Theme (Sort of)

WP Contact Manager

WP Contact Manager is a different kind of theme for WordPress. With a little bit of work (outlined in detail below) it turns WordPress into a contact manager. You can add contacts through the regular admin interface, tag contacts, search them and more.

Before you begin the tutorial on how to set up WP Contact Manager, you can browse around the demo to get a feel for how it works. (Make sure to resize the text to see the em-based layout in action.)

It’s important to note that WP Contact Manager is not a stand-alone theme. So before beginning the tutorial you need to download the items below.

  • WP Contact Manager
    This is the latest version of the WP Contact Manager theme.
  • Custom Write Panel
    This plugin provides the user-friendly interface for the required custom fields.
  • Members Only
    This plugin makes your entire blog accessible only to logged-in users. (NOTE: This plugin is not enabled for the demo.)
  • WordPress 2.3 Related Posts
    This plugin is required for the related contacts functionality
  • Search Everything
    This plugin allows WP Contact Manager to have better search functionality by searching custom fields.
  • You will also need to have previously installed the latest version of WordPress.

Step 1: Pre-Installation Setup

The Custom Write Panel plugin at its current version (1.0.0a12) is not compatible with the latest version of WordPress (2.3.3). However, it’s fixable by replacing a few lines of code.

You can either (1) follow the instructions at the WordPress Pastebin [UPDATE: The link has expired, I’ll update the post with the manual instructions when I get a chance.], or (2) just DOWNLOAD the fixed plugin that I used for the demo install. (If you choose step 2 make sure you replace the Custom Write Panel downloaded previously with this one.)

Step 2: Upload, Activate and Setup

Upload the WP Contact Manager theme and the four plugins. Make sure you upload the corrected Custom Write Panel plugin, either the one you corrected yourself or the one downloaded in STEP 1. Activate the theme and the plugins after they have been successfully uploaded.

Now, create a new category to use for the contacts. I named mine Contacts. IMPORTANT: Make sure this is the first category created so that its category ID is 3. It must be 3, if not, the Contact Manager will not work properly.

Step 3: Setup the WP2.3 Related Posts Plugin

This plugin works properly after you activate it, we’re just going to change the title it outputs from Related Posts to Related Contacts.

Navigate to Options > WP23 Related Posts, you should see an interface titled Related Post Options… We’re going to modify the first three input boxes.

In the input box labeled Related Posts Title: type Related Contacts (or your own title if you prefer something different). In the drop down menu below, choose Text: ‘No Related Posts’. Lastly, in the third input box labeled No Related Post’s Title or Text: type No Related Contacts (or, again, something else if you would prefer it).

That’s all! Now your related posts plugin is more suited in context for the WP Contact Manager.

Step 4: Setup the Search Everything Plugin

All you need to do to setup this plugin is go to Options > Search Everything and check the option to Search every tag and Search every custom field (metadata). (See Figure 4-1) Click the Update Options button to save the changes.

Figure 4-1: Screen shot of setting up the Search Everything plugin.

Step 5: Create the Contact Management Fields

We are going to use the Custom Write Panel plugin to create a new interface (outside of the Write Post and Write Page interface) for entering contacts.

Step 5.1: Create a Custom Write Panel

In your WordPress admin area, go to the Manage section and you’ll see a link for the Custom Write Panel. After navigating to that page click on the Create Custom Write Panel button in the lower right. This takes you to a new interface with several options:

Name
This will be the title of the page where you add new contacts, I named mine Add Contact

Description
This is non-essential, you can enter a short description here if you wish.

Assigned Categories
This is where you select the category we created in Step 2. Make sure it’s the only category selected.

Standard Fields
This box contains all of the fields that are available in the normal Write Post interface. We need to select Title and Post. (The tagging input will be available also.)

Hidden External Fields
You can ignore this part.

Order
Ignore this one as well.

Custom Fields
We will add these later.

You can view a screen shot of what the final outcome should resemble in Figure 5-1. Click the Finish button to create the Custom Write Panel.

Figure 5-1: Screen shot of setting up the Custom Write Panel for adding contacts.

Step 5.2: Adding the Custom Fields

Now we need to add the appropriate custom fields to the Custom Write Panel we just created. After creating the initial Write Panel you should be at the main interface for the plugin; click on the View link under Action. You should end up on a page that looks like Figure 5-2.

Figure 5-2: Screen shot of interface used to add the custom fields.

IMPORTANT: The instructions below must be followed exactly. The theme pulls the data from the database using the names given to the Custom Fields in the Custom Write Panel we setup below. If you’re not sure what that means don’t worry, just know that the field names have to be entered exactly as instructed below.

This is the longest part of the setup. So we’ll go through the process of setting up the first one in detail, and then I’ll just list the remaining custom fields that need to be created. (It’s the same process to create each one.)

To begin you want to click on the Create Custom Field button in the bottom right of the page, which takes you to the screen shown in Figure 5-3.

Figure 5-3: Screen shot of interface used to add the custom fields. (Part 2)

Now you want to enter the first custom field for the WP Contact Manager—the contact’s first name. So in the Name input box type First Name, and in the Order input box type the number 1. Make sure Textbox is selected for Type and the Description you can leave blank. Your input should now look like Figure 5-4.

Figure 5-4: Screen shot of interface used to add the custom fields. (Part 3)

Now click on the Continue button in the lower right.

It will take you to a screen with an input field labeled Size and a default value of 25. This is presentational only and sets the width of the input box for the First Name custom field in the admin interface.

I’ve given the values I used for the width of each field, but you can experiment with what width suits you best. For now, though, I would just recommended using the values listed in this tutorial, and for this field I just left it at the default of 25.

To continue, click the Finish button to create the first custom field. The screen should now be back at the interface for the Add Contact Custom Write Panel; and the first custom field we created—First Name—should be listed at the bottom. (See Figure 5-5)

Figure 5-5: Screen shot of interface used to add the custom fields. (Part 4)

Now we need to repeat this process fourteen more times to add our other custom fields for the WP Contact Manager. So below I’ve listed the names of the fields, their order and their recommended input box width.

