Browse: Home / WordPress
Can I See Your ID?

Can I See Your ID?

By Jeffro on June 12, 2009

In one of the after shows for WordPress Weekly, I discussed with Brad Potter and Michael Torbert that I would like to see an additional column of information be added to the WordPress backend that would show the Unique ID number of a post or category. The reason being, this type of information is not available in plain site and it seems like many themes have options which require you to know the ID number of something before you can show, hide, or manipulate that data.

It’s true that the ID number can be located by simply hovering the mouse cursor over a post or category when in the backend of WordPress, but I’d like to see that information presented in plain site. Actually, I wouldn’t mind if their was a Screen Option called ID# which would show or hide the column.

The argument against this idea is that a large majority of the WordPress userbase does not need to know this information. At least, not have it available in plain site. The other argument against this idea is that, it’s not a problem until a theme or plugin requires you to know this knowledge. Last but not least, the information is readily available by hovering over a link which means you can still figure out the UID without adding UI to the backend.

So despite hearing the other side of the argument already, I wanted to throw this out there to see what you thought. As it stands, some of the more advanced themes and plugins use this UID information, so is it up to those guys to create a solution which doesn’t require me to figure out a UID for a category or post? Or, by using these more advanced plugins/themes, is it up to me to figure out that I can get the information by hovering over the link? In the end, is this a non-issue, or does it have merit?

Funny thing is, older versions of WordPress actually showed this information in plain view.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 19 Responses

June 10th The Target For 2.8

June 10th The Target For 2.8

By Jeffro on June 3, 2009

wordpresslogoIn the WordPress Developers channel on IRC today, Ryan Boren announced that the target date for the release of WordPress 2.8 is June 10th. There are a couple other things that were announced as well:

  • WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater.  This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.
  • Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to 2.9 if  MySQL < 4.1.2 is being used.  The upgrader will also issue a notice that suggests asking the host to upgrade MySQL to meet the minimum requirement.
  • In order to promote migration to PHP 5, the upgrader will suggest that those running
    PHP 4 switch to PHP 5. A link to a Codex page describing how to switch for various hosts should be provided.
  • The new weekly IRC meetup time will be every Wednesday at 9pm UTC.

As an aside, I noticed this thread in the hackers mailing list archive which contained not only a link to the 10,000th ticket to be opened and closed in Trac, but also contained a neat tidbit of trivia.

2.8 is the one with the most tickets opened (815, which if memory serves me well is the first time a milestone passes the 800 line), and more importantly with the most tickets closed (758 and counting).

Usually milestones end their lifetime with a couple dozens (if not a couple hundreds, most often) of unresolved tickets, which are then swept under the rug of the next minor or major version.

But this time, thanks to extensions to the release date (and I’m thinking also the tireless participation of external developers, among which one of the most notable is Denis de Bernardy, who devoted himself full-time to tickets-resolving ever since the 24-hour-marathon (http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/9758#comment:10), we’ve seen a steady decrease in number of open tickets, even thought this major release has seen more open tickets than any other previous release: we’re at 758 closed tickets already, and the closest to that is v2.5 with 750 closed tickets, then v2.7 with 668 closed tickets.

If you continue reading into that archived post, you’ll see that based on Xavier’s opinion, going six months without a major release proved beneficial to getting the ticket situation under control. Hopefully with 2.9 and beyond, the core devs and contributors can keep pace with the progress they have made with 2.8. I’d also like to extend Xavier’s thanks to the core developers, external developers, reviewers, testers, and people who participate in in-depth discussions to figure out the best way to solve a particular problem.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 5 Responses

To Merge Or Not To Merge?

To Merge Or Not To Merge?

By Jeffro on June 2, 2009

Well, what can I say other than plenty of other people throughout the community picked up on the same message I did from WordCamp San Francisco regarding the merging of WordPress.org and WordPress MU. In fact, there is even a slide that goes with the presentation that says: WPMU and WordPress.org … merging. After that slide was presented, take a look at what anyone paying attention saw on Twitter.

#wordcampsf WordPress MU and wordpress.org are merging. For those of you who are into MU, these must be interesting news.

WPMU and WordPress.org are merging! The codebases are being combined. (per @photomatt) #WordCamp

This was on top of all the websites that reported on the same thing announcing that perhaps by the time WordPress 3.0 would ship (speculation regarding version number) that the codebases between WordPress MU and WordPress would be merged.

