After an instant messenger discussion with another blogger (who I won't mention out of respect), it dawned on me that there are more than just a few people confused about using the built-in plugin and theme editors for WordPress. A simple question: When you try to use one of the editors, do you see "If this file were writable you could edit it." below the edit box?

A lot of plugin and theme authors seem to forget that only some blog authors are familiar with flavors of Linux, BSD or UNIX (and other non-Windows platforms). The line I mentioned can be confusing to someone who isn't familiar at all with permissions. Perhaps something as simple as a quick paragraph to explain permissions should be included with all plugins and themes, not just some of them.

If your server is on a Windows machine, or you're not self-hosted, none of what I'm going to tell you will apply to you right now. It might, however, apply to you if you move your blog to one of the aforementioned platforms.

This is what I do when I add a theme or a plugin (that has its own directory). I use an FTP program (like Filezilla) to upload the whole directory to the server under the appropriate directories. Then I check to make sure the new subdirectory has a permission of 755 (777 works too, but I won't go into details on permissions). Some FTP clients let you use the CHMOD option from a right click menu. Filezilla has a box of checkboxes and you click the appropriate ones until you get the desired permission in the box at the bottom.

The next thing I do is change the permissions for each of the files in those directories to 666. Once I've completed that, each and every file within the specified plugin or theme directory is editable by WordPress. Sounds simple right? It is if you've done it once or twice. If you've never done it before it might as well be Greek.