Notice that the order skips by five for each field. I did this in case later you want to add more fields between the existing ones. (The order value sets the display order of how the fields are listed in the Add Contact admin interface, it has nothing to do with how they are outputted in the WP Contact Manager theme.)

Remember, the names of the fields have to match exactly.

Name Order Width
Last Name 5 25
Organization 10 40
Email 15 40
Mobile 20 20
Office Phone 25 20
Home Phone 30 20
Fax 35 20
Website 40 40
Address 1 45 55
Address 2 50 55
City 55 25
State 60 10
Zip 65 10
Country 70 25
Image Path 75 55

Step 6: Add Your First Contact

Once all of the custom fields have been created click on the Write link in the main WordPress admin navigation. You should now see an Add Contact link next to the Write Page link. Click the Add Contact link.

This takes you to an interface similar to that of Write Post or Write Page, but now all that exist of the usual fields are the Post Title, Post Content, and Tags. However, beneath these are the fields that were created in STEP 5.

WP Contact Manager is set up to use the Post Title field as an admin reference when searching for a particular contact to edit. So it is not included anywhere in the actual theme, it’s just for reference in the admin area. The Post Content text area is used for any notes or comments you may want to assign to that particular contact.

The tags can be used if desired and show up at the bottom of the contact beneath the notes and related contacts. The collective list of tags is displayed in the sidebar. If you click a tag on the sidebar it displays all of the contacts that share that specific tag.

So go ahead and make a ‘dummy’ contact, or add yourself, whichever you prefer, and once you have the appropriate fields populated click the Publish button. Now go visit your site to see what your first contact looks like.

Adding More Fields

It’s easy to add more custom fields to the theme. You can either go for it yourself or wait until next week for a detailed tutorial on how to do it.

Etcetera

If there’s anything that you think is missing or any bugs, etc. please tell me about it in the comments below. Also, I apologize for the U.S.-centric input fields. It’s something that will be addressed in future releases.

Commentary

1. Feb 6, 2008 Daniel Black says

I haven’t extensively plowed through the post, but this seems pretty cool. I’m curious as to the impetus to put this together. Care to comment?

2. Feb 6, 2008 David Yeiser says

Sure, a friend at my church was describing how he would love to have a custom contact manager that could organize all of the church contacts in a certain manner.

I thought that I could do it pretty easily with WordPress and WP Contact Manager was born.

That’s the short of it anyways!

3. Feb 6, 2008 Weblog Tools Collection » Blog Archive » WordPress as a Contact Manager says

[…] Wordpress. Go ahead, subscribe to our feed! You can also receive updates from this blog via email.WP Contact Manager: The versatility of WordPress continues to amaze me. Design Canopy has released a theme/set of […]

4. Feb 6, 2008 dEM says

IT looks really nice. I’ll try it someday.

5. Feb 6, 2008 Uniontown Pennsylvania » Blog Archive » WordPress as a Contact Manager says

[…] WP Contact Manager: The versatility of WordPress continues to amaze me. Design Canopy has released a theme/set of instructions for WordPress that would allow you to run a WordPress install as a taggable, searchable contact manager that can be made into a Members Only system and display related contacts. Now mind you, it is not a stand alone theme, needs extra plugins to be downloaded and installed and they outline detailed instructions on how to set it up. However, the setup looks relatively easy and the results are definitely pretty cool. I would have liked to see a Prologue like custom posting interface for logged in users but that could be an easy add on or plugin once the thing is set up. […]

6. Feb 6, 2008 WP Contact Manager - WordPress como un administrador de contactos « Xyberneticos says

[…] WP Contact Manager es una especie de theme muy diferente a los acostumbrados para WordPress. Con un poco de trabajo y tiempo podremos trasformar nuestra plataforma WordPress en un administrador de contactos muy completo y funcional. Se pueden añadir contactos regulares a través de la interfaz de administrador, etiquetar cada uno de ellos, realizar búsquedas sobre ellos y mucho más. Algo a tener en claro es que no se trata de un theme independiente sino que necesita de plugin adicionales que deberemos descargar e instalar, para lo cual no tendrán problema alguno, los pasos a seguir son realmente fáciles, y se explica muy bien cada uno de ellos, pasando por su instalación hasta su completa configuración. […]

7. Feb 6, 2008 RobertWms says

Wow!! This is great! Now all I have to do is install a funambol server and I can have my own sycml operation!

Thanks!!

ps: have you given any thought to building this in?

8. Feb 6, 2008 Michael Sky says

Hi, looks great. Is it possible to import existing mysql databases, assuming fields all match up?

thanks…..

9. Feb 6, 2008 Ian Stewart says

Very cool David. First Prologue now this. Wow. I love the clean layout. Is the theme mobile friendly?

I wonder when WordPress will drop the blogging label and just start referring to themselves as a CMS?

10. Feb 6, 2008 WordPress Magazine : WordPress som kontaktmanager och CMS says

[…] pluggar och en hel del hjärnbry för att kicka igång systemet. Men det jag hittills har sett på DesignCanopy verkar i alla fall ytterst […]

11. Feb 6, 2008 purrl.net |** urls that purr **| says

This is one of the web’s most interesting stories on Wed 6th Feb 2008…

These are the web’s most talked about URLs on Wed 6th Feb 2008. The current winner is …..

12. Feb 6, 2008 Nicolas says

This looks interesting. I would like to see this build in just as RobertWms suggested.

Anyway, I’ll think I’ll give it a go to see how this could fit in my site.

13. Feb 6, 2008 stephen says

Actually i’m highly interested in this as a simple trouble-ticket/customer management system…

I’m going to see what I can do one of these weekends.

