Growing Userbase for my Simplistix Theme for WordPress

Date: 12th February 2009 at 10:25 pm | Filed under: blog, themes, wordpress | Author: Sam Burdge | Tags: , , ,

After releasing my WordPress theme Simplistix into the wild a few weeks ago I have been very happy, and somewhat surprised by it's popularity. It has received hundreds of downloads from my site and over 700 downloads from wordpress.org in the last 12 days. I knew that there was a niche for simple, text based blog themes as I had seen a few sites such as www.plaintxt.org that are entirely devoted to these type of themes. But, with all the sophisticated and complex wordpress themes on offer, Simplistix feels like quite a humble little theme — perhaps that's part of it's charm.

Anyway, seeing the download stats made me feel curious about who was using the theme. I had already seen it being used on a couple of blogs because, as with most wordpress projects, I had received some suggestions, ideas, support requests and constructive criticisms from members of the wordpress community. I did a bit of further research on google and instantly found loads more bloggers using my theme. The main thing that struck me was the diversity of subject matter that these blogs covered – science, computer programming, economics, movies, music, art, fashion and many more. It was also nice to see instances where people had modified the theme, adding in their own site headers, sidebar widgets, google advertising, etc.

I felt so inspired by seeing all these sites using Simplistix as their theme that I decided to write this post featuring some of my favourites. So here they are:

TOP PICKS

www.flyhypersonic.com – The seatbelt sign is illuminated
www.thewherewithal.org – Blogging about credit, debt, money, economy, theory
nicolasulloa.com/blog – Music, Animation, Graphic Arts and Illustration
www.ianthewebsite.com – If you could be any blog, what blog would you be?
2chicksblogging.com – Blogging for Change Training since 2008
feedingme.com
blog.nakedsteve.com – Oh hey is that a monome?

THE BEST OF THE REST

phoward.com/blog
ponasniekas.nespalvotas.lt
www.bigtechcenter.info
www.bletherskite.com
blog.xieer.com
www.bestmusiccenter.info
www.businesstechnologytimes.com/wordpress
likeitreallymatters.com
hasibul.info/blog

I am planning an update to the theme in the near future where I will add an options menu which will allow you to control colours, fonts etc.

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WP Holding Page Theme

Date: 30th January 2009 at 1:59 am | Filed under: themes, wordpress | Author: Sam Burdge | Tags: , , , ,

The WP Holding Page theme for WordPress is intended for use at times when your site is undergoing maintenance, or is under construction. There are a few themes and plugins out there that also serve this same purpose, the main advantages of this theme are:

  1. Simple basic classy design.
  2. Easy to install & works 'straight out of the box'
  3. Configurable text,colours, fonts and styles via an  Options Page

You can enter you own text for your holding page via the WP Holding Page Options tab in WordPress.

INSTALLATION:

  1. Download the theme from the link at the bottom of this post.
  2. Upload the theme to your wp-conent/themes folder.
  3. Select the theme from the 'Appearance' page in your WordPress and activate it.
  4. Optionally you can configure the theme via the 'WP Holding Page Options' tab under 'Appearance' in WordPress

CONFIGURATION:

You can configure your holding page via the 'WP Holding Page Options' tab under 'Appearance' in WordPress. Here is a list of available options:

  1. Title text
  2. Body text
  3. Text colour
  4. Background colour
  5. Font style
  6. Title size
  7. Text size
  8. Page alignment

Options page screenshot:
options

THEME SCREENSHOTS:

hp1hp2hp6hp3hp4

DOWNLOAD:


4 Responses to “WP Holding Page Theme”

  • Comment by pressitfor.me
    Date: January 31st, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    WP Holding Page Theme | Sam Burdge…

    The WP Holding Page theme for WordPress is intended for use at times when your site is undergoing maintenance, or is under construction. There are a few themes and plugins out there that also serve this same purpose, the main advantages of this theme a…

  • Comment by WP Holding Page | Simple Themes
    Date: February 25th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    [...] Release Page [...]

  • Comment by Under Construction Themes for WordPress
    Date: September 3rd, 2009 at 7:00 am

    [...] WP Holding Page Release Page [...]

  • Comment by Don’t show your working | Blog Mum | WordPress made easy
    Date: November 27th, 2009 at 1:54 am

    [...] will need: the WP Holding Page theme; the Theme Test Drive plugin, and of course a WP [...]

