered and you no longer need post descriptions there. Then, you may disable it in post states using the given tick box option.

You can create new widget areas to use on particular pages and manage them like other widget areas on your website.

Effata Widget Areas is the new WordPress plugin that lets you do that without editing your theme. The widget areas can be added to any page, category, or tag.

Simply start by installing-activating Effata Widget Areas plugin on your WordPress site.

Once activated, you would be able to create widget areas from the Appearance -> Widget Areas page, as shown in the given screenshot.

You can register new widget areas, set where you want them to display, the position and visibility range, etc. Once the widget area is registered, you can display it via shortcode on any page or via PHP code in your theme, and then start managing it like other widget areas using the widgets page in the appearance menu.

To increase your recurring income you can offer renewable downloads on your WordPress Ecommerce website. 

If you sell books, PDFs, or any other downloadable products on your WordPress Ecommerce, you can send email reminders to your customers and ask them to renew their download to its newer version especially when their downloads are expired.

Download Renewals for WooCommerce is a WooCommerce plugin that lets you increase your recurring income by offering a download renewal option to your customers. This enables your customers to renew their purchase after a predefined time.

Simply install and activate it. Once activated the plugin automatically adds new fields for renewal price and product expiry in the ‘Product Data’ meta box on all product edit pages. 

All you have to do is enter a renewal price on the ‘Renewal Price’ field and set the number of days for product expiration on the ‘Download Expiry’ Field. Save your changes and it will automatically send email reminders to your customers at the time when their downloads expire.

Have you ever wanted to replace an upload on your WordPress media library? By default, it can be done only by uploading a new file, replacing it in your content, and then deleting the old upload.

This technique is both long and causes clatter in your media library as well as dead links on the internet, The reason is that newly uploaded file gets a new permalink.

There is one different way to replace any image – On media library, click “edit” view, and you can replace your file in one of two ways:

Simple Replace

It just replaces your file. The option requires you to upload a new file of the same type as the one you are replacing. The name of the attachment remains the same no matter what filename you upload.

Replace the file and update all links

The option replaces the old file, uses the new file name, and updates all links i.e. all links pointing to the old file are updated to point to the new file.

How To Replace Media Files?

1. Install and activate the Enable Media Replace plugin
2. Next, visit Media -> Library in your WordPress admin area
3. Locate the file that you want to replace
4. Take your mouse near the file name
5. Click the link labeled as ‘Replace Media’
6. Click the ‘Choose File’ button
7. Select from the two options:
   • Just replace the file
   • Replace the file, and update all links
8. Press the ‘Upload’ button

The plugin also provides you a shortcode that picks up the file modification date to display it in your posts and pages.

Sometimes an error is experienced when you try uploading a new file in your WordPress media library. The error message is – “Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons.”

The reason behind this restriction is to prevent the accidental or purposeful upload of maliciously executable files as that could damage your website.

However, if you are certain about the filetype you are trying to upload then you can fix this issue yourself.

Add this code in the wp-config.php file (located in the WordPress root directory):

define(‘ALLOW_UNFILTERED_UPLOADS’, true);

Alternatively, you may use a plugin called Remove Unrestricted Uploads. Simply install-activate it to enable unfiltered uploads.

However, the given plugin has certain limitations and does not always work. In-case, if it doesn’t work for your specific file-type then try another plugin called Enhanced Media Library.

Install-activate it and then visit Settings -> MIME Types -> Media page.

See whether your desired file-type is listed or not. If it is not listed, click the ‘Add New MIME Type’ button and type the extension details.

In-case, if you don’t know the name and the label of your file-type extension, you can easily find it from here.

Next, tick the ‘Allow Upload’ box for the new MIME type you have added and save your changes.