14. Feb 6, 2008 Shane says

This is freaking GENIUS. It is perfect for church management. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

15. Feb 6, 2008 兩個有趣的 wordpress 應用 | TaopaiC的異想世界 says

[…] WP Contact Manager . <demo […]

16. Feb 6, 2008 links for 2008-02-07 « Simply… A User says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wordpress themes contact plugins theme cms collaboration webdesign **) […]

17. Feb 6, 2008 Convierte Wordpress en un administrador de contactos con “WP Contact Manager” says

[…] WP Contact Manager: http://thedesigncanopy.com/downloads/wp-contact-manager/ […]

18. Feb 6, 2008 Quasi.dot » links for 2008-02-07 says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wordpress contact plugins theme collaboration cms) […]

19. Feb 6, 2008 BigNerd says

Hi. I’m setting this up currently and when I get to “After creating the initial Write Panel you should be at the main interface for the plugin; click on the View link under Action.”
When I do this I get: “Invalid Plugin Page.”
Yes, I did download your updated Custom Write Panel for 2.3.3.
Any thoughts?

20. Feb 6, 2008 BigNerd says

Never mind. I used the ‘one-click install’ plug-in to upload the Custom Write Panel and it didn’t unpack into a plug-in file so all of the php files were unpacked all over the friggin’ place.
My bad. I’m hangin’ in there, ’cause I want to give this bad boy a good ride around the block. Looks good so far.

21. Feb 6, 2008 Stephen Paul Weber says

I CAN HAZ HCARD?

22. Feb 6, 2008 Low says

I am building a music directory in my country, i think i can use this and put a large contact database on separate website. This is inspiring. Thanks!

23. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

dEM: Thanks!

RobertWms: I haven’t given much thought to this, but I also had to Google your acronyms! So I can’t say without looking into it further how easy/plausible it would be.

Michael Sky: That’s out of my range of expertise, but I will say that a knowledgeable programmer could probably find a way. You might want to try the WordPress Support Forums.

Ian: It’s iPhone/iPod touch friendly ;) I haven’t tried it on other mobile browsers, though. It should degrade well enough, but there isn’t any specific markup for mobiles (like click-to-call, etc.)

stephen: Good luck!

Shane: Thank you.

BigNerd: Let me know if you run into any roadblocks.

Stephen Paul Weber: HA! Yes, in a future release. I wanted to implement it, but I decided to go ahead and launch without it and then add it in later.

Low: No problem, good luck!

24. Feb 7, 2008 links for 2008-02-07 « Mandarine says

[…] WP Contact Manager A different kind of theme for WordPress. With a little bit of work (outlined in detail below) it turns WordPress into a contact manager. You can add contacts through the regular admin interface, tag contacts, search them and more. (tags: wordpress webdesign cms) […]

25. Feb 7, 2008 把wordpress做成一个通讯录 - Mr.bssn 的个人博客 says

[…] 演示 WP Contact Manager 主页 […]

26. Feb 7, 2008 Tomas M. says

It looks great! I didn’t have a chance to play with it, but here is my question: If I want to use this contact manager as a part of the main website, do I need to install second separate WP engine, or it can live as a sub-part of main WP installation?

27. Feb 7, 2008 Chris says

FYI, the pastebin link in step 1 doesn’t work, it leads to a login page.

28. Feb 7, 2008 Kat says

David, thanks for a fantastic theme. I plan on using it for a small trade directory.

Question: while attempting to setup the Custom Write Panel, the ‘category’ choices (both Contact & uncategorized) do not show up in the window. I have made sure ‘Contact’ had the category-ID of ‘3′. Any suggestions?

29. Feb 7, 2008 Aaron Brazell says

What would be cool - and what I’m going to do for myself - is to extend this to have an xmlrpc interface that ubergeeks can then use to create extensions for their favorite contact manager to POST to. My needs would be to write a separate Address Book plugin in Applescript to sync my contacts up to this.

And yes, making an iPhone interface would be ubersexy too.

Are you open to contributions?

30. Feb 7, 2008 Turn Wordpress into Contact Manager! says

[…] right! Now you can turn your Wordpress installation into a contact manager with the help of WP Contact Manager theme and Design Canopy has released a theme with a set of instructions to follow to make your Wordpress […]

31. Feb 7, 2008 Bryan Carozzi says

Thank You, is a good solution, a great idea. Thank You!

32. Feb 7, 2008 Simon says

Just a thought… you could use the built-in WordPress ‘comments’ function to turn this into a lightweight CRM tool?

33. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Thomas M.: I would recommend installing in on a separate version of WordPress. You can run it on your main blog installation but you wouldn’t be able to use the accompanying theme.

However if you’re comfortable adapting the custom fields to your existing theme then it’s very possible since the main functionality is run via a single category.

Chris: Thanks for letting me know, I’ve updated the post to reflect that.

Kat: Can you email me a screen shot? (My email address is in the bottom left of the page)

Aaron Brazell: Definitely, email me and we’ll talk.

Bryan Carozzi: No problem.

Simon: Yes, exactly. That’s the planned functionality for the next release.

34. Feb 7, 2008 Mattias says

Great work! I really appreciate the work you put in to pulishing the install guide. I followed it point to point and it works like a charm.

I can´t really grasp how related posts gets its info. How does it “know” when two people know each other? If I create a contact named John Doe and I want to indicate that he knows Many Doe, how do I do that?

How does the system know if two contacts are from the same company?

35. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Mattias: I’m glad to hear the tutorial works. I was afraid I was going to leave a step out.

Unfortunately there’s no way to force a contact to know another one, or even if they are in the same company.

I know the related posts plugin analyzes tags and I believe the post content, which in this case would be the contact’s notes. But I don’t think it analyzes custom fields.

So, in summary, at the moment there’s not really an elegant solution to ensure contacts are in the same groups.

