Thanks to Pinterest, many websites think it’s cool to provide the ability to infinitely scroll down a page. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a variety of tutorials that explain how you can add this functionality to WordPress themes. However, I’m wondering if this is just one of those trends that will go away once Pinterest dies off. For sites such as Pinterest where it makes sense to have an infinite scroll, does it make sense to have that functionality on a regular blog or any other type of website? There is one issue that was brought up within one of the tutorials that I read that mentioned that this technique if done improperly would not scale well. However, Pinterest appears to be doing just fine and they are generating millions of pageviews a week.
What about pagination? If infinite scroll is introduced to a website, does that negate the need to even have traditional pagination? I would hope so considering I’d hate to be limited to viewing the archive of posts by wearing out my scroll wheel. What are your thoughts on the infinite scroll?
WPBeginner has published an article that explains how they used the WP Favorite Posts plugin to give one of their clients a “personalized library” for their users which allowed them to favorite videos that they could watch repeatedly. In the article, they also explain how to use the plugin to provide that same personalized experience for your own site so that registered users or non-registered users could favorite specific posts that they could access later. It’s a cool plugin but upon reading the directions on how to display the favorite option within specific pages or posts, I was sent back into time because in order to accomplish that task, you need to add specific code to certain template files such as page.php, single.php, etc. I thought that practice of adding plugin functionality was gone but I guess not.
It was announced earlier today that that BuddyPress 1.5.5 is now available for download. This is considered a maintenance release which addresses 14 issues, some of which are security related. Congrats to the team and I hope you had a blast at WordCamp Netherlands Paul Gibbs.
Plugin authors need to take serious notice of a recent phishing attack that is aimed specifically at plugin authors. Ipstenu, one of the volunteer WordPress.org support forum moderators has published a forum thread warning others that responding to the email wouldn’t be a good idea. The way in which this phishing attack works is pretty interesting. After clicking on the link within the email to check on your plugins status, you are then taken to a site that looks very similar to WordPress.org where you’re asked to provide your password. Passwords that are given can then be used to gain unauthorized access to the account and associated plugins attached to it.
Plugin authors are encouraged not to reply to the email as well as not entering your password on the fake WordPress.org website. It’s important to note that plugins have not been removed from the repo, and if they had, the email would have come from a wordpress.org account.
You might have to jog my memory but this is the first time that I can remember where WordPress.org plugin authors were the target of a phishing scam.
As laid out by BloggingPro.com, the question is simple. Should you close comments on older blog posts? While their article goes into specific reasons as to why or why not, I’ve personally been a fan of closing comments on articles that are 180 days old. I think the bulk of the conversation that is going to take place on any particular post will be within 7 days of it being published. Therefor, I don’t feel the need to have the form open if the conversation is over with. Another major reason I opt to go this route is spam. Back when I used to write for other websites, I noticed that the majority of their spam comments were for articles buried deep within their archives. Every now and then, a legitimate comment would show up but that was the exception rather than the rule. As a site administrator, closed comments on older articles also provides an easier administrative role. Instead of wading through pages of comments caught within the Akismet queue to check for false positives, I normally have only a page or two at the most.
With that said, as a site administrator, how do you have your comments configured and why did you chose that configuration?
Ravael Angeline has a tutorial posted on WP.Tutsplus.com that covers the basics of a header.php file. This particular file is located in every WordPress theme and is essential to how a theme works. Also worthy of reading following the tutorial is a comment by Tom McFarlin. ∞
For the first time that I can remember, WordPress has been rejected from the Google Summer Of Code mentor ship program. This was an unexpected move, especially considering how WordPress has been a part of the program for the past few years. As you read through the comments of the post, quite a few people have expressed disappointment. However, if the experimental approach to WordPress development that is currently taking place with 3.4 via the aspect of teams is successful, WordPress could conduct a mini Summer Of Code event with each major release of the software, minus the big paycheck. It would also eliminate the age restriction that is currently part of the Google Summer Of Code. It’s unclear as to why WordPress was rejected but the reason is expected to be given at a meeting within the next week or so.
While Twenty Twelve has been an anticipated feature of the upcoming WordPress 3.4 release, some will be disappointed to hear that the new default theme for this year will not ship with WordPress 3.4. Instead, it will likely come with WordPress 3.5. However, if you’re interested in playing around with the theme as is, you can download the source via GitHub. While no direct reasoning was given as to why the theme was punted, I’m going to guess that because 3.4 development is already behind, it made sense to postpone it to speed up the development of everything else going into 3.4.
Theme.FM has reopened to the public with a brand new theme store. After browsing around the store for a little while, I like the overall design and how the theme information is laid out. Simple, excellent use of white space and I don’t feel overwhelmed when looking over a design. Nice job fellas. ∞
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Disclaimer Popups Using jQuery
By Jeffro on March 29, 2012
Helpful little article that explains how to use jQuery to create popups before sending an email or submitting a comment. ∞
Posted in WordPress | Tagged comments, hints, popups, tricks