If you’ve been using an installed version of WordPress for your blog, you’ve probably noticed the little bar just under your admin menu to update to the latest verison 2.3.2. Apparently there’s some security fixes in there including the fix for a hack that allowed anyone to see your draft posts. Frankly, I wasn’t too worried about people seeing my draft posts (not like I have any national secrets or anything) but that little bar was bugging me because I’m almost OCD about keeping my software and stuff up-to-date.

Only doing this wasn’t simple for me because apparently the WordPress scripts were using a little too much memory and I kept getting Allowed Memory Size Exhausted Error. In frustration, I downgraded and upgraded two more times, only to get the same result. I was about to write a email to my webhost when I happened to check their support database and lo and behold, there was my answer! I created a custom php.ini file, placed it in the subdirectory that is this blog and bing! Everything knows works perfectly. Did I mention that I love my webhost? Buy your hosting from her, she’s a super nice lady and has the cheapest prices you will ever see, I swear.

So, enough about that and onto a related topic that I’ve been meaning to cover for a while. Before, I wasn’t able to get ItemStats working on this blog so I had come up with a custom solution that was a little bit…complicated. I actually ended up getting ItemStats to work but I was having problems with it dealing with the permalinks and I don’t even think the entire script is supported anymore…

Then Thottbot, quickly followed by WoWHead, came up with their own handy solutions in the form of a JavaScript that you just link to. Seriously, that was it. So, this is my little tutorial of how to implement it in a WordPress blog:

Step 1: Get the code from either Thottbot or WoWHead. It’s your own personal preference as to which one you want but I personally prefer WoWHead. Their tooltips just seem prettier and quicker. It’s what I use anyways.

Step 2: Open the theme file to edit it. They say anywhere will do but knowing my code, I think the best place is just under the </head> tag. To get to that, log into your admin panel for your blog, then the Presentation link in your menu, then Theme Editor in the submenu that will load with the page. There should be a menu on the right side of the screen and you’ll want to select the Header file to edit.

Just note that the changes you will make will only affect the current theme. If you change your theme, you’ll have to go through these steps once again.

Step 3: Place the code into the Header file. Scroll down through the code and look for the </head> text. You can use the Find command (under the Edit menu) of your browser if you wish. Once you find the </head> text, place the code that you got from Thottbot or WoWHead under it on another line.

Step 4: Click the Update File button on the lower right and…you’re done. To get the tooltips to show up in your posts, you must first find the items by searching Thottbot/WoWHead for them. Once you’re on the item’s page, copy the URL that’s in the address bar of your browser, and link whatever text you want to it in your WordPress post writer thingy.

I hope that was fairly simple to understand. I could also post an optional addition to this tutorial of how to use the macro expander plugin that I talked about in my first tooltip tutorial. But I’ll leave that up to you, the readers, to see if you want it. If you do, just post a comment below asking for it and you shall receive.

Here’s what you need to do:

First you will need to get the macro expander plugin. This is not totally necessary but I highly recommend it because it makes things easier later on.

Next, you need to make some changes to your theme. Do that by going to your admin panel -> Presentation -> Theme Editor. Select the “Header” file from the list on the right.

The following code I’m going to give you was not written by me, but by Okoloth of Armor Musings. However, the code he wrote is for Blogger blogs and I’ve just adapted it to work with WordPress.

Anyways, you need to find the </head> tag in the “Header” file. Then add the following code above the </head> tag:

<!-- WoW Item Popup v1.3 --> <style type="text/css">
#wowitemfloat { position:absolute; left:200px; top:200px; z-index:100; }
.poor { color:#9d9d9d !important; text-decoration:none; }
.common { color:#ffffff !important; text-decoration:none; }
.uncommon { color:#1eff00 !important; text-decoration:none; }
.rare { color:#0070dd !important; text-decoration:none; }
.epic { color:#a335ee !important; text-decoration:none; }
.legendary { color: #ff8000 !important; text-decoration:none; }
.artifact { color: #e5cc80 !important; text-decoration:none; }
</style>

If your website has a white background or some other color that will drown out one of the class colors (purple on purple, blue on blue, etc.), you can add a background color to the text. Here’s an example of how you would do it (look for background-color in particular):

.common { color:#ffffff !important; text-decoration:none; }

Now, add the followig code below the </head> tag:

<!-- WoW Item Popup v1.3 --> <style type="text/css">
#wowitemfloat { position:absolute; left:200px; top:200px; z-index:100; }
.poor { color:#9d9d9d !important; text-decoration:none; }
.common { color:#ffffff !important; text-decoration:none; background-color:#999999;}
.uncommon { color:#1eff00 !important; text-decoration:none; }
.rare { color:#0070dd !important; text-decoration:none; }
.epic { color:#a335ee !important; text-decoration:none; }
.legendary { color: #ff8000 !important; text-decoration:none; }
.artifact { color: #e5cc80 !important; text-decoration:none; }
</style>

If you haven’t already, download the macro expander plugin and unzip it. Open macro_expander.php in a text editor (like Notepad) and look for the line that says ADD YOUR OWN MACRO FUNCTIONS BELOW THIS LINE. So after this line (obviously), add this code:

function macro_item($name='Wolpertinger', $number='32233', $class='rare')
{
return "<a href='http://wow.allakhazam.com/item.html?witem=$number' class='$class' onmouseover='showWowitem(event,$number);' onmouseout='hideWowitem();'>[$name]</a>";
}

Save the file, upload it, and install the plugin per the instructions on the plugin website.

To use it in your posts, type something like this:

It follows this basic syntax:

All this information can be found on Allakhazam or Wowhead. The item name is obvious, the item number can be found in the URL of the item page, and the class can be deciphered by the color:

Grey = poor
White = common
Green = uncommon
Blue = rare
Purple = epic
Orange = legendary
Red = artifact

That’s it! Hopefully these instructions aren’t too confusing to follow, and I don’t believe I missed any steps. If anyone has any comments or questions, please post them.