36. Feb 7, 2008 DavePress » Blog Archive » WordPress is a platform says

[…] WPContactManager, as I mentioned above, turns WordPress into a […]

37. Feb 7, 2008 Mattias says

David: “I know the related posts plugin analyzes tags and I believe the post content”

I´m not sure about that… Take a look at http://www.xrcle.se/crm/satu-johanson/ and http://www.xrcle.se/crm/mattias-handley/

I have added those persone (and want to indicate that they know each other. I have added tags and names in the note field but it doesn´t seem to be picked up by related posts.

Could I be missing something there?

Also, a quick link to “edit contact” would be great. I cant figure out how to add it :)

38. Feb 7, 2008 Paul Sibley says

I’m currently trying to get addresses and contact details for members of my extended family because I lost my address book. Been thinking I should have had it all on the computer. But I think this just might be a better solution — might even remember to back it up when I do my main blog.

Thanks for your work on doing this David. I’ll be giving it a try at the weekend. May even try it out on the Church’s website too. I can see it being an extremely useful tool for us in the ministry team. Thanks again.

39. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Paul: No problem, hope it works for you.

40. Feb 7, 2008 WP Contact Manager. Tu agenda on-line con Wordpress | Ateneu Popular says

[…] […]

41. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Mattias: The Related Posts plugin analyzes the content and tags with respect to other posts’ content and tags. Not with respect to other posts’ custom fields.

So, two posts both tagged with Xrcle would likely be shown as related.

But one post with the company name custom field of Xrcle wouldn’t necessarily be shown as related to another post with a tag of Xrcle (Or also having the same company name custom field.)

Does that make sense?

Also, that’s a good idea about having an edit link for each contact. I’ll look into that for future releases.

42. Feb 7, 2008 Mattias says

That made perfect sense. Now I got it :) And it works just as you described.

This will be perfect as a sales/crm tool (with some additions). I´ll post them when I had the chance to look over it some more.

43. Feb 7, 2008 Wordpress como agenda de contactos | Denken Über says

[…] extremadamente interesante este tema de Wordpress para usarlo como una agenda de conctactos, en realidad WP es un CMS que, como casi cualquier otro, […]

44. Feb 7, 2008 links for 2008-02-07 | jon bounds says

[…] WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy Wordpress as a CRM system - very clever (tags: wordpress themes plugins cms crm) […]

45. Feb 7, 2008 Wordpress as a Contact Manager | SKFox.com says

[…] for other things. The developers over at the Design Canopy have put together instructions on using WP as a contact manager. It looks fairly full featured with tagging, searching, relations, and as many custom fields as you […]

46. Feb 7, 2008 A sua agenda com o Wordpress says

[…] e por mais engraçado que vos possa parecer, não para de me surpreender. Desta vez foi o WP-Contact Manager, isto é tipo um tema (template), que nos permite, nós, usuários do Wordpress, fazer dele uma […]

47. Feb 7, 2008 Matt Herzberger says

Is there any plan to add in microformat support? It would be quite easy just wrap them around the template tags.

48. Feb 7, 2008 tal galili says

Very, very, VERY - cool !

49. Feb 7, 2008 WordPress as a Contact Manager | HenwoodWeb says

[…] found this great new theme/plug-in that will turn your Wordpress into a full blown contact manager. I didn’t want to mess up all i have done with my site so i decided to give it a try without […]

50. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Matt Herzberger: Yeah, I plan to add it in an upcoming release.

tal galili: Thanks!

51. Feb 7, 2008 Boa Idéia − Temas do Wordpress - Transforme seu blog em uma poderosa ferramenta de produtividade says

[…] O WP Contact Manager é um tipo diferente de tema para WordPress. Com alguns passos você pode transformar seu blog (ou parte dele) em um gerenciador de contatos muito eficiente. Adicionar contatos regularmente através da interface admin é muito fácil, o sistema de organização usando tags é uma mão na roda, além de ter uma ótima ferramenta de pesquisa do wordpress e muito mais. […]

52. Feb 7, 2008 Bobby says

This is a great setup you made here David. Thank you very much!

One question, I added a 2nd field for Email 2 place 16 and it does not show up on the contact after saved. How can I go about fixing this? Thanks again!

53. Feb 7, 2008 David Yeiser says

Bobby: Glad you like it, I’ll have a tutorial on how to add your own custom fields in the next week or so.

54. Feb 8, 2008 Will Wilkins says

That’s awesome and very inventive David! Does the “LOGOUT” link display even when you aren’t logged in?

Also, I checked the demo site on a Windows mobile device (I’m not fortunate enough to have an iPhone/iPod Touch yet) and it does downgrade pretty well.

55. Feb 8, 2008 Skylog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-02-08 says

[…] WP Contact Manager (tags: wordpress theme) […]

56. Feb 8, 2008 Tapeleg says

This is a really cool idea. Aside from making a contact manager, I’m starting to understand WordPress a little better, and how deep the thing goes.

One problem I am having. Using the website field generates a strange output. When I hover over the link, it shows an address consisting of the address of the “post” for that contact, followed by the address I inputed into the website. I looked at the theme, and it looked like there were two calls (I’m sorry, I don’t really speak php) to get the address. Any help on this one?

Thanks.

57. Feb 8, 2008 Mattias says

Its really easy (ehh, kind of) to add a custom field.
1. Go to your blog / Manage / Custom Write Panel and click on “View” on the custom write panel you created.

2. Click “Create Custom Field” (in the right hand corner. And give it a name (remember this, important) and set it as the kind of field you want (text, drop down, list etc). Finish the dialoge.

3. Here is the tricky part. Go to your blog / presentation / Theme editor and click on “Single Post” as the file to edit.

Scroll down to ”

There I have added:

View name of the field you added
ID, “The exact Name you gave the custom feild in step 2″, true); ?>

So if you want to add a secondary email, I would add “Email 2″ without the “” as the name for the custom field. And in the code for the Single Post I would add:

Secondary email
ID, “Email 2″, true); ?>

You would of course have to deal with the div tags to get the formatting as you would like.

