Interesting Question Posed By Andrew

Interesting Question Posed By Andrew

By Jeffro on March 17, 2009

Andrew Rickmann over on his WP Fun WordPress centric site divvied up an interesting question today and that is, what would it take for you to use a plugin that replaced a core feature of WordPress?

My answer to this question is yes. An example I can think of off the top of my head is the new Widget Management system that is taking shape in WordPress 2.8. If this new management system provides a way for me to assign widgets to specific points on my WordPress powered site but the implementation contains a terrible user interface or works in such a way that I don’t agree with, I’m more than likely to stick with Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin.

Another example I can think of is my thoughts on how WordPress works with Post Revisions. No need to dig back into the archives to replay my thoughts on the Post Revision system in WordPress but I love the fact that I can use a plugin which reworks the default functionality into something I agree with.

So while Andrew’s initial thought is that many people would not use something because it contradicts the core, at least a few of us out there is willing to go against the grain.

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Matt Living Up To His Job Title

Matt Living Up To His Job Title

By Jeffro on March 16, 2009

If you browse around the Automattic About Page, you’ll notice that Matt Mullenwegs official job title is:

As the Chief BBQ Taste Tester of Automattic, Matt travels the world sampling cuisine and comparing it to the gold standard of Texas BBQ.

Of course this is to be taken tongue in cheek but certainly at the SxSW conference this past weekend, Matt was living up to his job title as Automattic and Conjunctured teamed up to have a Texas style BBQ which over 250 people attended. GirlsInTech stopped by and offered desert in the way of cupcakes.

For pictures of the yummy food, check out Andrew Magers post on the ZDNet blog.

All in all, pretty bummed that I didn’t get the chance to go but considering I’m only 25 years old, I can still say “There is always next year“. If you were lucky enough to attend the event, please let me know how it went in the comments.

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Sleeker Custom Widget Interface

Custom Widgets 2.0 Released

By Jeffro on March 16, 2009

Tom Slayer who is the author of the Custom Widgets plugin that I wrote a review about on Performancing.com back in November 2008, sent me a note that he has released version 2.0 of the plugin. One of the things that worried me about the plugin is its interface for how you configured widgets. Thankfully, Tom has redesigned the interface from the ground up so it’s more intuitive.

On top of the new interface design, two new features found their way into version 2.0. Widget name display and more organized management.

Sleeker Custom Widget Interface

Sleeker Custom Widget Interface

So how does Custom Widgets weigh in against Kaspar’s Widget Context plugin? Well, I’ll have to use Custom Widgets to let you know but I moved away from Custom Widgets at first because of their complicated interface. Since that has changed, I may find myself switching back to custom widgets. While I enjoy using Widget Context on this blog and enjoy Kaspar’s work, the plugin does have some weird configuration quirks in that, the configuration settings I give a widget never seem to take affect after the first try. You have to save the configuration twice. I also know that Kaspar’s is a busy bee and doesn’t have much free development time to devote to the plugin so at this point, it looks like Custom Widgets is more actively developed than Widget Context.

What I think will be interesting is seeing if any one of these two Widget management systems find there way into the core of WordPress 2.8 in some form or fashion. Or, if we’ll see something completely different.

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Back To Back WordCamps In China

Back To Back WordCamps In China

By Jeffro on March 16, 2009

Wow, two WordCamp events in China on back to back days. According to a post written by CNET Asia blogger Victor Cheung:

WordCamp Hong Kong is a conference organized by the creators of WordPress for blogging enthusiasts, WordPress users and developers, and it is coming to Hong Kong for the first time on April 5, 2009, following WordCamp China (third WordCamp in the Mainland) on April 4, 2009, in Shanghai.

Among those to speak at the Hong Kong event is Matt Mullenweg and Hailin Wu, PhD. Hailin is the ping pong specialist and martial artist, current working for Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com.

wordcamp

Info For WordCamp Hong Kong:
Date: April 5, 2009
Time: 9-10am registration; 10am conference starts; 3pm conference ends
Venue: Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks

Info For WordCamp China:
Website: http://wordcampchina.org/
Date: April 4th 2009
Time: First speaker Matt Mullenweg at 8:30am
Location: Fudan University Shanghai

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The 912Project Website In Action

The912Project Using WordPress

By Jeffro on March 16, 2009

Glenn Beck who has written books, appeared on numerous television shows, radio shows, etc. has launched his new project called The912Project. The sites purpose is to bring everyone back to the way things were in society on the day after the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred. Without diving into Glenn Becks message or the type of content he produces, I wanted to highlight the fact that the site powering his new project is WordPress and the theme it’s running is a modified version of Brian Gardner’s Metro Theme.

The 912Project Website In Action

The 912Project Website In Action

Among the changes between the default Metro theme and The912Project website is a change in font color from red to blue. The lack of a featured content block on the 912Project website, one large header image, and instead of the subscription links being shown at the top of the site, they are shown at the bottom. That is something you’ll hardly see any other site doing as bloggers have always been taught to place subscription links right in plain view. Also, the 912Project website is using IntenseDebate for their commenting system rather then the default comments in WordPress.

To be honest, even though they are subtle changes, I think I prefer the 912Project version of the Metro theme versus the one created by Brian. What do you think?

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Want To Work For Crowd Favorite?

Want To Work For Crowd Favorite?

By Jeffro on March 14, 2009

Crowd Favorite which is the company founded by Alex King is looking to grow the team by hiring a good developer. While most companies are downsizing, good to see someone hiring even if it’s just one person. At any rate, here are the deets on the position.

