Features are as follows:

• Rotates the images based on 7 different time variables
• You can upload and delete directly from the admin options page
• You can link the images to any URL you specify
• No limit to the number of pictures
• You can style the CSS directly from the admin options pages
• A total of 5 sections, which can be turned on and off, give you the flexibility to add multiple rotating sections. Each section will rotate according to it’s own schedule
• File types supported: .gif, .jpg, .png, .tiff, .tif, .jpeg, .raw, .bmp, .ppm, .pgm, .pbm, .pnm, .cgm, .svg, .psd, .psp, .ai, .drw, .dxf, .eps, .indd, .mng, .pct, .pdf, .ps, .svg, .flv

You can go download it here: WPImageRotator.com

And here’s a video tutorial of how to install it and what it can do…

     After a long time, I finally have gotten off my lazy behind and updated my original Header Image Rotator plugin for Wordpress. I included a bunch of user submitted suggestions, optimized the code, and hopefully have created a more enjoyable and intuitive end-user experience. I listed some of the changes below. Enjoy!

• Certified to work with WP 2.5
• Streamlined the install process
• Cleaned up the options panel interface and made it easier to understand
• Cleaned up and organized error and exception handling
• Users now have the ability to change the CSS header tag directly from the plugin option page instead of having to manually edit the php file
• Users now also have the ability to manage and change the CSS image styling directly from the plugin option page so you can get the image to play nice with your theme
• Hyperlinking to your blog URL was added. Further, hyperlinking can be turned on and off from the options panel for more flexibility
• You can specify to use either the Google AJAX API to serve the jQuery javascript libraries or you can use a local version provided with the plugin. With this choice, you can select which method is better depending on your performance or bandwidth concerns

     I recently finished my first Wordpress plugin titled the “Header Image Rotator”. What does it do? Well, like the title says, it rotates your blog header images. Why is this one different you may ask? Well, after being disappointed by the limited functionality of other header image plugins, I decided to create my own plugin.

Features:

• Add as many images as you like.
• Will take any kind of image file (jpg, gif, etc).
• The interval at which the images are rotated can be controlled.
• Different rotation intervals are minute, half hour, hour, daily, and weekly.
• You can preview your images and delete them from the option panel.
• Certified and tested in Wordpress 2.5.
• Works with PHP 4 and PHP 5.
• Streamlined the install process
• Cleaned up the options panel interface and made it easier to understand
• Cleaned up and organized error and exception handling
• Users now have the ability to change the CSS header tag directly from the plugin option page instead of having to manually edit the php file
• Users now also have the ability to manage and change the CSS image styling directly from the plugin option page so you can get the image to play nice with your theme
• Hyperlinking to your blog URL was added. Further, hyperlinking can be turned on and off from the options panel for more flexibility
• You can specify to use either the Google AJAX API to serve the jQuery javascript libraries or you can use a local version provided with the plugin. With this choice, you can select which method is better depending on your performance or bandwidth concerns

Installation:
Installation is simple and easy. Here are the steps:

1. Download the zip file and unzip it into your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Create a directory in your /wp-content/ folder named “header-images”.
3. Add some images into the “header-images” folder.
4. Activate the plugin from the admin panel.
5. Go to ‘Options’ in the admin panel, and then ‘Header Image Rotator’ to configure.
6. Enjoy!

Version History
Version 1.0 – 1/18/07
    Plugin released and made compatible with PHP 4.
Version 1.1 – 3/7/07
    Fixes function names that were interfering with other Wordpress Plugins.
Version 2.0 – 7-13-2008
    Too many updates to list. Hence, the new version number!

After receiving a bunch emails about how to modify the Header Image Rotator plugin to work with Wordpress themes, I decided to write this brief tutorial.

Problem description:”The plugin does not work with my Wordpress theme even though I have everything else set up correctly and am receiving green check marks in the plugin admin panel. I can only see the default image that comes with my theme.”

What is happening: The plugin uses a Javascript function to insert CSS information into the head of your blog. At the time of this writing there are well over 1,000 custom WP themes, and each theme has a unique CSS style structure. In my plugin, I tried to use the most common CSS ID for the header image as it would have been impossible to cover them all. The Header Image Rotator plugin uses the CSS ID #header. However, if your theme uses a different CSS ID for the header styling such as #header-image, the plugin will not work. This tutorial will show you how to remedy this issue.

Step One: Verify the plugin is working correctly. In the plugin admin panel, you should be seeing all green check marks. The plugin performs a self-test when initializing to make sure all of your settings are correct.