And as always, backup your files before you start edit them (dont know how many times this has saved me from starting all over again :))

58. Feb 8, 2008 Mattias says

Hmm, it stripped out the code examples.

Sorry David, thouhgt it would be a quick help but this didn´t really help at all :)

59. Feb 8, 2008 Matt Herzberger.com » Blog Archive » Here is your del.icio.us goodness for 02-08 says

[…] 1 - » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy […]

60. Feb 8, 2008 Uso de los custom fields en Wordpress (campos a medida) | Vectoralia says

[…] una idea de lo que puede llegar a hacerse con ellos, nada mejor que echarle imaginación. En The design canopy explican la manera de construir un sistema de gestión de contactos con Wordpress. Se basa en un […]

61. Feb 8, 2008 David Yeiser says

Will: Thanks! The LOGOUT link is static, so it’s there no matter what. But I’ll see if I can get it to be dynamic, that’s a good idea.

Tapeleg: Hmmm… What are you inputing as the website? Is it http://domain.com/ ?

Mattias: Thanks for trying! I wish there was an easier way to write out code.

62. Feb 8, 2008 Tapeleg says

David - No, I was just entering www.domain.com. Should I be putting the http in front?

63. Feb 8, 2008 David Yeiser says

Yeah, try that and see if it works.

64. Feb 8, 2008 Tapeleg says

Ah, ha! Success! You, sir, rock. I am off to create my masterpiece.

65. Feb 8, 2008 Tapeleg says

Oh, and I eagerly await the tutorial on adding custom fields. It would also be helpful in figuring out how to place a website address in the main window instead of an email, but I may be able to figure that out myself. I stagger around effectively from time to time.

66. Feb 8, 2008 Nathan Barry says

Excellent work!

This is really a beautiful use of WordPress. Thanks for the detailed tutorial!

With small customizations WordPress can do (almost) anything…

67. Feb 8, 2008 Chris says

David, another couple of ideas/easy tweaks. For the website field (in the single post file), add a target to open the link in a new window. Also, adding an edit button to the contact page would be amazing. Thanks again for this amazing idea and theme!

68. Feb 8, 2008 Blips says

How do you handle search-engines, you do not want them to index your private information I guess.
Any thoughts?

69. Feb 8, 2008 Mike Wills says

It would be awesome if somehow labels could be either created on the page, or setup in such a way that they could be exported to a word processor to make labels.

70. Feb 8, 2008 Stumble into the Weekend 02/08 says

[…] One of the many reasons is its versatility. You can see a wonderful example on The Design Canopy: The WP Contact Manager. Yep, David has turned WordPress into a contact manager. Well done, and I’m curious to see […]

71. Feb 8, 2008 David Yeiser says

Tapeleg: After reading the ‘coming-soon’ tutorial you should be able to change things around with ease. Then you will easily be able to create your masterpiece!

Nathan Barry: No problem! And I agree.

Chris: I definitely will be adding an edit link for each contact. I’m not sure I’m sold on the link in the new window though, I always just open a link in a new tab for that functionality. However, I do like getting new ideas!

Blips: Using the Members Only plugin should keep the search engines out.

Mike Wills: That would be cool, but I think that’s a bit out of my skill set ;)

72. Feb 9, 2008 WP Contact Manager, cambiando la funcionalidad de WP - BitSignals says

[…] viene un theme que, a pesar de que no es oficial, resulta bastante interesante. Se trata del WP Contact Manager, un theme para Wordpress con el cual podremos organizar nuestros […]

73. Feb 9, 2008 phf says

This is pure genius — and it comes at a time when I need it most. Actually after installing it, I was surprised to learn that you had just posted this a day ago! Shucks now I do have to wait a week to find out how to add custom fields. You da man!

74. Feb 9, 2008 Russell Page says

Odd.

WordPress won’t recognize the contact theme. It doesn’t even show up as a theme for me to choose. Same with the custom write panel plugin.

75. Feb 9, 2008 phf says

I noticed that when I submit a search query (or click on a tag), it spits the results out chronologically (to when I entered them in the admin panel). How do I get the results to sort alphabetically?

76. Feb 9, 2008 pK says

Very nice! I LOVE it! Your setup is very well documented. Everything works like a charm! thx a lot

suggestions
*how to control what is diplayed on the first page (name, mail, mobile)

*maybe use wordpress upload to attach image, additional information/files

is there anything i could help you with (translating into different languages like german or portugues (pt_BR))

77. Feb 9, 2008 pK says

phf: this way it should work, but its not very “nice”

open the index.php and add this line

before

78. Feb 9, 2008 pK says

sry for spaming ;D php code got erased. feel free to delete my posts

here is the edited index.php

http://pastebin.com/pastebin.php?diff=m5d785cfc

79. Feb 9, 2008 PaintChip says

This is an awesome theme! You rock!

80. Feb 9, 2008 Gary says

Am really dying to try this out; I can put all my useful contacts on-line and access wherever I am in the world (and make them only accessible to me).

Unfortunately, I’m already using category 3 (and several number afterwards). Is there no way to get around this limitation? I feel like Im really missing out!

81. Feb 9, 2008 David Yeiser says

phf: Thanks! And check out pK’s comment on how to change the order of the search results. (#78)

But you would want to add it to the archive.php file for search and tag results. I’ll add this functionality in the future release.

Russell Page: That is odd, are you installing it on your computer or on a server?

pK: Those are good ideas. Though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to allow people to control what’s on the front page short of teaching them how to change it themselves in the PHP files.

Translating would be great, I’m going to incorporate some techniques to make that easier for people in the upcoming releases (the PHP _e function). If you have suggestions on what fields to add for addresses outside of the U.S. that would be great also. Thanks for the PHP code as well!

PaintChip: Thanks! I’m glad you like it.

