If you use Facebook’s generator here, you’ll get some content very similar to mine:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fcordobo.com%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:500px; height:60px"></iframe>

Note: I highlighted the parts I replace in the next step

This would be fine, if you had only one page on your website, as the plugin only shows the url you have entered in the generator – no dynamic pages. So here’s how you can add some dynamic flavour to your new button:

Replace the following code

[…]like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fcordobo.com%2F

with

[…]like.php?href=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>

insert it into your theme’s single.php and upload it to your server.

The final code, ready for copy & paste

This is the final code you can use in your own WordPress installation without further modifications (except the width and height). Insert it into your single.php and upload the modified file to your server.

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=500&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:500px; height:60px"></iframe>

Note: I highlighted the parts I replaced

In case you use some caching plugin, clear the cache and see the magic as it happens.

If you like it, click on “like” ;-)

The really simple solution we came up is resource-friendly while he can keep all of his links. Most probably the best thing of this simple usage of WordPress functions: it’s entirely based on WordPress’ template tags and there is no need for another plugin.

WordPress Template Tags

Our weapon of choice is the wp_list_bookmarks template tag. It comes in handy if you use a new WordPress theme as starting point, which already uses this tag. If not, now it’s the time to get rid of deprecated tags like get_links() or get_links_list().

To start, open the file where your link-list is located, most probably sidebar.php or footer.php. The default usage for wp_list_bookmarks is:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(); ?>

Useful parameters: limit and orderby

Remember, we need to limit the output because of the new design while still giving link-love to all of our blog-friends. To achieve this goal, we applied two parameters to the tag:

limit and orderby.

The Function

These two parameters combined provide us with the limited set of randomized links we need. Seven randomized links fit into the available space, so here is the final template tag with two parameters applied:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks('limit=7&orderby=rand'); ?>

Jupp, it’s remarkably simple, but it works exactly as intended.