How to fix the DealDotCom WordPress Plugin

DealDotCom is a new website where you can buy today’s item, usually technology related such as a book on web design or programming. The deals are usually a good deal with a nice percent off each.

Affiliates can also sign up to sell the items and get a nice chunk (35%) in commission. So it’s a great deal if you can sell a few things.

BlueFur webhosting came out with a WordPress plugin to make this process a little easier. The plugin will automatically place a banner on your website for the deal of the day. It is customizable by letting you select the text color and border color, whether it be graphical or text.

Well, not totally automatic. You must place:
< ?php dealdotcom(); ?>

Within one of your files first. Then head to your WordPress control panel and set up your colors.

The problem with the plugin is that there are still some bugs with the CSS. I also hate the fact that it uses tables, but that is another story…

Anyway, the plugin makes use of html tags for font color, which has problems with the html’s hierarchy. The file is suppose to use the same text color you write within the control panel for all of the text, even the links. However, it just uses the color of all links on the page instead, which can cause problems since most people will be putting the plugin in the sidebar and some sidebars aren’t white (including mine).

To edit the plugin so the link color will be the same as the color you set within the control panel:

Open dealdotcom.php
Scroll down to line 48:

<td><div align='center'><font color='#$fcolour'><b><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow'>DealDotCom</a></b></font></div></td>

and to edit:

<td><div align='center'><font color='#$fcolour'><b><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow' style='color:#$fcolour'>DealDotCom</a></b></font></div></td>

Go to line 51:

<td><div align='center'><font color='#$fcolour'><b><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow'>Price $$price</a></b></font></div></td>

Edit to:

<td><div align='center'><b><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow' style='color:#$fcolour'>Price $$price</a></b></div></td>

Go to line 54:

<td><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow'><div align='center'><font color='#$fcolour'><b>Buy It Now!</b></font></div></a></td>

Edit to:

<td><div align='center'><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow' style='color:#$fcolour'><b>Buy It Now!</b></a></div></td>

Go to line 65:

<p><strong><a href='$alink' rel='nofollow' style='color:#$fcolour'>Price $$price</a></strong><br /></p>

Note: This is fixing the bare minimum. If you want the file to be complete CSS, hate tables or want all self-closing tags, more work is needed.

Now just upload the file and everything is fixed! The colors should act exactly how they are suppose to and you have a nifty plugin which shows DealDotCom deals of the day.

Download DealDotCom WordPress Plugin

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