Gary: I would recommend using a fresh install of WordPress if it’s possible.

82. Feb 9, 2008 Russell Page says

directory.lingowire.net

on my server

using wordpress 2.3.3

83. Feb 9, 2008 Gary says

David,

I’m not keen on creating a whole new instance of Wordpress just for the contacts, though fortunately it isn’t bloated software, so I’ll give it a go shortly.

But it did make me think sideways: if different contacts or groups of contacts could be restricted in some way, then lots of my sites could use the same contact manager instance. And… would it work with WorpPressMU?

84. Feb 9, 2008 Tapeleg says

Blips - There is an option in the Options>Privacy page to keep search engines out.

85. Feb 9, 2008 Michael Sky says

Awesome plugin! Perfect for a Chamber of commerce site I’m building.

I know you’re creating a tutorial for custom fields. So ignore this if the answer’s coming soon.

I’ve created a multiple checkbox field called Dining with three values, Breakfast Lunch Dinner.

How do I get the checked values to display. Tried adding this to the Single page:

ID, “Dining”, true); ?>

ps - how about a paypal button so some of us can say thanks?

86. Feb 9, 2008 Michael Sky says

Oops, the code didn’t show up right, sorry….

87. Feb 9, 2008 David Yeiser says

Russell: Hmmm… It may have something to do with the way I zipped the files. Are you on a Mac? Did you use any special software to unzip the theme and CWP plugin?

Gary: I’m not sure about WordPress Mu. For permissions you could create sub-categories under the ‘Contacts’ category and then use the Allow Categories plugin to restrict users based on those categories.

Michael Sky: I’ll show you how to do that in the tutorial, which I’m going to get out as soon as possible. And I’m flattered about the PayPal button, I’ll replace the Google Adsense with one.

88. Feb 9, 2008 Frances Palaschuk says

I have a usage question, are you able to export these contacts to do a mailmerge? Thanks.

89. Feb 9, 2008 David Yeiser says

Frances Palaschuk: Unfortunately, no.

90. Feb 9, 2008 Russell Page says

I am on a mac, but I didn’t use any special software to unzip them.

91. Feb 9, 2008 Gary says

Well, that was a doddle to set up!

Unfortunately, when I hit Publish, my contacts aren’t saved anywhere; nothing is added to the Contacts category. Any ideas?

92. Feb 9, 2008 spatially relevant » Blog Archive » Relevant Links for January 26th through February 9th says

[…] WP for CRM - I think creating a theme and plug-in component for CRM/SFA/Contact management is a great idea. simple - kinda like ACT! […]

93. Feb 9, 2008 Link notes dal 6 2 2008 al 9 2 2008 » Sapientone says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy - […]

94. Feb 10, 2008 phf says

Yesssirree… this is a great way to use Wordpress. I checked out pK’s code and added it to my archive and index pages. What about sorting by last name? I tried changing ‘&orderby=title’ to ‘&orderby=Last Name’ but that didn’t work… what am I doing wrong? Thanks again, in advance!

95. Feb 10, 2008 phf says

Gary: You probably aren’t typing in a post title … that happened to me the first time around.

96. Feb 10, 2008 Seth Holladay » Links » links for 2008-02-10 says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: contact webdev wordpress themes plugins) […]

97. Feb 10, 2008 links for 2008-02-10 | ideetransfer... says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy WP Contact Manager is a different kind of theme for WordPress. With a little bit of work (outlined in detail below) it turns WordPress into a contact manager. (tags: cms theme wordpress contact) […]

98. Feb 10, 2008 Gary says

phf - cracked it. Thanks!

Next stop: integrating the new WP instance into my existing site… and, probably, enabling Members Only.

99. Feb 10, 2008 pK says

phf: replace title with
get_post_meta($post->ID, “Last Name”, true)

ID, “Last Name”, true)&order=asc’ ); ? >

100. Feb 10, 2008 pK says

sry post got mixed up again… second part is missing.. but the first part should contain all the information ;D

David: could you maybe create another way of talking to, helping each other? google groups? vanilla, bbpress?

101. Feb 10, 2008 carlo says

Hi David, this is simply great; I’ve build my sute with Joomla but now I need something simpler to manage our team.
Is it as well possible to add different categories, like for instance projects, and connect contacts with these?

102. Feb 10, 2008 links for 2008-02-10 | unblogged|Artikelverzeichnis says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy WP Contact Manager is a different kind of theme for WordPress. With a little bit of work (outlined in detail below) it turns WordPress into a contact manager. You can add contacts through the regular admin interface, tag contacts, search them and more. (tags: wordpress contact plugins cms collaboration plugin)   […]

103. Feb 10, 2008 BigNerd says

O.K. Got ‘er up an running. Nice work on your part. One question. Why am I getting a duplicate name showing on my Contacts “card”.
Screen shot here: http://tinyurl.com/2xc5m2

104. Feb 10, 2008 Gary says

BigNerd: I’m guessing that, like me, you haven’t added any images for your contact(s) (yet). The duplicate name is the ALT text for the image that would be displayed if you had one.

Well it it on mine :->

105. Feb 10, 2008 Garçon aka Martin Kopta » Blog Archive » links for 2008-02-10 says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wp plugins crm) […]

106. Feb 10, 2008 BigNerd says

Gary: Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense. I’ll have to go fiddle about with my default image.

107. Feb 10, 2008 Frederic says

Very nice adaptation for Wordpress. Easy to personalize. Love it! Thank you for this.

108. Feb 10, 2008 Frederic says

Hello Everyone,

If you want to add an option to see your contact on Google Map, here is the code to add in the file single.php:

ID, “Address 1″, true); ?>,+ID, “City”, true); ?>,+ID, “State”, true); ?>+ID, “Zip”, true); ?>>” target=”_blank”>+ View Map

Working like a charm…
Fred

109. Feb 10, 2008 Frederic says

Sorry the code is trunk… If you want it, send me an email.

