New Plugin: Genesis Simple Headers
Posted on March 18, 2011
Earlier this week I was installing some of the Genesis child themes (aff link) on a WordPress multi-site network. I quickly realized that I had a problem on my hands. If more than one site wanted to use the same theme, they wouldn’t be able to use a custom logo because uploading the logo to the theme directory would make it the only logo available for all network sites using the same theme. So, I spent spent some time retrofitting half a dozen themes to use the WordPress headers functionality to replace the logo on each individual site.
Then it dawned on me… Why not just build this as a plugin? That was, of course, followed immediately with “why didn’t I think of that first?”
Obviously, if you are running a single site you can simply FTP in and upload the file to your server. But, if you have clients who you’d like to keep away from FTP and make it simple for them to upload a new header once a day (if they so choose), then the Genesis Simple Headers plugin will do the trick.
You can Download Genesis Simple Headers here.
To install, download the plugin, unzip it and upload the entire ‘genesis-simple-headers’ folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Then activate it from the WordPress plugins menu. It requires that you have Genesis 1.5 installed and if you aren’t currently using a Genesis child theme, this plugin is totally useless.
Once it’s installed, go to the Appearance tab and click the Headers menu option. You will be given the opportunity to upload a file to replace the logo. The page will also tell the size of the image to upload (if you upload a different sized image, you’ll be asked to crop the image prior to saving).
All current Genesis Child Themes are handled in this plugin with the following two exceptions
– Prose: The functionality is built in to that child theme already.
– Family Tree: I’ll add this one when I can figure out how best to go about it.
Let me know what you think of the plugin!
Cheers!
This is brilliant! Thank you so much.
Doesn't work with full width headers only the default logo.png size
Joseph, which child theme are you using?
yup, i'm looking the one that can use the full width header. any suggestion for that?
Am using lifestyle Looks like I have to have a full width installed first then it allows me to change but by default it sizes only the default sizes of logo.png unless there is another way of defining full size first ??
Yeah, the full width headers are handled slightly differently. There isn't a logo sitting on top of the header, but instead the logo is part of the top header section. Separate question, are you looking for a background image that would end up repeating and covering the entire screen width no matter the browser size? Send me a link to the site in question so I can check it out.
Yes works Ok if there is already a full width header in place FIRST and allows uploading a new one. Wouls be even better if I could define custom height as well as width with a wee dropdown. Thanks for a great plugin Joseph
Absolutely brilliant guys! Thanks! Have you come up with a way to have a custom (super admin only) footer credits for multi site? Because that would be just awesome!
I had a bug getting this to work with the sample child theme. After adding a default block to the select clause in your main.php file, I got it to work. Here's the code to insert around line153...Thanks for the great work! default; DEFINE ( 'HEADER_IMAGE_WIDTH', '940' ); DEFINE ( 'HEADER_IMAGE_HEIGHT', '250' ); DEFINE ( 'THEME_CSS_VALUE', '#header' ); DEFINE ( 'BACKGROUND_TYPE', 'background' ); break;
Hey Rion, Thanks! I'll test this out and will add it in to an update shortly.
FYI - I've been using Simple Headers on two WPMS installs. One of them is running 3.1.4 and the other one is running 3.2.1. Since upgrading the 3.2.1 install Wordpress began throwing up the following errors: Warning: fopen() [function.fopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/sitename/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4339 Warning: fopen(http://sitename.com/wp-content/themes/themename/style.css) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /var/www/html/sitename/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4339 Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/html/sitename/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4342 Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /var/www/html/sitename/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4345 I disabled the Genesis Simple Header plugin and the errors went away. This tells me the issues are related to this plugin and the most recent version of Wordpress. For what it's worth, our server is running LAMP with PHP 5.2.17. I really like what this plugin is able to do so I'm hoping you'll be able to make it 3.2 compatible soon. :D
Hey Troy, sorry for the delay. Can you let me know what Genesis themes you are using on the two sites? I'll test it out on my side. I do all my testing in MultiSite and haven't run in to any issues using 3.2 or 3.2.1. Thanks.
Hi - love the concept of this plugin! I've changed the header height to 200px in the CSS, and it's creating a header container that is the right size, but the header I've uploaded is still cropped at 100px high. Is there a workaround to this? Thanks!
Hi Lisa. You would need to modify the sizes inside the plugin itself. They are all hard-coded in there.
Just downloaded the Generate Theme and found that this did not have the built in header uploader. Just want to say thanks for coming to my rescue with this genesis simple header plugin.
This sounds great in principle, but when I installed it the option to select "headers" never became available in my "appearance" tab. I am using the studiopress genesis "generate" theme which is a relatively new theme. Funny thing is that I did have my logo there for a while (can't remember how I got it there in the first place), but now it has disapeared. That is why I went looking for this type of plugin. Any suggestions?
StudioPress has started adding in the functionality to swap out the headers in to their newer themes by default. I haven't updated the theme since the new Generate theme was made available. I'll have a look at it some time this week and see if I can get it added.
I have the same problem except with the "Mocha" theme. Tech support at Copyblogger Media says that Mocha doesn't support custom headers and suggests that I use your plugin. However, the plugin doesn't "force" Appearance->Header to return to my toolbar, so it seems moot. However, I notice that you have configured code in the plugin for Mocha, so I'm hoping you know of a way to make it work. Thanks!
I hadn't noticed that new version of Mocha had been released. I need to update the plugin to handle both versions independently as the header code is different. I'll get an update out this week that will fix this issue for all current StudioPress themes.
I tried it on 2 different websites. One says images of 300 x 80 pixels will be used as is. Another says images of 940 x 80 pixels will be used as is ???
Each theme uses a different image size for the header image. The plugin figures out which theme you are using and will ask for the appropriate size.
Hello, Thank you very much!!!! It solved my problem! Gunta
Greetings: Thanks for the plugin! I'm wondering if you could let me know whether I'm doing something wrong. I installed your plugin on a WP Multisite and Network Installed it. Initially, I was experiencing the same problem described in a couple of threads in WP.org, in that under Appearance => Header => Header Text, every time I would uncheck "Show header text with your image" and click on Save Changes, the little sucker rechecked itself, every time. At first, the work-around described, here seemed to work; but then I noticed that a new, albeit similar, problem arose in that the Genesis logo.png in the images folder of the Generate child them would get superimposed over my logo that I uploaded and selected through the plugin. Any thoughts on how I can clean this up?
Pablo, there seems to be a conflict. I haven't been able to track it down yet. I'll try to get an update out shortly.
Hi John, I've the same issue as Pablo above there, and I'm wondering if there is any fix, as I used to use this all the time, and now it doesn't work any more. Thanks, Linda
Hi Linda, I wish I had better news for you. The change in Genesis 2.0 has drastically changed how the plugin needs to behave. And since StudioPress is adding the header functionality in to the bulk of their new themes, the shelf life for this plugin may be in the past. We're still looking in to what can be done, but at the moment, I have no solution, no workaround and no timetable for either.
Thanks John. That's more or less what I thought. I purchased my framework and a lot of themes (because I felt I should when I was using for work), but I originally got them all [legally] free, incl framework, when Genesis gave it out a few years back with some magazine on a CD. Maybe time to make Landscape one of the purchased ones. It's a pity, as yours was a flawless plugin. Linda