Today, we learn from Lorelle on the BlogHerald.com that we possibly tuned into the wrong message. According to Lorelle:

While I’m waiting confirmation, my understanding from Matt’s announcement is that the long time home of all things WordPress, known by many as the WordPress dot org site, will become a WordPressMU site, with nothing impacting the downloadable versions of WordPress.

So, I dived into the WordPress Developers IRC channel to see if anyone had any inside knowledge on the announcement. Most of the people who responded didn’t quite have the answers I was looking for, that is until Donncha chimed in. I ended up having a little conversation with him to see if I could get the details regarding the announcement and this is what he had to say:

donncha – Sure, MU will be merged into WP. That’s basically the whole story
jeffr0 – Majority of people believe a merging of the two projects. WordPress and WordPress MU into one project with a rumored completion of WordPress 3.0. Now posts like Lorelle’s on the blogherald are creeping up suggesting no, WordPress.org will be powered by WordPress MU or something like that. No one knows anything
donncha – It’s just MU -> WP. Everything else is speculation.
jeffr0 – So WPMU becomes WP and that’s that?
donncha – basically, yes.

So how it will happen or when is still up in the air but at least it looks like most of us who jumped the gun and believed that the announcement meant the merging of both projects into one was correct. However, it will be interesting to see what Lorelle comes up with after she receives her confirmation to see if her post changes to match Donncha’s answers.

Posted in | Tagged , , | 26 Responses

Lots Of News From WordCamp San Francisco

Lots Of News From WordCamp San Francisco

By Jeffro on May 31, 2009

While WordCamp San Francisco will be in it’s second day today with the focus on developer topics, Saturday proved to be a huge day in terms of news. I was not able to attend the event but I have every intention of making WordCamp San Francisco the one event I attend in 2010. Thanks to Twitter, I was able to pick up quite a few tidbits of information from the various presentations that took place, notably, Matt’s state of the word. In no particular order, this is what I have.

WordPress And WordPress MU To Merge – Matt stated that from this day going forward, the codebases for WordPress and WordPress MU would be merged together. In what version or how this would transpire was not addressed, only that they would be merged. If you want to talk about this news, join us in the forum.

GPL Compliant Theme Developers Page – Coming soon. That’s about all I could figure out from the event. Remember when I had Matt on the show and he said that they would not be adding a commercial GPL section on the repository because it would cause confusion? Well, I think they won’t be adding them to the same repository but I believe perhaps either a separate repository will be made available to them or, a dedicated page with a listing of Matt approved commercial GPL theme developers will be published and maintained on a regular basis. This is speculation on my part so we’ll just have to see what happens. Also, many people were wondering if commercial GPL plugins will get the same treatment. Time will tell I suppose. (P.S. Don’t debate any GPL crap in the comments or I’ll delete them).

WordPress Cupcakes

Interview with Chris Pirillo discussing building community

Supposedly, all of the presentations will be published on WordPress.TV at some point.

Dave Moyer of the WordCast Podcast blew the roof off the house with his presentation regarding using WordPress to Podcast.

There will be a Blackberry app in the near future. I think we’ve hearing about this for awhile. At least since the iPhone app has been available.

WordPress.org will soon have a community center powered by BuddyPress to help propel their new community reorganization.

According to Matt, 80% of self-hosted WordPress users are now on hosts running PHP 5.

That’s about all I found. A bunch of stuff regarding certain speakers but nothing noteworthy that I could find.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 4 Responses

WordPress 2.7 User Guide In PDF

WordPress 2.7 User Guide In PDF

By Jeffro on May 26, 2009

Dave Coveney of Spectacu.la announced on the Tavern forums that they have released their WordPress 2.7 user guide. The user guide covers everything from getting started with WordPress to using the Visual editor to managing users. The downloadable guide is 56 pages in length and is in PDF format so make sure you have a PDF reader installed before you try to open the file. However, Spectacu.la club members are able to download the PDF and the final Word document which would come in handy if you’d like to print this out.

wp27userguide

The only complaint I have with the guide is that the images contained within have a low resolution to properly make out various parts of the WordPress 2.7 backend. You’ll be able to read them but not without squinting and rubbing your eyes. Other than that, this is a Spectacu.la guide that should be stored in your resources bin!