110. Feb 10, 2008 David Yeiser says

Russell Page: Have you tried deleting and re-uploading the theme and CWP plugin files?

pK: That’s a good idea about a forum. Especially as the thread continues to grow. I’ll see what I can do.

carlo: Yeah, that’s possible. See my response to Gary in comment 87.

Frederic: Thanks and no problem!

And a big thanks to everyone who helped answer other’s questions. I think pK is right, we need a forum.

111. Feb 10, 2008 David Yeiser says

Hey Frederic, I sent you an email.

112. Feb 10, 2008 Chris says

David, I agree on the need for a forum, and I would really second the call for a google code project for this. I would love to assist you with any of this.

113. Feb 10, 2008 Chris says

Actually, I read incorrectly. I would ask you to implement a google code project, and then the community could help with the code.

On an additional note, what kind of license is this released under?

114. Feb 10, 2008 Bobby says

David,

I wanted to add a line of code to display a link to the wp-admin page. I added this to the sidebar.php file.

Site Admin

Is this the best place for it?

115. Feb 10, 2008 Bobby says

Sorry, i put in the code as is. lol. You can delete the last post if you want or just edit the post to remove that link.

Here is the code I used again.

a href=”http://www.website.com/mybook/wp-admin” target=”_blank”>Site Admin

116. Feb 11, 2008 Russell Page says

Twice now.

117. Feb 11, 2008 Chris says

Russell (and David), the issue is people generally unzip a theme directly into their themes directory, which normally works b/c the theme is within another folder in the zip file. WP Contact Manager IS NOT, so you must either create a file (mine is ‘wp-contact-manager’) and unzip the theme files into THAT FOLDER. Otherwise, all the files for this theme go into your themes directory and get unorganized and Wordpress won’t recognize it as a theme.

I am attempting to be clear on this, but if I’m not (not uncommon), let me know and I will clarify.

118. Feb 11, 2008 pK says

google code/groups are great tools, but there is no need to rush into anything ;D

a forum would be a good start..

…on the other side, this is getting very popular in a very short time ;D

119. Feb 11, 2008 David Yeiser says

First, there is now a forum for discussing WP Contact Manager. There’s still a few things to add, but it’s ready to go for the most part. After a while I’ll close the comments here so all the discussion happens there.

Chris: I’m looking at the different options. Right now I’m thinking keep it here but have ways for people to add/submit code snippets, ideas, etc. Also, it’s released under the latest GPL license (v.3). And of course everyone who contributed would get credit somewhere.

Bobby: Yep, that’s a good place!

Russell Page: Did Chris’s solution work for you? My apologies if that was your problem. I have updated the download files with a better folder structure.

pK: You’re right! I didn’t expect such a response!

120. Feb 11, 2008 Wordpress se encamina a ser un standard de la web social - Gedankenexperiment says

[…] WP Contact Manager (visto Weblog Tools Collection). […]

121. Feb 11, 2008 Slouching towards Golgonooza » Blog Archive » Wordpress as a contact manager says

[…] saw an article about turning WordPress into a contact manager last Friday. This is interesting and is in some ways a parallel effort to the Prologue theme in […]

122. Feb 11, 2008 Russell Page says

Nope. I have mine set up just like Chris does. This seems very strange. I’ve installed WP many, many times before as well.

123. Feb 11, 2008 Gary says

Just thinking, as we’re all (nearly) having some joy in installing it: how are you integrating it into your sites? If at all?

As mine is a fresh install, it sits on a subdomain (’directory’ sounds so much better than ‘contacts’) of my main site, with a link from my site’s home page (just changed templates, so sorry if it looks weird). That’s good in terms of keeping ‘regular’ blogging away from WPCM, but annoying in that I have to log in twice (once to the blog, once to view contacts).

As others have said, am also happy to contribute if required (and time permits). I’m no coder though!

124. Feb 11, 2008 WP Contact Manager - Joseph Scott’s Blog says

[…] WordPress to track your contact information with WP Contact Manager. It’s a bit more involved to setup than Prologue, but it has the same basic premiss, use […]

125. Feb 11, 2008 Wordpress Rubrica | Living in a zoo says

[…] È da qualche giorno che ragiono sulla possibilità di scrivere questo post o lasciar perdere, non troverete nulla di originale qui, se non un piccolo commento all’articolo originale (in inglese). […]

126. Feb 11, 2008 دفترچه تلفن آنلاین با طعم وردپرس | Zangoole says

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127. Feb 11, 2008   Odd but Brilliant Uses for WordPress (Twitter, Contact Manager, Domain Parking) by Free WordPress Themes Blog says

[…] Download WP Contact Manager | View Demo […]

128. Feb 12, 2008 David Yeiser says

Russell: This is quite baffling. Try downloading the files from this page again, I uploaded new ones (the theme and the corrected CWP plugin) that were zipped with a different program.

Gary: For now involvement will center around the new forum. Come join us!

129. Feb 12, 2008 Will Wilkins says

David, If you haven’t implemented already, you may be able to use the template tag to make the “logout” link dynamic. I have been wrong once before though. :)

130. Feb 12, 2008 David Yeiser says

Thanks, Will. I didn’t know that existed, that’s much more elegant than what’s there now.

131. Feb 12, 2008 pK says

http://lussumo.com/addons/index.php?PostBackAction=AddOn&AddOnID=262

132. Feb 12, 2008 RUDEWORKS says

[…] Últimamente han surgido un par de ejemplos que realmente merece la pena mencionar: Por un lado, WP Contact Manager es un tema (no un plugin) que transforma tu instalación de WP en un completo sistema de gestión […]

133. Feb 12, 2008 WordPress pe post de… | CNET.ro says

[…] WordPress poate fi modificat şi pentru alte utilizări. O altă temă permite realizarea unei agende de adrese (contact manager). Un demo găsiţi aici şi este mai […]

134. Feb 12, 2008 Russell Page says

I tried once more, and it worked. That was very strange.