Step Two: Verify that the Javascript function is inserting CSS code into the head of your blog. After the plugin is activated and configured correctly, browse to your blog’s home page. Once the page has loaded, view the source code (this will be done differently depending on your web browser…if you’re having trouble think Google). In your source code start searching through the head of the HTML document. Specifically, we’re looking for code that resembles the following:

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var img = new Image();
img.src = 'http://mhough.com/wp-content/header-images/5.jpg';
</script>
<style type="text/css">
#header {
background: url('http://mhough.com/wp-content/header-images/5.jpg') no-repeat;
background-position: top left;
}


This is the CSS code that is inserted by the Javascript function. If you can find this then the plugin is working correctly and we can move on to modifying the CSS ID. If you can’t find this, start over at step one.

Step Three: Find out what CSS ID your blog is using. As the saying goes: there are many ways to skin a cat. And as such, there are many ways to find out this information. In this tutorial and for the sake of brevity, I will post two of these ways. The first way is to browse to your blog home page and inspect your header image for it’s properties. You can right-click on it if it’s a picture and inspect the element properties. We want to find out what the name of the image is so we will be able to browse the theme’s CSS ID and find what CSS ID is placing the picture in the header. We can do this by logging into your admin section of your WP blog, then browsing to the ‘Presentation’ tab then the ‘Theme Editor’ tab. Then go into your Stylesheet and search for where that image is coming from (I’m not going to go into CSS basics here). Usually the header images are in CSS ID tags such as #header, #header-id, #header-image, etc. When you find where the pic is coming from, write down the CSS ID tag. The second way to get this info is, in my opinion, easier and more accurate. If you use Firefox, download and install the Firebug plugin. Then, using the plugin, inspect the CSS and find out which CSS ID is displaying the picture or image.

Step Four: Modify the header-image-rotator.php file. Here we will replace the CSS ID in the script with the CSS ID of your theme. Open the php file in the editor of your choice. We will be editing the hir_add_css() function. Where it says #$headerID, change that to reflect the CSS ID from your theme. Example: #$headerID would become #header-image if your theme was using the #header-image CSS ID to display the image. Save the file.

Step Five: Update the plugin. First, deactivate the plugin from the plugin admin panel within the Wordpress admin page. Then delete the existing header-image-rotator.php file residing on your server. Upload your modified php file and reactivate the plugin. You may get an error in the plugin initialization check in regards to your CSS ID. Disregard this error. Test and it should now be working.

1. Deactivate the plugin from within the Wordpress admin panel.
2. Go to your database, and search for the wp_usermeta table. Caution: be very careful making changes here! You can end up corrupting your entire site if you aren’t paying attention. Make sure to backup your site before proceeding.
   
3. Browse within the wp_usermeta table and delete any entries that start with an em_ .
4. Next, within the same table, go to the rich_editing field and set the value from false to true.
5. Delete the plugin from your wp-content/plugins directory.
6. Voila! EditorMonkey is gone and the default TinyMCE editor has returned.

            So, exactly how do you customize these default user roles? The first thing to do is go to http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities and read the user level vs. role conversion details and brush up on the different user roles.

            Next, let's familiarize ourselves with exactly what happens when a user logs in to Wordpress. This is a very obtuse and basic overview of the process; please don't hold me accountable for details. When a user logs in they are redirected to the admin.php page. Once they enter their id and password admin.php calls other php files to check the user roles then calls menu.php to build the admin page and menu. The menu is built based on access levels (0-10). So if your profile is set as a level 7 and the "Write Page" button is set with a level 8; you can't see it. In a nutshell, we are going to alter this menu.php document to give us the custom access we want. Let's get busy and start coding!

Step 1: Go to your Wordpress root, then \wp-admin\menu.php. Open it in the editor of your choice.

Step 2: Now edit any menu item or sub-menu item according to different user levels. See below for my example.

Example: I had a user setup as with the role of "Editor", but, due to a custom Wordpress build I did not want the user creating, editing, or managing pages or categories. So I found the items I wanted to edit…

• $submenu['post.php'][10] = array(__('Write Page'), ‘edit_pages', ‘page-new.php');
• $submenu['edit.php'][15] = array(__('Categories'), ‘manage_categories', ‘categories.php')

Since the default Editor role has an access level of 7, I needed to change the level of these sub-menu items to 8 by adding the following lines of code:

• $submenu['post.php'][10] = array(__('Write Page'), 8, ‘edit_pages', ‘page-new.php');
• $submenu['edit.php'][15] = array(__('Categories'), 8, ‘manage_categories', ‘categories.php')

Save the file and copy it over ther old and now when the user logs in they no longer see the "Write Page", "Manage Page", or any Categories menu items. All done!