Cool new vote buttons for Unbridled Learning

Ok, I'm very excited about this, although bummed that so far I can not implement it here at Homeschool Journal :(  If you missed my intro of Unbridled Learning, it was on the carnival the week HSJ was down, so you're not alone.  Check it out here.  To make a long story short, it's digg for homeschoolers/educators of the unbridled sort.

Any blogger who has control of their own templates can now place a cool little "Vote on Unbridled Learning" button (like a "Digg this" button) on their blog posts or web sites!  To see it in action, check out http://www.unbridledlearning.com/wp or http://unbridledlearning.blogspot.com

I'm not moving, those are just set up as demos of the cool button!

I know everyone is dying to find out how to add this awesome little button to their sites!  So I will delay no further.

Tools for your Blog

Remote voting buttons and links

1.      Wordpress users - put a " Vote in Unbridled Learning!" in the footer of your posts! This will only work if you are allowed to edit your templates.

2.      Blogger users - put a " Vote in Unbridled Learning!" link in your sidebar!

Generic blog link

Say you're a blogger and you've crafted a masterpiece. A total beauty of an article. You can put it up for your readers along with a "Vote in Unbridled Learning" link back to Unbridled Learning that will allow the reader to submit the article to the community right from your blog.

Just copy and paste this line into the source of your post:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.unbridledlearning.com/evb/button.php">

The Unbridledlearning.com voting symbol will appear wherever you place the javascript code.

One note, the button must be used in the extended version of your post (or “permalink” location). If you put it on the post and the button displays on the front page, the script will use the homepage URL for submission, which won’t promote the story you want.

Check out http://www.unbridledlearning.com/wp for an example of the voting button in use!

Wordpress Remote Vote

WordPress Bloggers:

1.      Log into your Wordpress account and go to the Presentation-Theme Editor menu.

2.      Select the Main Index Template (index.php) link from the page list.

3.      Locate the section that contains your “Postmetadata". It should look something like this:

<p class="postmetadata">Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> | <?php edit_post_link('Edit', '', ' | '); ?>  <?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?></p>

4.      Just after the </p> but before the </div> that follows it, add the following:

<script type="text/javascript">

submit_url = '<?php the_permalink() ?>';

</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.unbridledlearing.com/evb/button.php"></script>

5.      Click the "Update File" button, reload your main page and you should see the voting instructions at the bottom of each post.

You can also add the button to your Pages by following the same steps listed above on your Page Template (page.php).  This time add the same script just before the last </div> on the page.

See an example at http://www.unbridledlearning.com/wp

Google Blogger Unbridled Learning Vote link

1.      Your blog should be set to save Post Pages. Post Pages are archived blog posts published to their own web page. Each post will have a unique URL, which is required by Unbridled Learning for the individual posts to be submitted. To verify or enable it, login to your Blogger Dashboard. Under Settings-> Archiving, set the “Enable Post Pages?” to “Yes” and save the settings.

2.      The code reads the URL of the individual blog page and this shall be the URL used for submission of the story to Unbridled Learning.

3.      Under “Template”, click the “Edit HTML” tab. Block copy the entire HTML code for your site and save it in a text file. This is one of the two necessary steps whenever you want to change the template. The second step is of course to “Preview” the new changes, and save the changes only when you are satisfied. The backup you have saved in a text file will come in handy when you accidentally click to save the changes without previewing them. With a backup, you can easily restore the template to the prior state if need be.

Click the box next to “Expand Widget Templates”. Scroll about two-thirds down the template to look for the code that reads:-

<p><data:post.body/></p>

□       Replace the above code with this:

<script type="text/javascript"> submit_url = "<data:post.url/>" </script> <script src="http://www.unbridledlearning.com/evb/button.php" type="text/javascript"/>

□       That’s it!

See an example at http://unbridledlearning.blogspot.com