I have always been very excited about changing the ‘look’ of my site, dressing it up with new banner and new layout. My lack of artisitc genes doesn’t stop me from fiddling with the template, the code and script. It gives me tremendously joy and satisfaction when I managed to tweak those intimidating codes.
Since I migrated my site to my self hosted wordpress, I have been overwhelmed by the versatility of this new platform. I love the many ready written plug-ins and the fact that, if I am ever geeky enough, I can write my own plug-ins in PHP ! The good thing about running wordpress on my own server is that, I can almost change anything ! I am not so sure whether you can do this much if you are running the site from wordpress.com itself.
Comparing Bloggers to WordPress, is like comparing Windows to Linux. Bloggers do has its advantages. Firstly it is from Google, anything from this big giant can’t be too bad. Secondly, it is like Windows, Easy to Use, and that alone is enough to make a lot of bloggers stay on.
Having said that, I thought of sharing with you some tips on how to create some snowflakes to your site this holiday season.
Method 1 : (for blogger and wordpress.com users, basically what this does is call the script from my server)
Step 1 : Open template file
Step 2 : Insert
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://4malmal.com/wp-content/themes/4malmalBlog/snow.js”></script>
somewhere between the <head></head> tag
Step 3 : Save template file
Easy peasy, you are done !
Method 2 : (for users who are hosting own site and can access the template files, you may like to run the script from your own server)
Step 1 : Save the snow flake image 
into your computer with filename snow.gif. Upload image to your site.
Step 2 : Go to http://4malmal.com/wp-content/themes/4malmalBlog/snow.js, copy the chunk of code, paste it in notepad/wordpad. Save as snow.js
Step 3 : Near the start of the above code, look for
//Configure below to change URL path to the snow image
var snowsrc=”http://www.4malmal.com/wp-content/themes/4malmalBlog/snow.gif”
Replace snowsrc (in blue) with the URL of the image uploaded in Step 1.
Step 4 : Save file
Step 5 : Upload edited snow.js to template directory of your site
Step 6 : Edit header template, add the following <script type=”text/javascript” src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/snow.js”></script> between the <head></head> tag
Step 7 : Save template
VOILA !
It is SNOWING already !!!
.jpg "Rhine Valley (12)")
Goes well with the season, now that it is winter
hey hey hey…. you are definitely one generous person! Over the past year, I’ve known many blogger who wants to keep such things to themselves because they don’t want ‘everyone’s blog to start looking like theirs, then theirs won’t stand out anymore… but YOU! You’ve got a big heart! *muack*
Loving self-hosted WordPress eh? I love mine too! that’s why I changed from my Blogger http://www.allaboutyourchild.blogspot.com
to self-hosted WordPress.
thks for the tips…it always makes me wonder how does the snowflakes “came” from hehehe…
Hei. Thanks. Will try later and see whether it works. Merry Christmas!
Hi, great stuff! Just a few comments…
I used Method #1, tested and works flawlessly on:
- Firefox 3.0.4
- Chrome 0.4.154.29
- IE 7
However, I tested it under IE 6.0, and the snow didn’t load, with the following error in the console:
“Line: 34
Char: 5
Error: Object Required
Code: 0
URL: http://www.vip-travel-club.com/new/”
Btw, thats the URL for my site, if you want to check it by yourself.
What could be causing this?
Thanks! Great stuff!
Camilo
Hi, me again…
Well, I tried Method #2, same results. Works with every browser except IE 6 =/. I loaded this page in IE6, and it does display the falling snow… so, is something interferring with the javascript in my site? IE6 keeps giving the same error…
Any ideas? Thanks!
Camilo
Rachel : Hi, Camilo, I am not sure why it doesn’t work for IE 6. Unable to identify which is Line 34 Char 5 using notepad. The script is calling the same function for IE4 and above. So I don’t see why the function can work for IE7 and not IE6. Something wrong with your IE6 setting? enable javascript? It works beautifully for IE 7 and Firefox 3.0.4. Saw your site, glad u r using Method 2.
btw, I am not the author for the script.
wah piang, sounds like going back to the old days there… can’t stand it. my head goes giddy. ha ha.. i just enjoy painting them rather than getting into codes again.
Rachel : Part of me still miss the good old days! I think I miss working my brains! HA
yah, you are the lucky one. just enjoy using the brain for enjoyable stuff and loved by Mal & PS. What’s more could you ask for? *_*
Rachel : hey, u r not too bad yourself! doing something u love! then again I guess we r all greedy. It’s human nature
hey fren I managed to change the image with javascript hosting but got a nother doubt here well how can I make the snow to fall till the end of page? Hehe curious..
Hey thanks a lot I finally managed to figure it out by changing the distance to pageheight….anyway thanks a lot for your generousity..thanks again
Rachel : Hey michael, glad u got it all figured out!