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WP Flash Titles Plugin 2.0

Date: 22nd April 2008 at 3:02 pm | Filed under: development, flash, plugins, wordpress | Author: Sam Burdge

This WordPress plugin allows you to display your post titles in any font, colour and size you want using Flash. It will also retain your original html styling of your titles and display that to users who don't have Flash installed. It is fully customisable via the Options tab in wordpress. It is search engine friendly and easy to implement.

Update:

Version 2.0 includes 2 basic changes.

  1. The way the options are saved has been changed to address the problems some users were having with this.
  2. More pre-installed fonts.

Example:

I am happy with my WordPress theme as it is, so I have set up this example page for you to see the Flash Titles in action: {{post id="wp-flash-title-plugin-example-page" text="WP Flash Titles Example Page" target="_self"}}

Installation:

  1. Upload the wp_flash_titles folder to your wp-content/plugins folder.
  2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins page.

Usage:

  1. Go to Options -> WP Flash Titles to choose your font, size and colour scheme for your titles.
  2. You need to modify your template file slightly. First you need to locate the code that relates to the post title. This will typically be something like:
    <h3 class="storytitle" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
    <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">
    <?php the_title(); ?>
    </a>
    </h3>
  3. You then need to add two lines of code. First paste this line in directly before the page title code:
    <?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles')){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,'start')} ?>
  4. Then this line directly after:
    <?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles')){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,'end')} ?>
  5. To embed any font you want you must have Flash CS3. Open the source file 'wp_flash_title.fla' which is located in the 'Source' folder of the plugin. In flash simply change the font of the text area to any font you wish. Do a 'Save As' and then publish the swf. Once you have created the swf you must upload it to the folder: wp-content/plugins/wp_flash_titles/flash
    It will now appear in the list of fonts in the Options -> WP Flash Titles page!!

Download Plugin:


35 Responses to “WP Flash Titles Plugin 2.0”

  • Comment by Printer
    Date: April 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 pm

    Hi, thanks for this great plugin. Unfortunatly I can’t seem to get it to work. I followed the instructions. But I can not see an example image inthe options page, and when I insert all the option values after update options the option boxes are empty again. Any idea how this can be? I’m onWP 2.5

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm

    Hi Printer,

    Sorry, it was my mistake…I hadn’t updated one of the plugin files correctly. Please download again and re-install and it should work.

    Sam

  • Comment by Printer
    Date: April 22nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    Ah, thanks! the optionpage is working now. I seem to run in to another problem now. when I refresh my site it goes blank(empty). the dashboard ist working though. i have this code in my ‘index’ now:
    ID,’start’)} ?><a href=”" rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link to “>ID,’end’)} ?>
    this should be correct is it?

  • Comment by Printer
    Date: April 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    ow, i see the code did not displayed corect in my comment.

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 23rd, 2008 at 1:01 am

    The code should be something like:

    < ?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles'))
    {wp_flash_titles($post->ID,’start’)} ?>
    <a href=”< ?php the_permalink() ? rel="nofollow">” rel=”bookmark”>
    < ?php the_title(); ?>
    </a>
    < ?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles'))
    {wp_flash_titles($post->ID,’end’)} ?>

  • Comment by Stephen
    Date: April 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    Hi,

    I am trying to use the plugin once again. The saving options problem seems to be fixed, thanks. BUT when I activate and try to use the plugin, only the first two posts on my home page get flash titles and all the others are completely missing. I have about 20 posts showing on my homepage btw.
    Any advice? Thanks!

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    Hi Stephen

    It could be one of a few things causing this. Let’s start with the basics, have you tried emptying your browser’s cache and refreshing the page?
    Does this behaviour occur on all pages of your site (monthly archives, single category pages, etc) or just on the home page? Do the titles that aren’t appearing contain any special html characters (&#@!”‘, etc.)?

    Sam

  • Comment by Stephen
    Date: April 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    Thanks for the reply. I see that it seems to be browser specific. In Safari it looks fine and in Firefox 3 beta I am having the problem of no titles after the first two.

  • Comment by brian
    Date: May 6th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    Thanks for the plugin, it’s great!

    I was wondering… how to configure the plugin if you want the background to be transparent?

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: May 7th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Hi Brian
    I hadn’t thought to add an option for transparent…I’ll have to add that feature in the next release! For now you could use this workaround…

    change the line of the plugin’s code:
    so.write(”flash_title_’.$flash_title_id.’”);

    to:
    so.addParam(”wmode”,”transparent”);
    so.write(”flash_title_’.$flash_title_id.’”);

    Hope this works for you…
    Sam

  • Comment by Jayvee
    Date: May 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

    Hey, great plug-in but sadly it won’t work in my site. The options panel don’t show the fonts.

