Once you begin populating the fields, your changes are reflected in the code window. As you may notice, the URLs you’re Pinning will need to be URL encoded.

In order to implement this code generation in WordPress, we’ll get the URL of the webpage the pin is on using

<?php echo urlencode( get_permalink() ); ?>

The URL of the image to be pinned using the post’s thumbnail

<?php echo urlencode( wp_get_attachment_thumb_url( get_post_thumbnail_id() ) ); ?>

And for the optional Description of the Pin, we’ll use the post’s title

<?php echo urlencode( get_the_title() ); ?>

When we put it all together, here’s what the relevant excerpt of our loop-single.php will look like. If you want to include the Pin Count along with the “Pin It” button, you can change the count-layout attribute to either horizontal or vertical.

<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?>
     <a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink()); ?>&media=<?php echo urlencode(wp_get_attachment_thumb_url(get_post_thumbnail_id())); ?>&description=<?php echo urlencode( get_the_title()); ?>" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="none">Pin It</a>
     <script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script>
</h1>

<div class="entry-meta">
<?php twentyten_posted_on(); ?>
</div><!-- .entry-meta -->

One of the most eye catching features of twentyeleven are it’s header images, but if you really want to make the theme your own, you may want to remove the stock header images in favor of your own. Today we will do just that as we continue to explore customizing twentyeleven via a child theme.

First, let’s see how twentyeleven loads it’s header images. Here is a portion of twentyeleven’s functions.php, abbreviated for brevity.

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'twentyeleven_setup' );

if ( ! function_exists( 'twentyeleven_setup' ) ):
...
function twentyeleven_setup() {
...
    register_default_headers( array(
        'wheel' => array(
            'url' => '%s/images/headers/wheel.jpg',
            'thumbnail_url' => '%s/images/headers/wheel-thumbnail.jpg',
            /* translators: header image description */
            'description' => __( 'Wheel', 'twentyeleven' )
        ),
...
    ) );
}
endif; // twentyeleven_setup

By looking at this, we know the headers are loaded with register_default_headers, in the twentyeleven_setup function, which is had been added to the after_theme_setup hook via add_action.

Since the twentyeleven_setup() function has other goodies we want to keep, rather than rewrite the entire function, we create our own function to unregister_default_headers, and add it to the same after_theme_setup hook with a higher priority (the default is 10) so it will run after than the parent function.

Here we edit (or create) our child theme’s functions.php

<?php
function remove_default_headers() {
        unregister_default_headers(
                array(
                        'wheel',
                        'shore',
                        'trolley',
                        'pine-cone',
                        'chessboard',
                        'lanterns',
                        'willow',
                        'hanoi'
                )
        );
}

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'remove_default_headers', 11 );
?>

Note: If you are uncertain of which action is best to hook into, you should refer to the Plugin API/Action Reference at the WordPress Codex.

Now, when you browse the header section in the dashboard, you should be greeted with the following

Now that all of the default headers are gone, we can edit our child theme’s functions.php to add our own header. In this example, we’ve copied our header and a thumbnail, into images/headers under the child theme’s directory.
i.e.
twentyeleven-child/images/headers/header.jpg
and
twentyeleven-child/images/headers/header-thumbnail.jpg

<?php
function remove_default_headers() {
    unregister_default_headers(
        array(
            'wheel',
            'shore',
            'trolley',
            'pine-cone',
            'chessboard',
            'lanterns',
            'willow',
            'hanoi'
        )
    );
    register_default_headers( array(
        'tgcheader' => array(
            'url' => get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/images/headers/header.jpg',
            'thumbnail_url' => get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/images/headers/header-thumbnail.jpg',
            /* translators: header image description */
            'description' => __( 'tgcheader', 'twentyeleven-child' )
        )
    ) );
}

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'remove_default_headers', 11 );
?>

You should also note how we’re using get_stylesheet_directory_uri() to refer to our child theme’s path, instead of %s, which would reference the parent theme’s path.

Others have pointed out viable solutions, however I wanted to stick to best practices and keep my parent theme unmodified.

Here I will explore how to add the sidebar to a twentyeleven child theme in only half a dozen lines of code.

Note: More information on creating a child theme can be found here.

We’ll begin by adding the sidebar back to your posts, by copying single.php to our child theme and modifying it.

            </div><!-- #content -->
        </div><!-- #primary -->

<?php get_footer(); ?>

Add the get_sidebar() function directly above get_footer() like so

            </div><!-- #content -->
        </div><!-- #primary -->

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

The same can be done for page.php if you want the sidebar to appear on your pages as well.

Now, the other tutorials I’ve seen advise you to edit twentyeleven’s functions.php and comment out the remove_twentyeleven_body_classes() function and it’s accompanying add_action(). You can certainly do so, but it goes against best practices, and you risk losing your modifications if you update twentyeleven.

