FLIR for WordPress Frequently Asked Questions

It doesn’t work

There are number of reason the plugin might not work. Check the following:

• Please ensure that you have a cache directory at wp-content/plugins/facelift-image-replacement/facelift/cache and that it is writable. (chmod a+w /cache)
• Please ensure that your config-flir.php file exists at wp-content/plugins/facelift-image-replacement/facelift/config-flir.php and that it is writable. (chmod a+w config-flir.php)
• Make sure the wp-content/plugins/facelift-image-replacement/facelift/ is readable
• Check your theme’s footer.php file and make sure it has the wp_footer(); function in it. It should be located just above the </body> element close tag.
• Check your theme’s header.php file and make sure it has the wp_head(); function in it. It should be located just above the </head> element close tag.
• Check the FLIR admin panel under the design menu and make certain all the options are set in the FLIR Configuration section. Read the help text on the right of each option for information.
• Check the FLIR admin panel under the design menu and make certain all the options you want are set in the Elements to Replace section. Heading 1 is generally used for the blog heading, Heading 2 is used for the posts on the main page and on individual post pages, Heading 3 is often used with posts on the catagories and tags pages. Small is often used for the date and author of the post.

When I set FLIR to wrap the text the text overlaps on a single line, how can I fix that?

FLIR 2.0b3 has a minor issue where the text will overlap if line-height isn’t specified in your CSS file for that particular style.  Adding line-height equal to the font size should correct that.  For example

a.pagetitle{
    font-weight:bold;
    font-size:24px;
    display:block;
}

Can be updated like so to add line-height:

a.pagetitle{
    font-weight:bold;
    font-size:24px;
    line-height:24px;
    display:block;
}

Will FLIR be configurable from the admin panel?

FLIR is almost completly configurable from the admin panel. Eventually it is planned to be able to configure FLIR almost completely from the admin panel. At present to configure how and what fonts are used with flir and certain element to be replaced by FLIR.

Will the FLIR plugins be usable?

At present the FancyFonts plugin is implemented. QuickEffects will be implemented next. They require ImageMagick 6.3.7 or higher to function correctly and will be configurable from the admin panel.

What about the fonts that come with FLIR?

All the fonts that come with FLIR are either free or Open Source.

What advantages would you say FLIR provides over sIFR? Besides, of course, from needing flash?

• Facelift creates transparent PNGs which can lie over the top of any background you want. For example, take a look at Example #5.
• It can easily create multi colored/font headers. (Example #3)
• It can replace links and maintain their clickability (though I believe this functionality was added to sIFR).
• It is very easy to implement. No other tools besides a web browser are needed and it is very easy to maintain.
• It plays well with third party libraries such as jQuery and prototype.
• You can take advantage of plugins such as the QuickEffects plugin and add things like drop shadows and pattern/gradient fills if you have ImageMagick installed on your server.

Is there some kind of caching system? If so, how does it work?

Facelift caches all images it generates to disk. It then will send appropriate headers to the browser if the image has not changed. This allows for drastic speed increases in rendering when browsing a website. After a couple of page views you sometimes won’t even notice the text get replaced. By default, the cached images are saved indefinitely, but you can change facelift to run through the cache every so often and remove old images to save disk space. Just change the settings in the admin panel.

It still doesn’t work / I have other questions

The best places to get answers are here on this page or FLIR Integration with WordPress Forum.