    Wants to work on cool projects, including many that involve WordPress.
    Experience building web applications.
    Experience with Open Source.
    Enjoys developing in PHP.

You can check out the full job posting here. Working with Alex King as well as many WordPress related projects? Sounds like a cool deal to me.

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Andrew Gives Thumbs Up To WPUnlimited

Andrew Gives Thumbs Up To WPUnlimited

By Jeffro on March 14, 2009

wpunlimitedlogo
Andrew Rickmann who has been around the WordPress Theme block a few times recently wrote up a detailed review of David Peralty’s WordPress Unlimited theme. In his review, he mentions how good it is to see a premium theme go against the grain by nailing down the basics first and then leaving you alone to customize the theme. Of course Andrew has a few gripes about the theme but that is to be expected. (Don’t ask me why). At any rate, if you’re looking for a detailed review on this theme before you plunk down the cash for it, I encourage you to give Andrew’s review a read.

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Prologue 2 Sees The Light Of Day

Prologue 2 Sees The Light Of Day

By Jeffro on March 14, 2009

During WordCamp Germany, Matt Mullenweg mentioned something called Prologue 2. This new version of the Prologue theme introduces Ajax like real-time commenting meaning, if I place a comment on the blog and someone else is staring at the site, they will see that comment appear before them as it happens.

Heather over at the WordPress.com blog sheds some light on the project, including a video showcasing the new theme.

Overall, I’m digging the new look and functionality of the Prologue theme. In some ways, I wonder if Prologue 2 could really be used as a forum. Hmm. What do you think of that idea?

By the way, Heather mentions that P2 is already available for WordPress.com users but to look for it on the WordPress.org theme repository in the coming days. BUT. If you know how to package the theme files together, you can visit http://svn.automattic.com/wpcom-themes/p2/ and download the trunk version of the theme. I don’t know how to package the files together so if anyone can let me know, give me a shout.

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WPWeekly Episode 45 – Unlucky Stream

WPWeekly Episode 45 – Unlucky Stream

By Jeffro on March 14, 2009

wordpressweekly1While last months Friday the 13th date proved to be uneventful, the same can not be said for this months version. Last night, for the second week in a row, the live stream on Talkshoe.com as well as the SIP portion of their phone bridge went offline during the recording of WordPress Weekly. It eventually came back up only to go down again. I’m currently in the process of writing a support email to both a Talkshoe support representative that I know and also their Get Satisfaction page. I’m starting to worry if whether or not I should do next weeks show by cell phone to insure that my audio does not drop out of the interview. At this point, I am still not convinced that I should move the show to a new platform or do the show a different way than I currently do. However, if this continues to impact the show like it has for the past two weeks, Talkshoe will leave me no choice but to find something better, although it will be tough to do so.

For those that managed to make it to the show last night, thanks for sticking through it and my apologies for the disruption in audio.

Ad Copy:

This episode of WordPress Weekly is sponsored by, WebDevStudios.com. WebDevStudios is a website development company specializing in WordPress support and development services. Contact them today for help with your WordPress powered website.

Stories Discussed:

Lookup functions In A Flash
WordPress 2.7 Milestone
WordPress Forums To Be Revamped Maybe?
BuddyPress Skeleton Theme Released
Preview Of WordPress 2.8
Contributing To WordPress Development

WordPress Tavern Listener Poll:

Each week from now on, I’ll be featuring a new listener poll question on WPTavern.com The poll is located in the sidebar on the right hand side of the site.

Last weeks poll question was: Should WordPress Be Referred To As A CMS?

Out of a total of 26 votes, 14 of you said YES, 7 of you said It Depends and 5 of you voted NO. 0 people voted for the option What Is A CMS.

This Weeks Poll Question Is: Do You Like The Direction WordPress Is Heading?

Plugin Picks Of The Week:

Jeff – WP To Top – WP To Top is a WordPress plugin that adds a “Back to top” link in your blog without modifying your template files. This is useful especially if you have long posts or long pages. You will have a nice “Back to top” or whatever-text-you-want link floating at the bottom right/left of your page.

WordPress Trivia Question:

Who originally coined the term WordPress?

WordPress Trivia Answer:

Christine Selleck coined the term in response to Matt Mullenwegs desire to associated his new software project with Printing Presses. In this sense, press refers to the world of reporters, journalists, columnists, and photographers. An aptly chosen name, because WordPress serves as the printing press that enables its users to publish their words.

Announcements:

Matt Mullenweg will be our special guest on March 20th. Look inside of the WPTavern forums in the WordPress Weekly section for the thread dedicated to this show and post the questions you would like me to ask Matt. Vladimir Prelovac will be our special guest on March 27th

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday March 20th, 2009 8P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 1 Hour 9 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode45.mp3

Listen To Episode #45:

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Lookup Functions In A Flash

Lookup Functions In A Flash

By Jeffro on March 10, 2009

A new site making the rounds throughout the WordPress community called WPLookup.com makes finding information for specific WordPress functions a breeze. Simply type in the function you’re looking for into the search box which contains a huge font size for some reason and click the look it up button.
I tested the search engine using the wp_list_pages function and it took me right to the Codex page outlining all of the information I needed.

wplookup

For now, this is a quick and easy way to navigate through the Codex as it relates to WordPress functions. Even if the search functionality is improved on the Codex itself, because WPLookup supports OpenSearch, you can add the search engine directly to your browser meaning I’ll probably be using WPLookup versus the Codex for some time to come.

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