02 April 2009

Using Favicon for your Blog or Website (Part 2)

The Best 5 Free WordPress Plugins to Enable Favicon on your Blog

In our previous publication we explained how you can create custom Favicons to be used as your trademark for you blog. The next step would be activating it. The related action plan will be different for various blogging platforms. In this post, we will present several plugins to enable Favicon for your WordPress blog.
As a first step of your activation process, you have to upload Favicon you generated earlier to your blog directory, for example, http://localhost/blog/, or you can keep it in one of your free image storage location, when the link to the image is handy for the further processes. As the next step, you can use one of the free Wordpress plugins to create a link to it from the header of the Wordpress blog pages and administrative console.

faVicon is a simple and easy to use plugin, creating a new options menu. After downloading faVicon.zip, unzip the contents and upload them to your wp-content/plugins Wordpress directory (you do not need to upload all images file - they provided only for examples). Then, navigate to the plugins page in the Wordpress administrative console and press Activate.

As plugin is activated, in the top navigation bar of your administrative console, click on Options. Then, in the sub menu thatappears, click on faVicon. An options page will then appear. In the text boxes labeled Favicon URL, Animated Favicon (GIF) URL, Admin Panel Favicon (GIF) URL, enter the web address of your desired favicons.

Favicon Head is a simple way to automatically include correct tags for linking to your favicon in the head of every page in your blog. No file editing is required, you only have to upload the file to the plugin directory and activate it. The default favicon location is favicon.ico, but can be changed through the options page.

Installation Steps:
  • Download Favicon Head 1.1.
  • Unzip the file and upload it to wp-content/plugins/.
  • Click the “Plugins” tab in the WP admin panel and activate Favicon Head.
  • Go to the “Options” tab and click the “Favicon Head” sub-page in order to change the favicon location from /favicon.ico.
Features:
  • Animated favicon support
  • Custom favicon location
  • Works in WordPress 1.5 and 2.
Admin Favicon is a very simple plugin, creating a link to a shortcut icon, or favicon, into the header of the WordPress administrative console. After downloading adminfavicon.zip, unzip it’s contents and upload them to your wp-content/plugins WordPress directory (you do not need to upload wpfavicon.ico). If you wish to use the sample WordPress favicon provided, upload wpfavicon.ico into the location of your choosing on your server. Then, navigate to the plugins page in the WordPress administrative console and press “Activate”.

This plugin creates a new options menu. Just navigate to “Settings.” Then, in the sub menu that appears, click on “Admin Favicon”. An options page will then appear. In the text box labeled “Favicon URL”, enter the web address of your desired favicon. If you uploaded the sample wpfavicon.ico, enter it’s location on your server here. Otherwise, use your own favicon image. Typically, this will be an ico file that you’ve created and uploaded to your server. For example, if you’ve uploaded favicon.ico to your main website address, you would enter http://www.MyMainWebsiteAddress.com/favicon.ico

Favicon Manager Wordpress Plugin is a small plugin that allows you to manage the favicon image for your WordPress installation. You can specify any arbitrary file, either locally within your installation, or at an arbitrary url. You can also optionally have the image included in either your RSS2 or your Atom feeds, or both. All options can be set from the new options menu in the administration panel. There is no editing of any files required.

Installation steps:
  1. Download the zipped file to your plugins directory and unpack. You should have a new directory containing the favicon manager files now.
  2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins panel.
  3. Set your favicon location and your feed options from the Options->Favicons menu of the Administration panel.
Features
This is a drop in plugin, there are no additional files to set because it’s all done through the administration panel under Options->Favicons. Once you set your favicon location, it will display below the input field. This helps you determine quickly whether or not you entered your favicon location correctly without having to go refresh other browser windows or tabs to see if it worked. Note that this plugin will only work with WordPress 2.0 and above.

MaxBlogPress Favicon Wordpress Plugin allows you use the preset collection of the embedded favicons, or gives option to link to the image in the blog directory or on the external website. Installation can be completed in three easy steps.

Step 1: Install the plugin and go to: Options >> MBP Favicon
Step 2: Click on the icon which you want to use as favicon:
Step 3: Click on save

Note that when you first activate the plugin you will be asked to register it, which signs you up to an email list which you then have to confirm your subscription to. Upon clicking the confirmation link you are then directed to a page that is trying to sell you some blog traffic package. You’ll need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to select “no thanks”.

On the following video, Caroline Middlebrook gives a nice video presentation of the plugin installation:


MaxBlogPress WordPress Plugin to install Favicon

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