In your child theme, create or modify your functions.php to contain the following.

<?php
function remove_twentyeleven_body_classes() {
    remove_filter( 'body_class', 'twentyeleven_body_classes' );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'remove_twentyeleven_body_classes' );
?>

Here we are removing the filter that is added in twentyeleven’s functions.php, but since the child theme’s files are processed prior to the parents, simply removing the filter is not adequate and would be overridden by the parent function. As a result we need to add an action to remove the filter during the after_setup_theme action.

Save your files, and assuming it wasn’t already, activate the theme.
That’s it. Now you have your sidebar.

… +1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking …

and if that isn’t enough, consider the limited Field Trial of Google+ already reaching an estimated user base between 10 and 20 million, adding a +1 button to your content becomes even more important.

While there are plugins that exist to add +1 buttons to your WordPress blog, I will explain how to modify your theme and add the +1 button without using plugins.

Note: If you are modifying themes, you should do so using child themes. Child themes help to preserve your modifications during upgrades, and make backing out your changes easier if you break something.

Begin by adding the script tag, just prior to your closing body tag in footer.php.

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Next, if you want to add the +1 button to your single posts, edit loop-single.php, you’ll want to decide where to place the button, in this example it will appear immediately to the right of the post title.

<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?> <g:plusone></g:plusone></h1>

<div class="entry-meta">
<?php twentyten_posted_on(); ?>
</div><!-- .entry-meta -->

Note the added plusone tag

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

As WordPress (since 2.9) provides a canonical link element it is not necessary to include the href attribute.

However, if you want to include +1 outside of a single post/page, like in loop.php, where the canonical link is not helpful, you can use the following.

<?php /* How to display all other posts. */ ?>

        <?php else : ?>
                <div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>>
                        <h2 class="entry-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php printf( esc_attr__( 'Permalink to %s', 'twentyten' ), the_title_attribute( 'echo=0' ) ); ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a> <g:plusone href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" ></g:plusone></h2>

                        <div class="entry-meta">
                                <?php twentyten_posted_on(); ?>
                        </div><!-- .entry-meta -->

Note the added plusone tag

<g:plusone href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" ></g:plusone>

For further customization, such as button size and the exclusion of counts, please refer to the Google +1 documentation.

Fortunately, this has allowed me to discover one of the more useful options, the results only layout. With this option and a few minor modifications, you will be able to leverage Google’s search with your existing WordPress search box.

So to begin, if haven’t done so already, create your own custom search engine. I’ll leave it to you to decide on the name, description, sites to index, etc. and focus on the settings that impact you integrating your custom search into WordPress.

First, when you’re creating (or editing) the look and feel of your custom search, you will want to chose the results only layout. Here you can also customize your style or chose from one on those Google provides.

Next you’ll want to get the code necessary to display the search results in your blog. While there is probably little reason to change the query parameter name from the default of q, if you do, make sure you don’t use s as it’s used for WordPress’ built in search. Copy your generated code into the clipboard.

Next, you will want to add a new page to your blog. Here the title is less significant than the permalink, which for this example will be named google-cse. Paste the generated code into this page, disable comments, and publish it.

Note: You may want to create your own page template for the search results page to remove the title, authorship, etc.
Note 2: If you have auto-generated menus that include your pages, you will likely want to customize them to exclude your search results page.

Finally, you will want to edit your WordPress theme’s searchform.php. If this does not exist, you can create it. I removed theme specific function calls for this example, but you can adjust this as you see fit. The most important parts are the action, which must point to the permalink of the search results page we just created, and the name and id which must match the query parameter name we previously chose, in this case Google’s default q.

<form method="get" id="searchform" action="/google-cse/">
<label for="q" class="assistive-text">Search</label>
<input type="text" class="field" name="q" id="q"/>
<input type="submit" class="submit" id="searchsubmit"/>
</form>

Note 3: Since we are now using the query parameter of q, if your theme decorates the search form with css (as twentyeleven does) some modifications may be necessary. CSS entries referencing #s will have to be changed to #q. For exmaple

input#s {
    background: url(images/search.png) no-repeat 5px 6px;
    -moz-border-radius: 2px;
    border-radius: 2px;
    font-size: 14px;
    height: 22px;
    line-height: 1.2em;
    padding: 4px 10px 4px 28px;
}

Will have to be modified to

input#q {
    background: url(images/search.png) no-repeat 5px 6px;
    -moz-border-radius: 2px;
    border-radius: 2px;
    font-size: 14px;
    height: 22px;
    line-height: 1.2em;
    padding: 4px 10px 4px 28px;
}

Note 4: If you are modifying themes, you should do so using child themes. Child themes help to preserve your modifications during upgrades, and make backing out your changes easier if you break something.