WordPress users: Wouldn’t it be neat if there were an easy way to add those attention grabbing boxes on your posts or pages? What am I talking about? Eyes down, Grasshopper. At the bottom of this post, see that red bordered round cornered boxy thing with the yellowish background and the link in the middle? That’s what. And I could have chosen some other design, and placed it elsewhere on this post, like…

RIGHT SMACK HERE

…if I felt like it. So, back to answering the original question — heck yeah it’d be neat.

Well, the free WP Attention Boxes plugin the link below leads to does make it easier to add those boxes to our blogs… but don’t get too excited, though, if you’re technically inexperienced and get the heebie-jeebies at the thought of getting your hands dirty with some technical code — this plugin for some reason isn’t quite built to accommodate you.

I say “for some reason” because I really truly do think this could have been a better plugin if it had incorporated a visual interface, and it wouldn’t have been much more difficult to pump that out. Instead, to use it, you’ll need to muck around at the HTML level (click on the HTML tab), messing around with HTML code. Honestly, futzing around with HTML’s not that difficult, but, really, I wouldn’t hold it against you if it’s just way much more tech than you signed up for.

AD: FROM FREE TO BOOK - Get your book published and into the hands of readers without needing to spend a single cent! Yes, you can get your book "out there" all by yourself for exactly zero dollars, using tools you likely already have and tapping resources that will cost you absolutely nothing. Click here now

To those of us who can play with HTML, however, this plugin’s a nice help and timesaver. It operates much like a basic programming development tool: It basically lets you store, customize and have readily available the code for up to 10 different styles of attention boxes. Just select what you want from what’s visually displayed, and it inserts the required code into your post, which you can then fiddle with a bit more (such as change the text) to get it just right.

The tool’s interface is set up well to make it loads easier — well, more convenient anyway — to customize your attention box designs. You can easily change the border lines, for example (one default design has those broken dash lines for a border, for instance, like what you’d expect with a clipout coupon). And changing the colors. Changing box size, interestingly enough, isn’t one of the customizable options, but everything else you can basically think of is pretty much covered.

Something to note: It generates code that universally works whether you have the plugin installed or not. So, for guys like me who aim to keep installed plugins to a minimum (think of them like children — too many, and you know what they can do to your energy and resources), I figure I won’t install this on this blog at all. Instead, I’ll have it running on a test WordPress installation — easy to do and essentially free to set up and run when you have the right kind of Web hosting account — and I’ll just generate, copy-and-paste the desired attention box code here on Wordpreneur as needed. All I need is just one instance of it here, anyway; I can, for example, simply copy-and-paste the code for the box below to other posts here if I want.

I’m actually internally debating now whether I will have all future resource links in Wordpreneur posts done in attention box form, somewhat like below, instead of the raw standard blue link I’ve been doing to date. Hmmmm. Seriously, I think I’ll stay with the standard links, and just use these boxes for more “special” purposes. Just thinking out loud as usual…

Anyway, here you go, Grasshopper. Enjoy!

– EES

----------
Making Money With WordPress Just Got Easier. Start generating multiple streams of income from your WordPress blog in minutes. No programming required!
----------

Blogging, free, tech, tools, wordpress Tools