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 1 Response

Time To Give The GPL A Rest

Time To Give The GPL A Rest

By Jeffro on May 25, 2009

gpl I think in the past few weeks, I’ve fallen into a trap both here on the blog and on the forum. That trap being the discussion of the GPL license as it relates to WordPress. I was on the fence with regards to publishing Ryan’s guest post but I thought it offered some material which was worthy of discussion. However, I think that guest post will be the last post on the GPL you’ll see from me on the site as well as the forum at least for a little while.

I’ve never seen something debated so much before without a resolution resulting from the discussion. Each time I’ve seen the GPL debated in the WordPress community, I’ve never seen a clear and defined answer at the end. As I’ve read, if there were a court case or two which would swing one way or the other, this probably wouldn’t be such a hot button issue. But since we have no court cases, it seems to me that Joe Schmoe’s interpretation of what the GPL means is no different than John Doe’s interpretation. Until proven otherwise, perhaps both of them could be right when it comes to things not exclusively outlined within the license. But then, even things that are clearly outlined in the license are subject for debate.

Out of the debates and research I’ve read into, here is what I know thus far:

  • You can charge a dollar amount for GPL code.
  • If you want your theme to be in the repository, it needs to be GPL compatible.
  • If you want your plugin to be in the repository, it needs to be GPL compatible.
  • You will not be able to get a plugin or theme into the repository if it’s compliant with the GPL but costs money. WordPress.org supports the work because it’s compliant with the GPL but they do not and will not have a section on the repositories for commercial GPL products.

I’m not a plugin or theme developer, so I don’t have a keen interest on the intricacies of the license but I’m beginning to think about things from the bigger picture and I’m starting to realize that maybe not being GPL compliant whether you’re in the repository or not is a sure sign that you’re interested in the money aspect of things than anything else. I mean, WordPress is released under the GPL which provides legal permission to copy, charge, distribute and/or modify the software. Without these elements, I’m willing to bet the WordPress.org software would not be anywhere close to where it is today. Granted, some other factors have played into the role of the success of WordPress but those legal permissions enabled things to happen.

WordPress is used by millions of people. These people have the ability to modify and redistribute code which they may have learned or improved back to the community which benefits as a whole. With the large userbase, plugin and theme authors have an excellent opportunity to create something unique, offer it to an audience that the freedoms of WordPress have enabled and yet, some of these authors want to take away those freedoms by placing restrictions on the way in which you use their WordPress code. I’m beginning to think that these authors, even though they don’t explicitly state their position, are in this game for the money and couldn’t give a damn about the freedoms for which the foundation of WordPress was built upon, couldn’t give a damn about the WordPress community, and couldn’t give a damn about giving back. But, if you’re a commercial theme author who’s themes are not compliant with the GPL and impose restrictions and you consider giving back ‘releasing a free, GPL compliant theme‘ you really need to look in the mirror and question your ethics. Despite how genuine you might be with this so called method of giving back, there is no way of looking around it as a means of getting more customers to view your commercially restricted products.

At one time, I understood why some theme authors placed these restrictions on their themes as they were afraid of piracy, wanted more control over distribution and how the product was used. Theme piracy has been taking place ever since commercial WordPress themes have been available so why not just align with the license out of gate since your restrictions do nothing to solve the problem but in reality, punish your customers in terms of what they can and can’t do with the product. I’m sick of being slapped in the face by commercial theme authors who put dumb restrictions on themes, especially those ones where I have to pony up an extra $25.00 to remove the link or copyright in the footer. If your product kicks ass and I’m thoroughly pleased with the results, I’m more than willing to showcase the original author of the theme. You don’t have to request, ask, beg, or charge money for me to leave a credit link in the footer, the header, or the CSS file.

For plugin or theme authors which don’t like releasing their creations under the GPL, please read the following quote taken from this forum post:

my plugins and themes will inherit the GPL, and that somebody can certainly (and they do) take them, modify them, redistribute them, etc. If I were adamantly opposed to that happening, I wouldn’t be a WordPress developer. I wouldn’t develop open source software at all. The whole reason the GPL exists is to allow people to use, modify, and/or redistribute the software as they wish.

I’ve seen a few business models which are aligned with the GPL as WordPress sees it and they seem to be doing just fine. The notion that you can’t align with the GPL and have a successful business model is false. So, if your business model as it relates to WordPress is not aligned with the GPL, then that model sucks. How great it must be to learn about WordPress inside and out because the source code is freely available and for theme or plugin authors to tap into this free audience and then build transparent walls around users with their products which is a slap in the face to the WordPress community.