135. Feb 12, 2008 Russell Page says

Step 5.

Categories aren’t showing up in my CWPanel when

136. Feb 12, 2008 Russell Page says

But it still works… Weird. Though Members Only does not work.

I think there are some issues with compatibility and wp 2.3.3

137. Feb 12, 2008 Chris says

Russell, can you give us any more details of your problem? It’s hard to diagnose the problem when there are “some issues with compatibility and wp 2.3.3″.

138. Feb 12, 2008 Russell Page says

see this image
http://thedesigncanopy.com/images/2008/01/wpcm-create-cwp.png

Nothing shows up in the “assigned categories” field.

139. Feb 12, 2008 links for 2008-02-13 « Motherduce - Daily Links says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wordpress productivity business) Posted in del.icio.us links. […]

140. Feb 12, 2008 Chris says

Russell, are you attempting this on a fresh Wordpress install? Also, can you verify that you created a category for contacts?

141. Feb 12, 2008 links for 2008-02-13 | The Straight Pitch says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wordpress design webdesign) […]

142. Feb 12, 2008 David Yeiser says

Russell: Kat (comment #28) had the same problem. I logged into her admin area and poked around but I couldn’t figure out the problem.

Do you have the Akismet plugin enabled?

143. Feb 13, 2008 Three Truly Unique Themes | WordPress Philippines says

[…] come across three unique themes for WordPress a few days ago. Turn your blog into Twitter, a contact manager, or even a “coming soon” page before your site actually […]

144. Feb 13, 2008 Russell Page says

I did create a category called Contacts, which means there are two in there.

Contacts is ID 3
Uncategorized is ID 1

On the part about members only, this is a fresh install, and I tried it with Akismet on and off. Also tried it on other computers. the Members only plugin isn’t working.

145. Feb 13, 2008 Chris says

Russell, for your problems with the Members Only plugin, I would recommend using their support forums, which you can find here.

If you would like me to look around your Wordpress install, use the contact form on my website to email me and I can take a look around too.

146. Feb 13, 2008 Motherduce: The Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-02-13 says

[…] » WP Contact Manager | The Design Canopy (tags: wordpress productivity business) […]

147. Feb 14, 2008 WP Contact Manager « WordPress Publisher Blog says

[…] A great example of innovative work being done in the WordPress community is the WP Contact Manager by The Design Canopy: WP Contact Manager is a different kind of theme for WordPress. With a little […]

148. Feb 14, 2008 流志 » 如何把Wordpress做成通讯录? says

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149. Feb 14, 2008 Wordpress as Contact Manager says

[…] WP Contacts Manager is a new theme to make your Wordpress into a full fledged contacts manager. You can add contacts through the regular admin interface, tag contacts, search them. Contacts Manager is not a standalone theme, it needs other plugins to work. The author has given a detailed tutorial on how to make the Wordpress installation a contacts manager. […]

150. Feb 15, 2008 Wordpress Contact Manager oggin.net says

[…] Оказа се, че от wordpress става чудесен мениджър за контакти. […]

151. Feb 16, 2008 le blog à Ollie » Liens du jour says

[…] WP Contact Manager permet de détourner WordPress de son usage premier et d’en faire un gestionnaire de contacts. […]

152. Feb 19, 2008 blogshop says

WordPress als Kontaktmanager…

Das sich mit WordPress eine Menge anstellen läßt ist ja hinreichend bekannt. Funktionserweiterungen werden klassischerweise über Plugins realisiert, aber gerade in letzter Zeit gibt es eine ganze Reihe an Themes, die WordPress mit neuen …

153. Feb 22, 2008 WKD says

With WordPress 2.3.3 on a Windows Host machine, the Custom Write Panel plugin does not work properly. There seems to be a bug with the way it reads categories on Windows hosts that causes the plugin to break.

154. Feb 23, 2008 djanym says

Hi. I have a problem. When I edit “Custom Write Panel” there are no categories. I have wordpress 2.3.3

155. Feb 24, 2008 Chris says

FYI, in Step 5.1, people need to select ‘Title’ and ‘Post’, as opposed to ‘Content’.

156. Feb 24, 2008 Chris says

WKD, I’m having no problems with the Custom Write Panel plugin on Windows with XAMPP. Also, if you don’t need the category system and that is where the problem is, I would just not add a category section in an Add Contact panel. I use tags, which are built in to this theme, with the same effect.

157. Feb 24, 2008 Chris says

For those interested, I’m attempting to make an “Add Contact” page to the theme using the Quick Post from the Prologue theme, using an tutorial here.

158. Feb 25, 2008 David Yeiser says

Chris: Thanks for the heads up on Post vs. Content. It’s been updated.

159. Feb 25, 2008 Monika says

Hi

thanks a lot for this theme.

I have written a German FAQ for this theme and if you would like to have-

http://www.texto.de/wp-themes/wp-contact-manager-local.zip

with .po and .mo and localisation ;)

kindly regards

Monika

160. Feb 28, 2008 Tapeleg says

I just wanted to pass something along. I initially way over-tagged my contacts, and every contact was connected to just about every other contact, and not showing up well in the related contacts field. I looked around and found a plugin called “Simple Tags” (I bet I’m the last one to have found it), that allowed me to mass edit, and more importantly, mass delete tags. It solved a ton of problems for me, and I hope it helps other people out too.

161. Mar 1, 2008 Rudy Carrera says

I didn’t notice if information was posted on whether or not addresses from other countries could be formatted in each region’s order: for example, in Russia, the country is listed first, or in most of Europe, where Postal code goes first before the city. If this is the case, I’m going to fiddle with this immediately.

162. Mar 1, 2008 Rudy Carrera says

Another thing - will this allow me to enter information using UTF8 standard? I use lots of foreign characters, so it’d help to know.

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