I like to break things

Updated

Not very long ago I wrote a post that mentioned my favorite WordPress plugins. I wrote that post because I saw some folks who might need some help doing simple tasks, like creating clickable footnotes in their blog posts. I left a couple of comments mentioning WP-Footnotes¹ to these fine folks, because I’m all kinds of helpful like that. They were going through the trouble of coding in a ^{footnote with a superscript} and then adding a _{subscript at the bottom of the page}. Of course, the bottom of the page may have also been a <sup> — I don’t know because I didn’t actually look at the source page. I just know that they used one or the other. I think that my this plugin is a way better way to do that. — changed it because it’s not my plugin, though it is easily my favorite.

Look at the footnote indicator right there ↑². Now click it. What happens? It’s freakin’ awesome. No more scrolling back and forth to see what the hell is going on. Of course, to get that same effect without the plugin, you can add an in-page link. But that’s a real pain in the ass. Like this [back] Why create that much more work for yourself?

The footnotes plugin does all that much more beautifully and all you have to do is hit spacebar, put double parenthesis (( around whatever it is you want to define/add to your footnote ))³, hit the spacebar again and then finish whatever it was that you were saying. Easy as that.

I look in my reader today and what do I see? The same people I told about the WP-Footnotes using <sup> and <sub> still. Le sigh. You know, if you’re going to load up your site with so many plugins and gadgets that your site gets bogged down from all the scripts running then how about using a useful plugin? Especially if it’s going to save work for you and make your markup a little bit neater.

There is one caveat though: the links in WP-Footnotes don’t work in a reader. They’re styled, of course, but they’re not clickable. So, there’s that.

Need help installing it?

1. Go to your plugin page in the admin panel
2. Click “Add New”
3. Click “install now” and then click “yes” when the alert box asks you if you really want to do it.
4. Click “Activate”
5. Go to the WP-Footnote page in your “Settings” menu
6. Follow the directions
7. Use the double parenthesis around whatever text you want to be footnoted (is that a word?)
8. Finish your post

And, finally, when someone who’s been using WordPress for 6 years tells you about a bomb-diggity plugin that will make your job easier, well… duh.

So endeth the lesson.

By the way, I found this awesome footnote at Poliblog a few years ago⁴. I find lots of interesting stuff from other bloggers. I’m just sayin’.

^{It’s clickable too. But such a pain. And then you have to code a new “Go back” link by that little “tip” section (or whatever you want to all it) and…ugh. See? Pain in the ass.}

Update:

Kelly tells me that if you hover over the footnote link in the reader then you can read the text without jumping to the bottom. Awesome sauce! I did not know that. So, I checked there (and noticed my stupid typos) and hovered over the links here. Guess what? It’s the same thing! No need to click at all. Hot diggity!

1. Which should be downloaded from the Codex but the manual is here. [↩]
2. See that? Wheee!!! Click the little arrow to get back to where you were. [↩]
3. I hard coded those parenthesis so you can see what I’m talking about there. [↩]
4. Though Dr. Taylor could really benefit from a pagination plugin. Clicking “nextpage” is so Web 1.0 [↩]