In the end, I say just go with the GPL and be done with it. Don’t look for loopholes, don’t argue what you can and can’t GPL, just be one with the WordPress community and embrace the spirit of open source. Anything else and you’re really just a roadblock.

Initial inspiration for this post can be found here.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 12 Responses

Even A Widgetifyr Stumps Me

Even A Widgetifyr Stumps Me

By Jeffro on May 22, 2009

widgetifyrlogo

A few days ago, Glenn Bennett got in touch with me to let me know about a site called Widgetifyr.com. This site is a service which aims at making the WordPress widget creation process much easier than creating the code from scratch every time.

If you’ve ever tried to turn your code into a wordpress plugin (which is how WordPress widgets get installed) you know it can get a bit tedious. Our service lets you just paste your code into a form along with some addition information and we “magically” turn it into a WordPress Plugin that allows your widget to be used in WordPress.

Immediately I thought this was a cool idea. So I took it for a test drive to see if I could create a widget using a regular WordPress function such as get_posts. As it turns out, even a widget generator can stump me.

creatingthewidget

The way this works is that you create a plugin file which you can download at the end, upload it to your plugins folder, activate it and then use the widget. So the first part of the process deals with the basic plugin stuff such as the name, version, author, etc. At the bottom of this page is the important part. This is where you name your PHP Function Name. In the text area, you’re supposed to paste your PHP code which would reside between the brackets. Here is what mine looked like.

phpfunctionname

I used this code from the example shown on the codex related to this function. Once that was done, I clicked on the create button which takes the function, wraps it with the widget code and then gives me the chance to view the code in a txt editor to copy, paste in my favorite editor and than save that file as get_posts.php. I then uploaded this file to my plugins folder. Upon activation, I was greeted with a fatal error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘}’ in public_html/wptavern/wp-content/plugins/get_posts.php.php on line 33

Here is line 33.

line33

I received this error anytime I tried to activate a plugin I created. I’m not sure what I did wrong but after looking through the widgetifyr help page, to get a gist as to what the widget code is supposed to look like, and it’s obvious that you need to have a little PHP experience in order to really use this tool to its fullest potential.

The more I tinkered with the site, the more I realized that Otto’s Executable PHP Widget is a much easier, speedier solution for me. With this plugin, I can create widgets without having to worry about HTML or echoing anything. Here is one example of how I use this plugin.

widgetinaction

No copying of code, no uploading, and it just works (as long as I put the function in correctly). If you’re a coder, let me know if the service makes it easier for you to create widgets. As for myself, I’ll stick with a Otto’s solution.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 5 Responses

WordPress Makes It Two In A Row

WordPress Makes It Two In A Row

By Jeffro on May 19, 2009

webware2009winnerCongratulations to Automattic, WordPress.org and to everyone who voted for WordPress in this years Webware 100. WordPress became a winner for the second year in a row, this time in the Social and Publishing category. The award covers both WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Among some of the other winners in this category include Drupal, Twitter, Bebo and a few others.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 1 Response

James Farmer Describes Blogs.MU

James Farmer Describes Blogs.MU

By Jeffro on May 14, 2009

blogsmu1James Farmer who is the founder of Edublogs.org, one of the largest examples of WordPress MU in action has recently launched a new service called Blogs.mu that enables anyone to set up their own blog network. James describes Incsub as WordPress.com in a box. Instead of managing a WordPress MU install yourself, Incsub takes care of all the heavy lifting for you and even includes ways for you to run your own advertising.

Problogger.net has a great interview with James which dives in a little deeper into how the service works.

Posted in | Tagged , ,

Great Parody Involving The GPL

Great Parody Involving The GPL

By Jeffro on May 10, 2009

Community member Brad Potter has published a great parody of the song ‘The Devil Went Down To Georiga’ using facets of the GPL and theme development as most of the lyrics throughout the song. His version is called ‘The Dev Went Down To Georgia‘. With all the mucking around that the GPL seems to provoke in the WordPress community, it’s a breath of fresh air to see a parody like this.

“Now you build a pretty good theme, boy
But give this developer his due
I’ll bet a sack of theme club gold against your code
‘Cause I think I’m better than you”

The boy said: “My name’s Johnny
I know you think you’ll win
But I’ll take your bet, your gonna regret
‘Cause I’m the best damn coder that’s ever been”

Posted in | Tagged , ,

Page 29 of 35« First...510...282930...35...Last »