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Recent Reader Plugin

January 22, 2006 By

Yesterday, I wrote another WordPress Plugin. This one produces a sidebar link list of recent readers. Earlier in the week, I mentioned that the only way I could be sure you are a reader is if you left a comment. This plugin retrieves the author name and link from recent comments in the blog. It defaults to 30 days, but it can be changed to as low as 1 day or as high as you want within reason (eg. 365 but not 36500). By default, it also shows the # comments by the reader within the number of days specified.

Since we have comment moderation turned on, if you haven’t commented here before, you won’t be able to see your name show up as soon as you comment. But, if you have commented here (since we switched to WordPress), included your url with the comment and your name is not currently on the list, your name should be appear on the list after you have commented. The plugin does not list commentors who do not leave a URL.

Because most bloggers love comments, the plugin sorts the links with the person with the most comments at the top and within the same number of comments alphabetically. You can download the plugin here. The plugin includes the recent comments plugin as well.

Filed Under: Site News, wordpress

Stylin’

January 21, 2006 By

I haven’t made the time to write a succinct blog entry today. I had it in mind when I sat down earlier this afternoon. What I got caught up in was re-styling the WordPress 2.0 Admin Panel. Being an unschooler at heart, I mostly didn’t give up on it until I had most of it done. Andrea and I had discussed working away at changing it over the next couple weeks. And she had started it yesterday. Supper or something had interferred with the whole process. While it was still usable, the panel wasn’t very Ron-friendly for writing. I did those 3 posts last night. But today, the thought of using it again just got me all distracted ;)

Anyway, here is the original panel where you would write an entry in WP 2.0:

The original admin panel

And here is the new version: (It’s worth noting that I only changed the stylesheet.)

The new admin panel

Unofficial poll: Which one is easier on the eyes?

Filed Under: HTML and CSS, Site News, wordpress

Recent Comments Plugin

January 20, 2006 By

Yesterday, I modified the recent comments plugin (by Nick Momrik) for WordPress. I had been using it with the default parameters and earlier this week I wrote a couple of entries where I linked internally to a number of entries. The internal pingbacks occupied most of the list.

The new version is backward compatible (i.e. if you replace Nick’s version with this one and make no changes to your template, it will produce the same results as Nick’s). The functionality I have added is the option to exclude pingbacks (and trackbacks) and/or comments you have left in your own blog from the recent comments list. I have included instructions for usage in the comments at the top of the plugin.

You can download the plugin here.

Filed Under: Site News, wordpress

RSS Feed

January 20, 2006 By

Our RSS feed has changed due to the upgrade. You will have to resubscribe.

Filed Under: Site News, wordpress

Blog Upgrade

January 19, 2006 By

We are upgrading WordPress to 2.0 tonight. If you experience any issues with display, just give us a few minutes. We’re not starting it immediately.

The upgrade will not affect Andrea’s blog, the forum or gallery :)

We’ll update this when we are done.

Update: All done at 9:45. We had to play with a few things after that. :) It was fun!

Filed Under: Site News, wordpress

Modifying WordPress Plugins

January 18, 2006 By

We have a fair number of readers who use WordPress and I thought it would be worthwhile to share a few tips on modifying plugins that are already in use. The reason this is somewhat pertinent at the current time is due to interruption earlier today. Had I followed the steps I’m going to describe, I would not have had to make that post :) .

  1. The first thing to do is disable the plugin in your template. To do this you look under Presentation->Theme Editor in the admin panel. The list of links on the right hand side of the page is the list of files included in the site. If the plugin adds something to your sidebar, then the file you need to edit is likely your Sidebar Template. The call to the plugin will be found between a <?php tag and a ?> tag. For example, <?php get_most_commented(); ?> produces the most commented info. If you change it to look like this: <?php /* get_most_commented(); */ ?>, then the plugin will not get called (and whatever changes you make through steps 2 to 4 will not affect what visitors to your site will see).
  2. Next, deactivate the plugin through the admin panel: Plugins->Plugins.
  3. Make your planned changes to the plugin and save your changes. I was upgrading a plugin to a more recent version.
  4. Activate the plugin. If the admin panel gives error messages when it does this, go back to step #2.
  5. Remove the /* and */ from your template and save.
  6. Use the View Site link to verify that the plugin is working ok. If it is not then go back to step #1.

Starting at step #3 doesn’t always work out the way you had hoped ;)

Filed Under: Tutorials, wordpress

Creating a Banner Image

December 11, 2005 By

I’ll take you through the steps I followed in creating the poinsetta banner image and explain how I chose the colours for the ‘Atypical Christmas’ WordPress Theme.

The only tool I used was The Gimp. I edited the Cascading Style Sheet using the WordPress admin panel and edited the theme ‘live’ (look under Presentation->Theme Editor->Stylesheet).
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Filed Under: GIMP, HTML and CSS, wordpress
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