    How do I fix that? =(

  • Comment by Jayvee
    Date: May 7th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

    BTW I’m using WP 2.5.1

    Thanks.

  • Comment by Jayvee
    Date: May 10th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

    I already figured out the problem. I upgraded the swfobject.js file. Thanks for the plugin.

  • Comment by Mikester
    Date: May 12th, 2008 at 7:13 am

    I just couldn’t get it to work…… :-(

  • Comment by Stephen
    Date: May 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 am

    Hi, it is me again. Just wondering if you will be updating your plugin to work with the new Firefox? Thanks!

  • Comment by alectro
    Date: June 10th, 2008 at 8:27 pm

    Hi Sam, I followed the instructions but I cant see it working both on Index and Single.

    That’s the blog: http://www.laondagrafika.com/blog/

    Thanks!

  • Comment by alectro
    Date: June 10th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    ID,’start’) ?>
    <a href=”" rel=”bookmark”>
    ID,’end’) ?>

    thats the code I put on that files.

  • Comment by Ryan Creighton
    Date: June 12th, 2008 at 12:59 am

    Hi! GREAT plugin idea! i desperately want to use it.

    The trouble is that when i install the plugin, i get this error message:

    Plugin could not be activated because it triggered a fatal error.

    When i go to the plugin page under Options, i see various errors like:

    WordPress database error: [Table 'untolden_wrdp1.wp_flashtitles' doesn't exist]

    There are numerous similar errors. i checked my database, and it looks like the tables that the plugin needs aren’t getting installed.

    Any suggestions? i’m running ver 2.2.2.

    THANKS!!

  • Comment by zulu
    Date: June 13th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    Hi. Great plugin :) Got one problem: There’s a “free space” before the title, means title, date and post don’t begin at the same beginning *lol* know what I mean? Visit my site to check, I can also send a screenshot if wanted (I don’t know how long this plugin will be activated). How can I fix this? Thanks a lot!
    zulu

  • Comment by zulu
    Date: June 13th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

    It’s me again! Another problem: The flash titles don’t link to full post as they used to do before, so I uninstalled the plugin now. But screenshot is ready to send ;)

  • Comment by Come Creare Titoli in Flash su WordPress Usando Qualsiasi Font | kosmo blog
    Date: July 7th, 2008 at 9:24 am

    [...] WP Flash Title è questo il nome del plugin che permette tutto questo. [...]

  • Comment by Fernando
    Date: August 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm

    Hi Sam! Contratulations for the plugin, I think is amazing!

    You know? Im using the default theme for wordpress, the original code says:

    < div class=”post” id=”post-” >
    < a href=”" rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link to ” >

    But when i replace this code for:

    ID,’start’)} ?>
    <a href=”” rel=”bookmark”>

    ID,’end’)} ? >

    … then the theme no work. :(

    I dunno where Im mistake. Can you help me? Thank you so much and sorry for my english language, still is very poor. :)

  • Comment by Fernando
    Date: August 6th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    Hi again Sam…. i found my mistake, i forgot write class=”storytitle” in the code… is ok now… thank you so much again… your plugin is cool

  • Comment by steve
    Date: September 12th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    hey there,
    thanks for the great plug! but i have a little prob:
    I am usin the lightbox2 plug to view my pics. when the lightbox effekt is running, the titles are “flashing” through the background of lightbox and sometimes appearing on the images. I recognized that this happens with every flash content embedded on the page… so its not really an issue for you but you might know a little workaround for that.
    it could be something with the z-indexes i guess?

    steve

  • Comment by Ronan
    Date: November 5th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    Thanks Sam,

    great plug in,

    how would you code this to use in the main navigation of K2. it would solve many problems!
    Thanks

    Ronan

  • Comment by burak
    Date: November 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Thanks for that great plugin. The code, that you gave as an answer for the transparenc stuff, does not work. so.addParam(”wmode”,”transparent”);
    so.write(”flash_title_’.$flash_title_id.’”);

    I need that transparency and a little donation is on the way. Thanks.

  • Comment by burak
    Date: November 20th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Do you still work on this plugin?

  • Comment by chuck
    Date: November 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 am

    does not work in IE!! why why why i hate internet EXPLODER!!!

    how can i fix this? please advise..

  • Comment by Fred Snelling
    Date: November 28th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

    Hi Sam,
    Great plugin, but will not work after upgrade 2.6.5 please help.
    Thank you

    <?php if(function_exists(’wp_flash_titles’)){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,’start’)} ?><h3 id=”post-”><a href=”" rel=”bookmark” title=”"><?php if(function_exists(’wp_flash_titles’)){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,’end’)} ?>

  • Comment by Fred Snelling
    Date: November 29th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Hi Sam;
    Can you please look at my code and tell what wrong? Thank you

    ID,’start’)} ?><h3 id=”post-”><a href=”" rel=”bookmark” title=”">ID,’end’)} ?>
    By

  • Comment by steve
    Date: November 30th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    hi there,
    having the same problem since upgrading to 2.6.5
    anyone know how to fix that?

    cheers,
    steve

  • Comment by Ieso Nagata
    Date: February 17th, 2009 at 6:26 pm

    great!
    but not all characters are displayed , like “çãêó”, i’m using UTF8 (pt_BR)! then was desabled, THX

    i don’t know how many hardy can be to put thumbnails to fonts example at the options pages, or include a image with, then they don’t need to choose font by font to make the choice!
    just a suggestion…
    THX anyway!

  • Comment by Fabio
    Date: July 23rd, 2009 at 1:44 am

    Hey! nice plugin, comon upgrade to Wordpress 2.8.2 core… and the plugin doens’t work with Latin accents “áéíóúç” maybe a charset problem can easily fix that.

    Cheers

  • Comment by Michelle
    Date: July 30th, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    This is what we’ve been looking for, but is it possible to have a transparent background?

  • Comment by Eno
    Date: August 27th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Hi,
    Great plugin, but it doesn’t work well using Internet Explorer as browser.
    Any fix soling that . . .?

    Thanks

Leave a Comment

WP Flash Titles Plugin

Date: 15th February 2008 at 11:53 pm | Filed under: development, flash, plugins, wordpress | Author: Sam Burdge

This Plugin has been updated to version 2.0

This WordPress plugin allows you to display your post titles in any font, colour and size you want using Flash. It will also retain your original html styling of your titles and display that to users who don't have Flash installed. It is fully customisable via the Options tab in wordpress. It is search engine friendly and easy to implement.

Example:

I am happy with my WordPress theme as it is, so I have set up this example page for you to see the Flash Titles in action: {{post id="wp-flash-title-plugin-example-page" text="WP Flash Titles Example Page" target="_self"}}

Installation:

  1. Upload the wp_flash_titles folder to your wp-content/plugins folder.
  2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins page.

Usage:

  1. Go to Options -> WP Flash Titles to choose your font, size and colour scheme for your titles.
  2. You need to modify your template file slightly. First you need to locate the code that relates to the post title. This will typically be something like:
    <h3 class="storytitle" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
    <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">
    <?php the_title(); ?>
    </a>
    </h3>
  3. You then need to add two lines of code. First paste this line in directly before the page title code:
    <?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles')){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,'start')} ?>
  4. Then this line directly after:
    <?php if(function_exists('wp_flash_titles')){wp_flash_titles($post->ID,'end')} ?>
  5. To embed any font you want you must have Flash CS3. Open the source file 'wp_flash_title.fla' which is located in the 'Source' folder of the plugin. In flash simply change the font of the text area to any font you wish. Do a 'Save As' and then publish the swf. Once you have created the swf you must upload it to the folder: wp-content/plugins/wp_flash_titles/flash
    It will now appear in the list of fonts in the Options -> WP Flash Titles page!!

Download Plugin:

Version 1 Beta is no longer available. Please visit the WP Flash Titles 2.0 page to download the new version.

21 Responses to “WP Flash Titles Plugin”

  • Comment by Brewskie
    Date: February 17th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    I am amazed at how nice this looks on my site!

    http://www.criticalreactor.com

    It looks as though I am using a custom font. But one that everybody can see.

    Thanks for your time you put into this. Good job!

    One small question however. Are there any free apps that can edit .fla files? Flash is pretty expensive :)

    Again..good job on this :)

  • Comment by Brewskie
    Date: February 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm

    A small wish list:

    Animations.

    Like animate on load, hover , click etc.

    More fonts :)

    An option to have more than one instance. This would allow a cutsom logo/banner or whatever.

    Widgetized.

    This would allow flash anims for the blocks in the sidebars. Either for the title of the block or the whole content of them.

    By using flash for the sidebars there's a lot of cool things you can do. Like tabbed blocks :)

    Thanks again for this :)

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: February 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pm

    Hi Brewskie
    Thanks for your comments. The Flash Titles really look great on your site! I have plans to add some of the features you mentioned for a future release and also have some more Flash based plugins in the pipeline… As for free apps that can edit fla files, I’m not sure sorry
    Cheers,
    Sam

  • Comment by Erik Tiekstra
    Date: February 21st, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    Hi,I hope to be able to like your plugin, I just can't seem to download it. Also from the Wordpress plugin site the fla is missing..?!Could you help with that?/Erik

  • Comment by Brewskie
    Date: February 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    Something strange happened.

    I went to make a small correction to the dimensions of the flash and when I saved the whole thing went blank. As in nothing was saved and it reverted to empty boxes in the admin.

    I haven't installed any other plugins since this one so I know it couldn't be the problem.

    I've been playing around with it for a while but I really can't figure out what would cause this behavior.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks!

  • Comment by Carnevalle
    Date: February 25th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    I'm having som problems with this plugin. First of, my installation is not in the root-directory, so the document_root path to the flash-directory is not working. But this is an easy fix.

    The bigger issue is, that at first it is working and displaying the flash titles, but if I try to edit the configuration it goes blank and there is no way back. What could the problem be?

  • Comment by kike
    Date: March 1st, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    It would be great to change also the link from the sidebar, I have some errors, the titles dont show and in the admin when I put update does not show anything, I have the latest version of wordpress. Please answer on my mail, thanks enrique from Argentine

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: March 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    A note to all users who have had dificulty using the plugin:

    1. Check folder and file permissions - refer to this article WP Digi Clock Plugin - Folder and file permissions - I know this relates to another plugin, but the principles are the same.
    2. If your wordpress is not installed in the root directory you may have problems using the plugin, unfortunately you may have to wait until the next release of the plugin for these issues to be resolved, sorry for the inconvenience.

    I hope this helps some of you.

    Sam

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: March 2nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    Brewskie - try a fresh install of the plugin and see if that resolves the prob?
    Sam

  • Comment by Gilbert Purtee, Jr.
    Date: March 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    Cant update   goes blank perm set correct cant get it to work

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: March 23rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm

    Hi Gilbert
    Can you give me some more info please? What platform is your server running?
    Sam

  • Comment by stephen
    Date: April 13th, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    I also get the disappearing prefs I am afraid. It seems to set all values to blank and thus no titles appear on my blog if enabled.

    As for platform info, I am not entirely sure what you mean, but I am running wordpress 2.5 on php 5.2.3, Linux 2.4.3, Apache 2.0.61…if you want the full phpinfo, I can send it to you.

    Thanks!

  • Comment by Johno
    Date: April 16th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

    Not working in IE7, but then I can’t get sIFR to work at all with IE7, Any ideas?

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 17th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Hi Johno

    Might seem obvious but, do you have flash installed / Javascript enabled in your browser?

    I’m not that familiar with sIFR, but my plugin works on a similar basis.

    Sam

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 17th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Note to all users of this plugin. The new version is coming soon (within the next couple of weeks. There will be new fonts and new options available. The disappearing preferences some users have been experiencing will also become a thing of the past!

    Sam

  • Comment by Sam Burdge
    Date: April 22nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    Version 2.0 is here. Hopefully any problems with version 1 have been resolved. Thanks to all commenters for your feedback.
    Sam

  • Comment by Anthony
    Date: May 12th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    Hi Sam,
    Your plugin works very great !
    But I want to know if there is a solution to have a relative height (for example 100%) for the block, ans not a fixed height. It’s because sometimes my titles are in three lines, ans sometimes in one single, and it display a white space after short titles… I hope you’ll undersand my request !
    Anthony (french blogger)

  • Comment by kit
    Date: August 7th, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    having similar issues with it not showing up in IE7. anyone find a fix yet?

  • Comment by kit
    Date: August 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

    ok so i found that if i empty my cache and load a page it works no problem, but as soon as i go to another page it disappears and won’t show up until i empty my cache again. PLEASE helP!

  • Comment by Sean
    Date: May 29th, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    Any new updates on this. I can’t seem to get it working for my site with the new version of wordpress.

  • Comment by Titi
    Date: August 2nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    Hi,

    thanks for this great plugin!
    I’ve the same problem what Kit, under internet explorer (work fine under firefox), the titles disapears when i go to another page. Any idea?

Leave a Comment

WP Flash Title Plugin - Example Page

Date: 15th February 2008 at 10:42 pm | Filed under: blog | Author: Sam Burdge

As you can see from the above title this plugin allows you to embed any font you want, using any colour scheme you choose. Boom!

This is a screengrab from the WP Flash Titles Options page in WordPress, where you are able to select the font, colour, mouseover / hover colour, background colour, font-size, width and height for your Flash Titles.

{{post id="wp-flash-titles-plugin" text="Back to WP Flash Titles post"}}

WP Flash Title Plugin Options - Screengrab

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